Sony HT-S2000 Soundbar Review

The Sony HT-S2000 is a simple soundbar with an all-black design. It's mostly made of plastic with metal grilles covering the drivers in front. Two sound ports are visible on the sides as well.

There's a subwoofer integrated into the bar itself. You can add on a compatible sub from the manufacturer separately as well.

The manufacturer sells compatible satellites separately.

The bar isn't very wide, but it may not fit between the legs of your 55-inch TV stand. Fortunately, it isn't very tall, so it won't obscure your TV screen.

While you can mount the bar to the wall, you must buy the brackets separately.

The Sony HT-S2000 has a great build quality. Overall, it feels very solid. The metal grille in the front of the bar helps protect the drivers inside, too. The rest of the bar is made of plastic, which feels quite sturdy, though the top panel, in particular, is prone to picking up fingerprints when you handle it.

• Setup card with Reference Guide
• Wall mount template
• Remote with batteries (2x AAA)
• HDMI cable (4.9 ft / 1.5m)
• Power cable (1.3 ft / 0.4m)
• Power Adapter (built-in cable length of 4.9 ft / 1.5m)

The Sony HT-S2000 has a decent stereo frequency response. Overall, the sound profile is quite even, especially in the mids, where more voices and lead instruments are reproduced. It performs well for a bar of its size, but of course, without a dedicated subwoofer, it lacks a lot of thump and rumble in the low-bass. You can always add a separate subwoofer from the manufacturer if you want a better performance.

We tested the bar with Sound Field Off, which resulted in a more natural sound. Sound Field is a virtual surround tool that's designed to provide a more immersive feel to your audio, and depending on your preferences, you may find it more to your liking. However, in our view, stereo audio seems unnatural with this feature activated, and voices echo in the mix. This may be because, with Sound Field on, stereo content plays from the center channel in addition to the right and left channels.

This soundbar comes with three different subwoofer levels: MIN, MID, and MAX. It's set to MID by default, but the MAX setting is ideal if you prefer a more neutral sound with stereo content. It adds a little more warmth in the bass range, which is nice. Some content, especially bass-heavy music like EDM, seems a bit boomier in this setting, which may not be ideal for everyone.

The Sony HT-S2000 has a decent stereo soundstage. The soundstage is perceived to be a little bit wider than the bar itself, and the bar isn't very wide, to begin with. Turning on the Sound Field feature results in a narrower sound with some content, including Money by Pink Floyd. On the upside, focus is good, so it's easy to pinpoint certain instruments and voices to more exact locations within the soundstage.

This soundbar gets loud. It doesn't have much compression at max volume, either, meaning you can enjoy a clean and clear sound even when you crank up the volume.

Distortion falls within good limits at a normal listening volume of 80dB. As with most bars, there's a slight jump in distortion when you push it to max volume, but it's hard to hear with real-life content. As a result, audio reproduction is clean and pure, even at loud volumes.

This 3.1 setup comes with a discrete center channel designed to improve vocal reproduction in the mix. Though the channel's frequency response is missing some low-bass, this isn't a huge deal since most voices are reproduced in the mid-range. As a result, dialogue remains clear and easy to follow.

The Sony HT-S2000 lacks discrete surround speakers, so it has to downmix 5.1 content like Dolby Digital into stereo to play it back. The resulting sound is less clear and real overall—audio seems like it's coming from a speaker placed in front of you, and sound effects don't stretch into the space around you. You can improve the bar's performance by adding separate satellites from the manufacturer, though.

This 3.1 setup can playback Dolby Atmos content, which is increasingly common on both streaming platforms and Blu-rays. Since it lacks up-firing channels, it has to downmix this content into stereo to play it. The resulting sound isn't as immersive as what you get with more premium bars, but thanks to its even frequency response, sound effects are reproduced with clarity and detail.

Our subjective evaluations of the bar's Atmos performance confirm that it's a good upgrade over your existing TV speakers with this content. Of course, since it downmixes this content into stereo, the sound is centered to the front of the room, and you don't get the feeling of effects stretching around the room or above your head. It's also missing some rumble in the low-bass, especially noticeable during more action-packed scenes. Again, listening with Sound Field Off provides a more natural sound, while turning this feature on seems to narrow the soundstage in some instances, so you don't get the same clear and real feel.

As with most Sony soundbars, the Sony HT-S2000 doesn't offer a ton of sound enhancement features. You won't find a room correction feature, so it sounds slightly different depending on your room. You're limited in terms of manual customization, too, with only a subwoofer level adjustment tool on hand instead of more traditional bass and treble adjustments. As for EQ presets, you can choose between turning the virtual surround feature called Sound Field on and off, but that's it. You can also use the app to access other features like the dynamic range compressor (DRC), which reduces the volume imbalance between different programs and commercials.

You can connect the bar to your TV using an HDMI or Optical connection. It lacks a Full HDMI in port, though, so you can't use the bar as a hub between devices for video passthrough.

The Sony HT-S2000 supports most common audio formats found on both streaming platforms and Blu-rays with Sound Field Off, which is how we tested the bar. However, Dolby Digital content isn't correctly implemented with Sound Field On. Effects meant for either the left or right channels play simultaneously on both the left and right channels, which may explain why the soundstage seems narrow with this virtual surround feature turned on.

Whether you listen with Sound Field turned on or off, this bar supports both Dolby Digital and DTS content via Optical. Dolby Digital is the more common of the two, while DTS is often used as a fallback for higher-quality DTS-HD MA often found on Blu-rays.

The Sony HT-S2000 has an okay latency performance. There's some delay measured over both Optical and HDMI connections; however, when you watch real-life content, it's not very noticeable. Certain apps and TVs compensate for latency differently, too. If you have any issues, you can always use the A/V Sync feature in the app to manually adjust the delay.

Without an HDMI input, you can't use the bar for video passthrough to your TV.

You can wirelessly stream audio from your mobile devices to the bar via Bluetooth.

There's a small display in the front of the bar. It shows all the changes you make with the app and the remote, including the volume level, the input, and the subwoofer level.

A few controls on top of the bar let you access its most basic features. You can use them to power it on and off, change the input, activate Bluetooth pairing, and adjust the volume. You can also use the remote and the Home Entertainment Connect app to control the bar.

The remote is pretty simple compared to other Sony soundbar remotes, making it easy to find the needed features. If you prefer to control the bar from your phone, you can also download the Home Entertainment Connect app.

You can't control the bar using a voice assistant.