Sony Bravia Theater Bar 9 review: high-end home cinema soundbar at a premium price
Complete immersion surround sound for gaming and movies
🏆 Review score: 4.5 out of 5
🏅 Editor’s Choice Award
Pros
✅ ⚫️ Minimalist style disappears into your home entertainment setup
✅ 🔊 Smaller, but features more speakers than its predecessor
✅ 🍿 Entralling Dolby Atmos and DTS:X surround sound that wraps around you
✅ 🎮 Hi-Fi gaming audio for both action and atmospheric experiences
✅ 🧑🧑🧒🧒 Large and open soundstage puts you or a group in the center of the acoustics
✅ 🎶 Detailed and nuanced sound for streaming music
✅ 🕹️ HDMI 2.1 passthrough lets you plug in a 4K 120Hz gaming device
✅ 📲 Streamlined, full-feature app for customizing your soundbar
Cons
❌ 🫨 Bass isn’t super impactful from the soundbar alone
❌ 🔌 Only HDMI eARC for wired connection
❌ 📱 iPhone users are limited to lossy codecs
❌ ➕ IMAX Enhanced requires wireless surrounds and a subwoofer
❌ 🤑 Pricey
The Shortcut Review
The Sony Bravia Theater Bar 9 is an impressive premium soundbar that creates more than a 5.1-channel audio but an entire bubble of surround sound that envelops you. 360 Spatial Sound Mapping helps this soundbar create phantom speakers above and even behind you. You’ll be able to enjoy Dolby Atmos and DTS:X surround sound movie watching and gaming without needing any additional hardware. The Sony Bravia Theater Bar 9 also creates a large and open sound stage that puts you in the center of an acoustic room that you or a group can enjoy.
The Theater Bar 9 also delivers substantially more bass over your TV’s built-in speakers, though for room-shaking low-end, you’ll still want a dedicated subwoofer. What’s even more impressive is Sony’s AI-based dialogue enhancement, which makes voices much clearer and impactful.
The Sony Bravia Theater Bar 9 is noticeably more expensive than competing soundbars, priced at $1,399. The $599 Sonos Arc and $999 Arc Ultra are notably better standalone soundbars with more bass and deliver more nuanced music playback, but the Sony Bravia Theater Bar 9 offers a more immersive and open sound stage.
Full Review
⚫️ Minimalist styling. There really isn’t much to the Sony Bravia Theater Bar 9, and that is by design. Rather than stand out with flashy displays or logos, it’s more of a featureless block designed to blend in with your entertainment system. 90% of the soundbar is covered in a black grille cloth with only a slim band of anodized aluminum that rides around the back. The power button is hidden on the right side of the soundbar as it's the only onboard control. Also, instead of a display, the Bar 9 features two status lights to display when it's on, connected to Bluetooth, and other operating statuses.
🤏 36% smaller. The Theater Bar 9 is a pretty big soundbar, measuring 51.3 x 4.5 x 2.7 inches (WDH, but it's thankfully shorter than the Sonos Arc. It’s also quite a bit smaller and shallower than the Sony HT-A7000 that preceded it, making it 36% smaller overall.
🔊 More drivers. Despite the Theater Bar 9’s smaller size, it actually features a 13-speaker setup, two more than its predecessor. The front of the soundbar features four woofers, four tweeters, and two beam tweeters joined by two side-firing full-range drivers. Height audio, meanwhile, is provided by two drivers and two passive radiators. What’s even more impressive is that some of the new components are actually bigger, like the 1.7 times larger front-firing woofers. Add in the new passive radiators, and the Theater Bar 9 delivers a fuller surround sound experience in a smaller package.
🎬 Cinema comes home. As promised, the Theater Bar 9 envelops you in Dolby Atmos surround sound while you watch movies. It creates a fantastically convincing surround sound experience all on its own, without any rear surrounds, thanks to Sony’s 360 spatial sound mapping algorithm. I felt like I was back in the movie theater when I rewatched Sinners while streaming at home. I could feel the crescendo of the evolution of music scene in the jukebar spiraling upwards around me. The height audio also really came through in Dune during the siege of Arrakeen. Even in the midst of the chaotic sword fights, I could still distinctly hear the explosions of slow-bombs booming above me to pull me further into the scene.
🎮 Hi-Fi gaming. The Theater Bar 9 is just as great for immersive gaming as it is for movies. I feel right in the thick of it in FF7 Rebirth battles, as I hear Barret firing his arm gun on my right and Tifa throwing punches on the left, all while the battle theme music fills the room and elevates the whole experience. Replaying Death Stranding on the PS5 Pro in preparation for the sequel highlighted how good the Theater Bar 9 is at reproducing the low-end heavy Low Roar soundtrack and its fantastic mid-range for dialogue. The Sony Bravia Theater Bar 9 is really great for both action-packed gaming and atmospheric experiences.
Just like watching movies, Theater Bar 9’s fantastic imaging puts you right in the center of the experience. It made me feel like I was really in Hyrule Field while playing The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom on the Nintendo Switch 2.
🫧 Sound bubble. Sony’s Sound Field technology also creates an impressively large sound bubble that I had no problem hearing, whether I was lined up with the center of the TV or on the edge of the room. That means you’ll be able to enjoy Sony’s 360 spatial sound no matter where you’re sitting, and it’s easier for multiple viewers to enjoy.
🗣️ AI-enhanced dialogue. This soundbar supports Voice Zoom 3 when connected to a compatible Bravia TV. I’ve really enjoyed Sony’s AI-based voice recognition and amplification on the Bravia 7 and Bravia 9 TVs, so I love that it extends to their soundbars as well. Dialogue already sounds better projected from the larger center on the soundbar, but the boost from Voice Zoom 3 helps it stand out even more to the point that I can hear the emotion of the character’s breath between lines. This especially stands out every time Otto Hightower speaks to his grandson Aegon in Dance of the Dragons S2.
💥 Decent bass. The Theater Bar 9 produces a decent amount of bass on its own. Low-end sounds and booms are more impactful than anything that comes out of my TV, but it lacks the room-shaking oomph from a dedicated subwoofer.
🍿 IMAX Enhanced. Speaking of additional hardware, IMAX Enhanced requires both a Sony subwoofer and wireless surrounds. IMAX enhanced can give you even better positional audio with up to 7.1.4 surround setup, which is why it requires more components. However, the actual media with IMAX enhanced audio is still limited to Marvel movies on Disney+ as well as some titles on the Sony Core Pictures service.
🎶 Giant streaming speaker. Yes, you can use the Theater Bar 9 like a giant Bluetooth speaker, and it sounds much better, too. The soundbar's finesse as a surround sound speaker carries over to simple streaming music with high-resolution audio. You can hear the separation between the jazz ensemble’s individual instruments in Yusuke Nakamura’s The Fake British and Eddie Higgins Trio’s Shinjuku Twilight. However, I noticed in most songs, all the instruments sound like they’re playing at the same volume, whereas the Sonos Arc and Sonos Arc Ultra sound more dynamically nuanced. Unfortunately, the stereo separation isn’t very present on the Theater Bar 9 either.
🤖 Better streaming for Android. Now, as for streaming quality, Android users can stream the best-quality audio over Bluetooth 5.2 with the LDAC codec. Unfortunately, iPhone users get lower-quality streaming with either the lossy AAC codec over AirPlay 2 or Bluetooth. Alternatively, Spotify Connect is another option that may get high-fidelity streaming sometime this year.
📲 Full-featured app. One of the best things about using Theater Bar 9 has been the Bravia Connect app. It’s fast and streamlined, allowing you to dig into every setting, from height audio to voice amplification level. Sound Field Optimization is a super straightforward process; it asks you to take two measurements with your smartphone, with very clear instructions and illustrations. The app will also combine the settings for your Sony TV and soundbar together for seamless customization while watching media and playing games.
🔌 HDMI 2.1 only. Wired connectivity on the Sony Bravia Theater Bar 9 is far more limited, with a single HDMI eARC as its only input. There’s no RCA or optical port to connect other turntables, PCs, and other devices to it. At least, the Theater Bar 9 (and most of Sony’s Bravia soundbars) offers an additional HDMI 2.1 passthrough that supports 4K/120Hz, VRR, and ALLM. This saves you from entirely losing one of your HDMI 2.1 ports to connect your eArc soundbar.
🤑 Pricey. Here’s where the bill comes. The Sony Bravia Theater Bar 9 costs $1,399, making it one of the most expensive soundbars on the market. That’s higher priced than even the $599 Sonos Arc and $999 Sonos Arc Ultra, but the Theater Bar 9 doesn’t have the same standalone flexibility as Sonos’ soundbars. The Sonos Arc Ultra can produce wider 9.1.4-channel audio on its own, and it delivers deeper and more detailed bass. There are also new challengers to consider, like Marshall’s first Heston 120 soundbar for $999.
Should you buy the Sony Bravia Theater Bar 9?
Yes, if…
✅ 📺 You own a Sony Bravia TV
✅ 😌 You want to be immersed in your movies and games
✅ 🎮 You don’t want to sacrifice one HDMI 2.1 port for your eArc soundbar
✅ 🫧 You want to share the Theater Bar 9’s expansive sound bubble with friends and family
✅ 📲 You want to easily customize your soundbar from your phone
✅ 🎶 You want to stream lossless music from an Android phone
No, if…
❌ 🤑 $1,400 is too expensive for one soundbar (get the Sonos Arc instead)
❌ 🔊 You want a standalone soundbar that can do it all (get the Sonos Arc Ultra instead)
Kevin Lee is The Shortcut’s Creative Director. Follow him on Twitter @baggingspam.