Sony - HT-Z9F 3.1 - Channel Soundbar with Wireless Subwoofer, Dolby Atmos/DTS:X and Built-In-Wi-Fi - Black

If you can still find one, get it. Got mine open box. The HTZ9F is a great soundi g bar at $MSRP. Even better at half that. And if your have the BestBuy Tech membership, you get a two year warranty. For 2018 tech it works better than my other newer more expensive sound bar. 4k/60 features work great for any non-2.1 hdmi tvs. EARC works great. An on screen menu, wifi and bluetooth to boot. Even a small selection of music steaming apps. Add in the ability to hard wire your sub (any powered sub with an input) and the ability to add L&R surrounds (SAZ9R open box too) or a small 2 channel amp for the surrounds and any rear speakers you like. This works really well and is documented on the internet. On its own this bar sounds like a very nice 3.1 setup. The bar is only 40 inches wide or so, but the channel separation is still pretty good. Surround effects are passible. Voices have nice timbre. The sound is extemely rich and clear. The sub is ok, but adding a better sub, takes this to the next level. A better sub really filles in the lower mids. Adding rear surrounds really brings alot to the atmos and surround experience. Makes the virtual over head sounds much more believable. It really competes well with separates in this configuration. If you are looking for a handsome, great sounding bar, with room to add upgrades on your terms, you have come to the right spot.

I have to first say, I’ve always been very skeptical of soundbar systems. They never seemed like they could fit the bill or even possibly compete with a dedicated 5.1/7.1 surround system. I will say though, that most even super cheap one’s are generally going to be better than most anything built-in to most TV’s. This system shattered my expectations. Granted this is the first such system I’ve ever owned, it really did impress. The sound it’s able to deliver is quite excellent. There’s lots of features with the system as well. You get 2 HDMI in and 1 out. There’s also an Optical input, a single USB port, an Analog input and an Ethernet Port. The Passthrough for the HDMI works flawlessly. Setting up the soundbar was a breeze and only took a few minutes after initially unboxing and placing the speakers. Connecting to WiFi was very fast and easy to do. I also have the optional Rear Wireless speakers. I’ll touch on those in this review as well as reviewing them separately. With setting up the soundbar there’s not a lot to. I have a Blu-Ray player and a TIVO currently connected to it but will be trading out the BluRay soon for possible a 4k streaming device. The sound from these sources is great. I was genuinely impressed with the performance of them. This small system definitely packs a punch. One of the features this has is Dolby Atmos. Despite not having speakers that aim up, somehow, someway, Sony figured out how to replicate the effect. Having never had the privilege to experience Dolby Atmos outside of a theater, it definitely makes a very big difference. It adds a lot of height to nearly any source. The optional Rear Wireless speakers only further enhance this. I have a Digital Copy of “The Fifth Element” that I used to test out the Atmos as it’s a DTS-HD/Dolby Tru-HD/Dolby Atmos version. The sound bar on it’s own, without the Rear Wireless still sounds excellent even without the Vertical Surround feature. The soundbar definitely delivers great positional sound. You can hear different things from different directions. Add in the Vertical Sound, and it just adds a ton of height and depth to the soundstage that truly immerses you in the action. Adding in the Rear Wireless speakers enhances this even more so as the vertical surround will also add some more height and depth. It definitely gives you the feeling that you are listening to the movie on a 7.1 system with Dolby Atmos. I was even pleasantly surprised with the Subwoofer in this system as well. It’s very responsive and tight when it needs to be. It never sounded muddled either. I actually even had to turn it down because of how loud it gets in some movies and shows. There are some forthcoming features to the unit that have yet to be released. One of them is Google Assistant, which will be nice to have. I have Sony’s Google Home device already in my home, but if this can replace it, then I will likely use it instead. The soundbar does feature Chromecast built-in. It is only capable of receiving from a Smartphone however. I tested this using Spotify and it worked very well for the most part. It did lose connecting a few times but restarting the Casting fixed it. The sound quality though was very very good. It did seem to get a bit bogged down when I had some company over and everyone had their smartphones out. It also could have just been my device though. The Music Center app which you can get from your applicable Appstore works as a second remote which is very nice. You can adjust nearly everything from within the app. This is quite helpful if you don’t want to interrupt your on-screen experience by going into menu’s. There wasn’t really anything I could place as being an outright con aside maybe from the price. I think that this could better around $500 price point. I do wish that there might have been 1 more HDMI input, though I suppose you could just use a 4k capable switcher to overcome this, or if your TV supports its, Dolby Digital/DTS passthrough. Really outside of this, the only thing I did notice was that in some broadcasted TV shows I watched I wouldn’t get much from the rear speakers or occasionally any enhancement from the Vertical Surround, this even despite the broadcast being in 5.1 Dolby Digital. Changing the output type from PCM to Dolby Digital made no change. It didn’t affect all shows though, so it might have just been that the shows I was watching didn’t bother adding much to the surround channels. Some shows I did watch that sounded incredible on this were The Expanse and Marvel’s Agent’s of SHIELD. Those shows sounded great, though shows like NCIS, there was nothing from the rear channels at all, aside from the occasional music. I will say though, this was not something I experienced from a dedicated 5.1 system I have that was connected via Digital Optical to the unit from the TV so your mileage may vary. Would I recommend this system though despite these slight grievances, absolutely if you got the money to spend and want something that just doesn’t take up all that much room. If however you got room, and money, than a dedicated System with Dolby Atmos speakers may be something more your fitting.

Excellence soundbar, l like it, great upscale from previous soundbar l own

It sounds like there are 7 physical speakers in my living room. I done enjoy watching movies not until the day this was installed in my home. Great job Sony.

A great recommendation from the Sales Person for our new TV.

I was surprised at how great this soundbar is, especially being 3.1 and claiming ‘close to 7.1.2ch’. It doesn’t quite feel like a true 7.1.2 system, but it comes a lot closer than I was expecting. If you’re spending the money, I would go with the optional rear speakers and you are better than good. The soundbar is pretty compact for what it is; it’s only about 2.5 inches tall and should fit under most TVs without blocking them. You can choose to display it with or without the speakers exposed; I ended up using the magnetic speaker grill, but I did like both looks. The subwoofer is not the smallest I’ve seen, but it’s compact enough that it tucks into the corner pretty well. The soundbar has 2 HDMI inputs, both of which passthrough HDR (including Dolby Vision and HLG), and there’s an HDMI out with ARC for the TV. There’s also a LAN port, USB, 3.5mm, and Toslink. The soundbar also has built-in Bluetooth, WiFi, and Chromecast (Chromecast is a big plus for me). It can decode pretty much any Dolby and DTS format under the sun, though some of them like Dolby True HD are limited to the HDMI inputs. There’s just so much packed in here that it really didn’t leave me wanting for anything else. Setting up the soundbar was straightforward through the onscreen interface and pairing the subwoofer (and later the optional rear speakers) was not an issue. There’s a lot of extra options, but I didn’t find I had to change most of them. One exception was the HDMI signal format, which is set to ‘Standard’ by default and needs to be ‘Enhanced’ in order to pass through 4K/HDR fully. The soundbar sounds great with anything playing through it, but it sounds incredible when you’re watching something that really takes advantage of higher end formats like Dolby Atmos and True HD. I watched Bladerunner on 4K Blu-ray with Dolby Atmos and the sound was better than anything I’ve ever heard in my house before. Most Dolby Atmos soundbars have extra speakers that are angled up to bounce off the ceiling and create sound that is above you. The HT-Z9F doesn’t have any extra speakers for this, but something they call the ‘Vertical Sound Engine’, which uses the existing speakers to create a virtual soundfield that’s pretty convincing. I don’t think anything will ever be as good as dedicated speakers, but what Sony’s done is as good as I’ve ever heard. There are optional rear speakers that can be added to this, which I have and I’d definitely recommend getting them at some point if you don’t get them immediately. I still think the soundbar sounds great on its own, but they really do complete the experience. Overall I think the HT-Z9F delivers on the experience it advertises. It’s expensive to be sure and I do think the rear speakers ought to be included instead of separate, but I don’t think you’ll be disappointed with what you get.

Spent a lot of money on this system. The sub woofer cuts in and out. Software is up to date. Not sure what else I can do. It’s only been 2 months since I purchased it. Not happy.

This bar is great! Super clean sound, Excellent power bass, clean clarity, makes movies and shows really demand attention. This is my third sound bar, and it is excellent, we paired it with a Sony TV (a larger 950G) and they deliver all the Home theatre we could want, above and beyond. Really excellent, and VERY easy to set up!