Customer Ratings & Reviews

Bought two and returned one. In the store, the sound was only hearable while around my neck; but, after I returned home, the sound sound definitely lounder for other people to hear.

The first thing to note while unboxing is the neckband is very flexible and lightweight. Once I used it for a period of time, I can also add it is very comfortable. Whether seated or lying down, there are moments where I forgot it was there. In comparison to headphones, that factor is unmatched. Many headphones are comfortable, but even my favorite pairs have a time limit before my ears need a rest. No problem here, thus far. My first connection was to my cell phone. Connection was as easy. I went through the entire set-up of taking pictures of my ears through the Sony app for “spatial research,” followed by the headphones app for further sound customization. I’m aware of what making this “sound profile” is supposed to accomplish, but only time will tell if it serves its purpose. The app itself is pretty straightforward. Time used, EQ, connection status and general information. There is a badge system for milestones if you’re into a pseudo reward system. The sound was/is indeed incredible. My music sounds full and airy. Vocals were crisp and instruments were clean and precise. Having the sound field encompass basically your entire head gave a different, deeper experience than direct firing of headphones. Some music even sounds as if it were live. Next, I used the adapter to connect to the optical port of my television. I followed all directions of changing the sound output and configuration. I do have a Atmos set-up, and I was worried it would interfere, but being the Sony neckband using the output from the TV setting, while the external speakers derive their signal straight from the source, I had no issue using one over the other. Using both, in-sync, was not good, and that makes sense, but just wanted to experiment. Once again, clean, crisp dialogue, music and effects. Although it does not tout 7.1 surround, hearing the audio shift from one side of the band to the other matching movement on-screen was much more noticeable than if I were using my headphones. And in comparison to my surround set-up, the Sony was more intimate. Not sure that is the best word, but it’s the first that comes to mind. Great experience. So, what’s the issue? First issue is purpose. While I do find the experience to be distinct, it is still considered a bit of a niche. It is described as being able to watch while not disturbing those around you. While it is fairly contained at low volumes, anything past half has substantial noise bleed. For an extreme example, I could not comfortably use this on a plane. And while at home, Someone sitting across the room would easily hear whatever I am watching/listening to. So, night watching while someone is sleeping would be tough and better suited for headphones, and daily listening seems most useful if you were either in an apartment, or if someone was on another floor. Once again, great sound, but not as useful for private listening as advertised. Next, is the connection. So far, to my dismay, there is only one “live” connection at a time. When connected to television, there is no connection to the phone to take a call. And when I’m ready to switch from phone to TV, I actively had to break the connection from phone and connect manually to television. This is more of a nuisance. Lastly, is the promise of future functionality. The excitement of Atmos and dedicated spatial optimization is only reserved for certain Bravia TVs. That is disappointing. Being Atmos is so mainstream, it’s a letdown that I won’t be able to experience the full potential of a complete soundfield due to the lack of a specific television. The major gripe here is you don’t truly realize that until you get into the literature, so at first glance, you assume you are buying a fully functioning product. Besides those tidbits, this is a fun, great sounding product. I would absolutely recommend it if you fall into the category of usefulness. I have not tried it for gaming, as they do not recommend it, but being it is Bluetooth, I just may give it a go.

Absolutely in love with these. Easliy connect too devices sound quality is great for shows and podcasts.

Love it. Great surround sound. A little tricky connecting, but once connected, it's great!

This item works well, just a little too much bass for me.

Parts started falling apart after a few months. Sound quality is pretty good but that doesn't matter if the product is staying in one piece.

Amazing! This is working very well with our Vizio Tv. Very helpful for a person with hearing problems and also the others in the room that don’t need the TV set loud. Only problem was on getting Bluetooth setup but we got it!

As someone who lives with someone who has days where they are hypersensitive to sound, the idea of a wearable surround sound system seemed almost tailor made for me. Unfortunately after spending a week with the SRS-NS7, I've come to the conclusion that I might have to stick with my trusty pair of headphones for now. It's not that it's a bad system, per se, but it is severely lacking in polish and requires you to jump through a few hoops to get the most use out of it. One thing that Sony definitely did nail was the overall design. The speaker is surprisingly light for how big it is, but still sturdy enough to hold up to the occasional rough handling. Controls are easily accessible, intuitive, and large enough to be operated by touch. And it's got enough battery to last through even the most intense binging sessions. Unfortunately, it has to be said that if you want to get the best surround sound performance you pretty much need to have a Sony TV with their Bravia XR tech built in. As far as I can tell that is the only way to get the surround sound functionality to work, as every other mode limits you to simple stereo output. I generally wouldn't be too concerned by that if not for the fact that it really doesn't seem to want to do that. The speaker relies on a fairly standard bluetooth connection to receive audio. The first thing I tried out of the box was to pair that to a home theater projector with an Android TV streaming box hooked up to it, just to see how the quality compared with the included receiver. No matter what I tried, I could not get the speaker to accept the pairing with the projector. This is a process I've done several times before and I've never had anything like this happen. So I decided to try pairing it with the streaming box instead. It took multiple attempts but I was eventually able to get the two to talk to each other - but the audio it provided was of such poor quality that there really wasn't any point. Finally I tried pairing it with my cell phone (with Sony's app installed) and was able to get it to work. And the audio was... okay. There was surprisingly little bass response, the higher end sounded somewhat tinny, and while it was quieter than using standard speakers it was still clearly audible from several feet away. I'd figured that I might have less trouble with the included transmitter, but while that did help improve the sound quality I still found myself underwhelmed. The only format it is compatible with is optical. While it's true that this is a port that's often not used on modern home theater systems which rely on HDMI-ARC, there are a lot of people who may still be relying on optical hookups with a dedicated receiver who might end up having to switch between the two. It's also worth pointing out that we are now starting to see home theater gear being shipped without optical hookups at all, which means you'd need an audio extractor if you don't want to rely on the hit-or-miss bluetooth pairing. Also, the speaker doesn't have any kind of intelligence to help simplify its use. After I was done testing it I hung it up and turned off the TV, thinking that the speaker would shut itself down once it stopped getting a signal. Instead the next day it suddenly announced that it was shutting down due to having exhausted its battery. It's been so long since I had to think about physically turning off a bluetooth speaker it took me completely by surprised. If you own a high end Sony TV or can't use standard headphones for whatever reason, this might be something worth trying. It is an interesting idea, even if the actual implementation falls somewhat short of living up to it. But as things currently stand, I can't really recommend these as they are to anyone but early adopters.

bought for an older man in a nursing home. not very good for him. disturbs roommate and for a Sony the sound is not what was expected

If you have a large neck, this won't fit comfortably; setting it up proved impossible for me. Once configured, the sound quality is poor, with noticeable echo that can be heard by those nearby. I returned the product the next day due to these issues.

Not what I expected wouldn’t recommend it to anyone

Overall the device does what is says, but it's looking for a market. It's a lightweight horseshoe design speaker system. You wear it around your neck, and rests on you neck and shoulders. It has bluetooth connectivity and a bluetooth adapter for using with TVs. The speakers basically fire upwards towards your ears. The Sony Headphones app will let you customize some of the sound parameters. The sound is okay, but not great. Bass was lacking. Also, any head movement left or right immediately stopped the stereo effect. The side I tilted away from falls off quick and gets a lot quieter. For music, games, and TV the sound is just okay. It's not really private, anyone around you can hear the device. For voice it's really nice. The microphone is clear. If you don't want to wear headphones all day, this is an alternative. Voices are clear from the speakers. I also just laid it on a table and used it as a conference device. Everyone could hear and speak using it. Worked great for that. Between headphones, bone induction, in ear, and on ear headphones why choose this device? If you don't want to bother your neighbors and not wear headphones, it'll play okay sound. If something on your ears really bothers you this could be an answer. But, the sound just radiates up in to the air, and your head has to be in the right position for the best effect. It will also have everyone else listening to what your playing. For conference, voice communications, or listening to voice only playback, it works great around your neck or on a table.

I wanted to find this useful. It seemed a great concept, giving some good sound but not impacting the ability to hear things around you. But for music reproduction, which was what I would generally want to use it for, it failed. Sometimes at the beginning of this song it seems the bass will sound better, but once the song progresses, it’s almost as if the more instruments and the wider the frequencies being reproduced, the lower the quality of the bass as the speakers get overwhelmed. This is typical for smaller speakers, but I had hoped this would resist it better than something like ear pods would. So for a few songs it starts out half way decent, then deteriorates. It didn't matter what I did with the equalizer, either on the phone or media player directly, or via the Sony app that they have you download for it. Bass was just totally weak and disappointing. Although one thing I had not actually considered was the way the little bit of bass there is seems to become slightly enhanced through the conduction of the bones of your neck. That does seem to make it a little better than it would otherwise be. The 360 reality audio apparently only works with a few subscription services. I don’t use subscription services, I purchase all my music, so it does me no good at all as there is no way to enable it simply by playing something in a media player. It's the end of October here in Wisconsin, days are getting down to the 30's, so the rubbery plastic material this ia made of is really COLD on the neck. I think it would have been a better design to have had some type of fabric or material to offset that chill. And this does sit pretty snug around the neck, unless you have the stick neck like Olive Oyl. There is excellent left / right separation though due to the positioning. My first thought upon donning this was that I would rather just use a Bluetooth speaker and not have this on me. But the separation of the left and right channels for music is very noticeable and it does make it more enjoyable to listen to. But the poor bass response leaves me more likely to use a better speaker, or one of my pairs of B&O headphones like the HX or the Portal. Far better music reproduction. I paired it to a few phones and my iPad Mini 6th generation tablet. No issues with pairing. And pairing it with the puck for the TV was also flawless. The controls are easy to hit while you're wearing it, and the included charging cable means even if you didn't have any USB C devices, at least now you can charge it provided you have a USB wall wart lying around. My mother only uses the speakers on her TV, she has no surround system. She often uses headphones instead to make it easier to hear. These work phenomenally well in that situation. They're ideal when you really want to make sure you don’t miss anything ambient, like a baby crying from another room, a ringing doorbell, or notifications from your phone. Things that she normally might miss when she has headphones on. The converter for the optical output to this speaker is pretty simple to set up, and nicely done. The included Toslink cable was gratefully pulled out of its little envelope since the condo had no fiber cables anywhere. So we tried it with her Samsung TV to see how well it worked as a headphone replacement. And I have to say, this went from a 2 star product had I only tried it with music, to a 4 star product for the integration with the TV, where it's really designed to shine. My mom loved the fact that the TV volume was totally independent of THIS device's volume, so she could mute the TV but keep this going. Since all she has to reproduce now are the sounds from TV shows, the lack of musical fidelity here isn't a real issue as it was using it as a bluetooth speaker for music. So if you're trying to find something to listen to music with, I'd say take a hard pass here. But if you're looking to enhance the TV watching experience for people who either may not hear as well with just the TV speakers, or who want to have louder sound without the TV blasting for the rest of the house, this is unparalleled. SO much better than just a pair of headphones. And if you're a parent with a child, you can watch things without the noise of the normal speakers, yet still hear everything around you.

It doesn’t work twice in row I had to return it get the bugs out of it

The left speaker is already distorting after 2 weeks of use. This was a good concept, but horrible execution. I think the headphones were better.

As a loyal Sony customer, for decades, I have seen the good, the bad and the ugly. This neckband was far beyond my expectations. Pros: Switching in and out of phone calls is easy. Sound quality is very good and very intense. Battery life is right at about eleven hours. Comfort is above average. I am usually propped up and listening, versus sitting up in a chair. Cons: The sound quality is intense. I cannot use this for my music, because the sound would actually melt my face. I was also put off by the sony sound app down load, there is no reason why it should not be able to connect through basic toggle of the WIFI icon. Overall, I love these things.

Battery doesn’t last a day, I have to charge it every morning and by 4 pm, it’s drained. My usage is work calls and music

If you don't have a Sony tv the product still works just not as specified.

Did not connect to reciever of 4k TV. Would not recommend.

The Sony bluetooth neck speaker is a very comfortable, wearable, blue tooth speaker with a rated battery life of 20 hours. In actual use, I was comfortably able to wear the speaker all day for several days. I was also able to pair the speaker to my Iphone, Android phone, laptop, and Oculus Quest VR headset. The speaker was used for several purposes; calls and conferences, music, Youtube, and Oculus Quest apps. In each case, the sound was clear and loud. Music sounded good although not as good as a high end headset. In addition, unless you keep the volume fairly low, the sound can be heard be others in the room. For me, however, the ability to use this speaker with Oculus Quest is what makes it a keeper. I can now get good quality sound from my Quest without having to use earphones or remaining in one area. If you are looking for an extremely comfortable, wearable speaker with long battery life that can be used for multiple purposes and allows you to use your Oculus Quest headset without headphones, I highly recommend the Sony neck speaker.