Sony HT-A5000  Soundbar Review

The Sony HT-A5000 is a simple, sleek soundbar. It's mostly made of a solid texturized plastic, and there's a metal grille covering the front. Unlike the Sony HT-A7000, the top of the bar is plastic, not glass. There are also metal grilles covering the up-firing drivers on top of the bar instead of fabric. The bar and the optional rear speakers are designed under Sony's Omnidirectional Block concept with rounded edges and similar textures.

The Sony HT-A5000 comes with two subwoofers integrated into the bar. You can find them to the left and the right of the center speaker. Also, you can purchase either the SA-SW3 or the SA-SW5 subwoofer from the manufacturer separately.

You can purchase SA-RS3S rear speakers for the Sony HT-A5000 from the manufacturer separately.

The Sony HT-A5000 is a fairly wide soundbar, so it likely won't fit between the legs of a 55" TV stand. That said, if you have a BRAVIA TV with a multi-position stand, the manufacturer says you can adjust the TV stand to fit the bar beneath the TV. Some users may not want to put it under the TV, though, since that could affect the performance of the up-firing drivers built into the bar.

The Sony HT-A5000 has a great build quality. The soundbar is mostly made of texturized plastic, which feels solid and durable. There are also metal grilles covering the front and the up-firing drivers on the top, which help to protect the drivers inside. It doesn't feel quite as premium as the Sony HT-A7000 or the Bose Smart Soundbar 900, though.

• Operating instructions
• Mounting template
• Remote
• 2x AAA batteries
• 4x screws
• AC power cord (4.9 ft / 1.5m)
• TV center speaker mode cable (6.2 ft / 1.9m)
• HDMI cable (4.9 ft / 1.5m)
• 2x Wall mounting brackets

The Sony HT-A5000 has a satisfactory stereo frequency response. This soundbar comes with a Sound Field Optimization room correction feature that uses microphones built into the bar to automatically optimize audio reproduction based on your room's unique acoustics. With this feature on, it has a pretty neutral, though slightly U-shaped sound profile with some extra boom in the bass range. There's a touch of extra brightness in the treble that makes vocals and lead instruments sparkle. Ultimately, it's suitable for listening to most types of audio content, but fans of action-packed movies may be disappointed by the lack of deep rumble in the low-bass.

Note: In our sound tests, we aim to replicate the average user experience as closely as possible to make our results helpful for the majority of our readers. The Sony HT-A5000 is unique since it comes with a Sound Field feature that activates the Atmos and surround drivers. You have to have this feature turned on to use these drivers. We feel that most users will want to use the bar with Sound Field turned on, so that's how we performed all of our sound tests. We also tested it with the Sony | Vertical Surround Engine virtual surround. As a result, you'll notice that there are some additional channels active for our stereo and surround tests compared to our other reviews.

The Sony HT-A5000 has a subwoofer level adjustment feature that lets you choose between 'MIN', 'MID' (default), and 'MAX'. If you prefer a more neutral sound, we recommend using its default settings.

The Sony HT-A5000 has a decent stereo soundstage with Sound Field turned on. The bar comes with S-Force Pro Front Surround technology that uses its front-firing speakers to reproduce the sound field. The soundstage is perceived to be a bit wider than the bar itself. However, sound seems a bit diffused. Its focus isn't very good, and sound objects seem to come from a more general region instead of an accurate location.

That said, there's a noticeable difference when you use the Sony HT-A5000 with Sound Field turned off. The soundstage is perceived to be much more narrow, and sound seems to extend only to where the speakers are on the bar itself. However, the focus is better, and sound seems less diffused. It's easier to follow sound objects to a more accurate, pinpoint location.

The Sony HT-A5000 has a great stereo dynamics performance. It gets loud enough to fill larger and more open spaces with sound. Plus, there isn't a lot of compression as you push it to louder volumes.

The Sony HT-A5000 has a great center channel performance. It has a discrete center channel that helps to more accurately anchor voices to a pinpoint location in the soundstage. Its frequency response is quite neutral, especially in the mid-range, where most voices are reproduced, resulting in clear and accurate dialogue. There's a lack of low-bass, but dialogue is rarely reproduced in this range, so it shouldn't be very noticeable.

You can also connect this soundbar to your compatible BRAVIA TV using the S-Center Out port. The Acoustic Center Sync feature uses the TV's speakers as a discrete center channel. The manufacturer says that this feature helps create a more immersive listening experience by anchoring dialogue to a more precise location in the soundstage. When we tested this feature with the Sony HT-A7000, we found it helped anchor dialogue more vertically. However, it also decreased the sound quality, and there seemed to be a difference in volume between the TV and the soundbar. We expect that it will have a similar performance with the Sony HT-A5000. As a result, some listeners may not want to use this feature.

The Sony HT-A5000 has a disappointing surrounds performance. It uses its front-firing drivers to simulate surround objects in the soundstage. However, this setup doesn't sound as clear or as real as the discrete localization offered by dedicated rear speakers. If you want a better surrounds performance, you can purchase the SA-RS3S rear speakers separately.

Note: Since we tested the Sony HT-A5000 with Sound Field turned on, these results were taken with the left and right channels playing alongside the surround channels. If we turned Sound Field off, the bar wouldn't play anything from the surround speakers. We weren't able to measure the surround channels on their own.

The Sony HT-A5000 has poor Atmos performance. The bar uses its up-firing drivers to bounce sound off the ceiling and back down towards you, which creates the illusion of height. However, this doesn't sound as clear or as real as the discrete localization offered by down-firing speakers found with home theater setups.

In our subjective listening tests, we felt that the Sony HT-A5000 did an okay job with Atmos content. The height of the soundstage extended to about the middle of the TV. Some details were missing in scenes, especially compared to more premium standalone setups like the Bose Smart Soundbar 900.

The Sony HT-A5000 has an great selection of sound enhancement features, especially compared to less premium models in the lineup like the Sony HT-A3000. You can control many of the bar's settings with its TV menu. When you plug it into your TV, a menu automatically appears on your screen. You can use it to control the sound modes, Sound Field Optimization, and adjust the volume. You can also control the virtual surround by choosing between Sony | Vertical Surround Engine (which we used in testing), Dolby Speaker Virtualizer, and DTS Neural:X. Unfortunately, this bar doesn't offer a lot of sound customization features. You can adjust its subwoofer level, and you can use its EQ preset to turn Sound Field on and off. However, there aren't any bass and treble adjustments or a graphic EQ.

The Sony HT-A5000 has lots of physical inputs. There's an HDMI ARC input as well as a Full HDMI In port. You can also use the S-Center Out port to connect the TV to a BRAVIA TV for Acoustic Center Sync.

The Sony HT-A5000 has incredible audio format support via ARC. You can use it for standard surround sound formats like Dolby Digital, as well as lossless and object-based formats like Dolby Atmos.

The Sony HT-A5000 also has fantastic audio format support via Full HDMI In. There's even support for lossless and object-based formats like Dolby Atmos, which you'll find on many streaming platforms and Blu-rays.

The Sony HT-A5000 supports both Dolby Digital and DTS via Optical. You can frequently find these formats on Blu-ray discs and content on streaming platforms.

Audio latency falls within good limits over an ARC connection. The audio you hear is in sync with the video you see with lots of common audio formats like Dolby Digital and Dolby Atmos. Some apps and TVs compensate for latency differently, though.

Similarly, you get low audio latency over HDMI In. Audio formats that you're likely to find on streaming platforms and Blu-rays are without noticeable lip-synching errors. Some apps and TVs compensate for latency differently, though.

Audio latency is decent over an Optical connection. Especially with Dolby Digital content, you're more likely to notice lip-synching errors. Unless you have an older TV that requires you to connect over Optical, it's best to connect over HDMI instead.

The Sony HT-A5000 is a great option for video passthrough. It supports HDMI 2.1, which offers a higher bandwidth than traditional HDMI 2.0. As a result, it can passthrough 4k @ 120Hz @ 10-bit and 4k @ 4:4:4 @ 120Hz, which is great if you plan to game with compatible consoles and PCs. Updating the bar to firmware version 1.769 adds support for HDMI Forum VRR and ALLM passthrough.

The Sony HT-A5000 supports all of the wireless playback options we test for. It's also advertised to support Spotify Connect. As a result, you can wirelessly stream audio from your phone to play it on the bar.

There's a small interface on the front of the bar. It shows you the volume and the inputs you're on.

On the top right of the bar, some touch-sensitive buttons let you control the bar. You can power it on/off, change the input, activate Bluetooth, access music services like Spotify, and adjust the volume.

The remote is pretty similar to other Sony remotes. It's large, and there are lots of buttons so you can control its features, change its inputs, and adjust its volume. The Sony Music Center app also acts as a remote and lets you control the bar from your mobile devices.

The Sony HT-A5000 doesn't have built-in voice assistant support. However, the manufacturer says that you can connect it to a third-party voice assistant device to control it with Amazon Alexa or Google Assistant.