Sony HT-A9 Soundbar Review

The Sony HT-A9 has a very unique design. It has a small black control box with rounded edges. The bar section of a traditional setup is replaced by the off-white front left and right speakers, which have metal grilles and plastic casing. You can distinguish these speakers from the satellites based on the markings on the bottom. 'FL' stands for front left speaker, and 'FR' stands for front right.

You can purchase a dedicated subwoofer from the manufacturer separately.

The Sony HTA9 has two satellite speakers. They're painted an off-white color and cased in an off-white colored plastic. There are also metal grilles to protect the drivers inside. The satellites have the same design as the front left and right speakers, but you can tell them apart based on the markings on the bottom. The rear left speaker is marked 'RL,' and the rear right speaker is marked 'RR.' Sadly, they lack the dual-function stand/mount design that comes with the speakers in the Sony BRAVIA Theater Quad with Bass Module.

The Sony HT-A9 has a uniquely small design, so its control box can easily fit between the legs of a TV stand. It also isn't very tall, so it shouldn't block your TV screen.

Note: The measurements above are for one speaker. There's also a control box that comes with the speakers. Its dimensions are 5.9" (15 cm) long x 5.9" (15 cm) wide x 1.9" (5 cm) tall.

The Sony HTA9's satellite speakers are rather tall when compared with the other models we've tested. Their footprint is also a little bigger than average. It shouldn't make much difference when placing them in your room, especially if you plan to put them on a stand.

The Sony HT-A9 has a great build quality. The speakers have metal grilles that help protect the drivers inside. There's also a plastic casing with a slightly rough texture that feels quite solid. The control box is mostly made of plastic, though it can feel a bit cheap. It can also get hot when the setup is in use.

• Manuals
• 2x AAA batteries
• Remote
• AC Adapter (4.9 ft / 1.5m)
• TV center speaker mode cable (6.5 ft / 2.0m)
• HDMI Cable (4.9 ft / 1.5m)
• 4x AC Power cords (4.7 ft / 1.4m)

The Sony HT-A9 has a fair stereo frequency response. It comes with a Sound Optimization Feature that automatically calibrates audio reproduction based on the acoustic characteristics of your room. You can set it up once the bar connects to your TV. On 'Standard Surround' mode, it struggles to reproduce the deep thump and rumble in the low-bass. While vocals and lead instruments are reproduced pretty clearly, there's some extra muddiness in the high-bass that can slightly thin out those same instruments. There's also a subwoofer level adjustment to help you customize its sound, though you can only adjust the subwoofer volume when paired with the full setup.

We performed all our sound tests with the Sony HT-A9 set to 'Standard Surround' mode. During our subjective listening tests, we found that both 'Standard Surround' and 'Cinema' mode filled the room with sound and offered a solid listening experience. All channels seemed active, while the 'Music' preset seemed to only play audio from the front left and right speakers.

The Sony HT-A9 has a decent stereo frequency response with calibration. With the subwoofer level set to 'MAX', it struggles to reproduce the deep thump in bass-heavy music and action-packed movies. Its sound profile is still a bit muddy, which may slightly thin out vocals and lead instruments.

Note: The subwoofer adjustment feature offers three different levels: 'MIN', 'MID', and 'MAX'. 'MID' is its default setting, so we note it as '0' in our results. Subsequently, we denote 'MIN' as '-1' and 'MAX' as '1'.

The Sony HT-A9 has a fantastic stereo soundstage. The soundstage is perceived to be very wide, and you can easily customize the experience by adjusting the speakers' location and placement based on the room size. The focus is pretty good, although at times there are audible holes due to the lack of a true discrete center channel.

The Sony HT-A9 has a decent stereo dynamics performance. It doesn't get very loud, so it isn't suitable for filling up a large room or a crowded party. That said, there isn't a lot of compression when you push it to max volume.

The Sony HT-A9 has a good stereo THD performance. It falls within good limits at a normal listening volume, resulting in clean and pure audio reproduction. There's a slight jump in THD across the range when you push the bar to max volume. However, this shouldn't be too noticeable with real-life content.

The Sony HT-A9 has a fair center channel performance. It lacks a discrete center, so it uses its left and right channels to simulate a phantom center. Unfortunately, this doesn't localize voices as accurately as a discrete setup. Dialogue may seem to come from a more general area rather than a pinpoint location.

However, you can use Acoustic Center Sync to pair this setup with a compatible BRAVIA TV. This feature uses the TV speakers as a discrete center channel. In our subjective listening tests, we noticed this feature does a better job anchoring voices to a pinpoint location in the soundstage, meaning you can hear them clearly from anywhere in the room. However, it also seems to decrease the sound quality. Sound isn't quite as immersive, and the volume level between the bar and the TV seems to differ. Some users may prefer to not use the TV as a center channel to maintain better sound quality.

Update 10/21/2021: We updated the text to reflect that the Sony HT-A9 has a discrete surround setup.

The Sony HT-A9 has a decent surrounds performance. Thanks to its discrete setup, it can more accurately represent surround objects like voices in the sound image. Audio seems like it's coming from all around you, rather than just from speakers placed in front of you. In our subjective listening tests, we found that the bar offers a very immersive listening experience.

The Sony HT-A9 uses up-firing speakers to bounce sound off the ceiling and back down towards you to simulate height. While it doesn't seem as clear or real as a discrete setup found with home theater systems, it still offers a solid performance. In our subjective listening tests, we found that the room felt mostly full of sound. There are some noticeable holes in the sound image at times, but this is possibly due to the lack of a discrete center channel.

The Sony HT-A9 has an excellent selection of sound enhancement features. You can choose between several different EQ presets: 'Standard Surround', 'Cinema', 'Music', and 'Auto Sound'. There's also an Immersive AE feature that lets you turn the up-firing drivers on and off. However, you can't adjust this feature when watching Atmos content, as it's locked to the 'On' position. You can adjust the subwoofer level, but you can only adjust the subwoofer volume when paired to the full setup. Unfortunately, it lacks a full graphic EQ.

There's also a room correction feature called Sound Field Optimization. You can set up this feature once the soundbar connects to your TV. You can take a look at the setup process here.

The Sony HT-A9 has several physical inputs to choose from. There's a Full HDMI In port, meaning you can use it as a hub between different devices. There's also an S-Center Out port on the control box that lets you connect to a compatible BRAVIA TV for enhanced audio playback.

The Sony HT-A9 has incredible audio format support via ARC. It can playback common surround sound formats like Dolby Digital, often found on Blu-rays and streaming platforms. It also supports eARC, and it can playback lossless and object-based formats like Dolby Atmos.

The Sony HT-A9 can playback common surround sound formats like Dolby Digital via Full HDMI In. It also supports lossless and object-based formats like Dolby Atmos and DTS:X.

The Sony HT-A9 has a good latency performance. It has fairly low latency via ARC and Full HDMI In, so you shouldn't notice a delay between the audio you hear and the video you see. That said, some apps and TVs compensate for latency differently, so your real-world experience can vary. The manufacturer also says that its A/V SYNC feature can help with synchronization. You can activate it in the app.

This soundbar can passthrough many common resolutions and refresh rates, which is great if you want to use it as a hub between devices like a TV and a PC. Updating the bar to firmware version 1.779 adds support for HDMI Forum VRR and ALLM. Plus, this bar supports HDMI version 2.1, which offers a higher bandwidth than the traditional HDMI version 2.0. As a result, the bar can passthrough 4k @ 120Hz @ 10-bit and 4k @ 4:4:4 @ 120Hz content that you find on certain gaming platforms.

The Sony HT-A9 lets you wirelessly stream audio from your mobile devices over many different connections. We noticed the sound would pop in and out when connected over Bluetooth and Apple AirPlay in our tests. However, you may not encounter this at home, as we tend to have quite a few wireless devices active at any given time in our testing space. Let us know if you experience similar issues in the forums below.

There's a small display on the control box. It shows you the input, setting, and menu you're on.

There's a power button on the control box. Each speaker has a pairing button as well as a power button.

The remote has a similar design to other Sony remotes. It lets you control the bar's features like its volume and subwoofer level, and you can use it to change EQ presets. The Sony Music Center app also acts as a remote and lets you control some of the bar's features from your phone.

The Sony HT-A9 doesn't have built-in voice assistant support. If you want to control it with your voice, you need to pair it to a third-party device with voice assistant capabilities. According to the manufacturer, it can support Google Assistant-enabled devices.