Gadget Review: Bravia Theatre Bar 9 and SA-SW-5 subwoofer pair up and turn it up to 11

Small screens look bigger with big sound. That’s a truism the consumer electronics industry discovered very early on, aided by the experiments that major movie makers were doing with technologies such as surround sound in movie theatres.

And recently, we had the chance to experience that spatial expansion of our small-ish living room screen with the aid of Sony’s new Bravia Theatre Bar 9 soundbar, coupled with Sony’s SA-SW-5 subwoofer. And boy, did we feel like being transported into the thick of the action — as if the living room had suddenly transformed itself into an IMAX theatre.

As we have been observing and remarking for a while now, Sony seems to have gotten back its mojo of old in recent times, churning out product after winning product that harks back to the heydays of the brand for much of the last few decades of the last century and the first decade of this one. With the advent of first the Korean competition and then the Chinese, coupled with the onset of the digital age in electronics after the analogue age that the Japanese dominated, it seemed like Sony had lost its magic — and, consequently, market share — for a while, but the boffins in Minato City, Tokyo (Sony’s global HQ), have come back with a bang in these last few years with several award-winning products.

One such gizmo was the HT-A7000 home theatre sound system that Sony introduced in 2021, which quickly became the benchmark for the genre, won numerous awards all over the globe, and set the sales charts on fire. The new Bravia Theatre Bar 9 is its direct descendant, which at once tells you that this latest product from Sony has massive shoes to fill.

And fill those shoes it does, at least in the looks and features department. This all-in-one soundbar is a comprehensive audio solution, equipped with 13 speaker units spread across the front, top and sides, designed to project sound in all directions, aided by the 360 Spatial Sound Mapping technology, which delivers an immersive, theatre-like experience that goes beyond traditional surround sound. The 7.0.2 system includes Bluetooth 5.2, built-in Wi-Fi, two HDMI ports, and app control for added convenience.

Sleeker, slimmer model

The design is sleek and modern, though not radically different from its predecessor. Measuring 130×6.4×11.3cm (WxHxD), it has the same width as the HT-A7000 but is lower in height and depth — a slimmer profile that makes it easier to position in front of most TVs or on a stand. Wall-mounting components are included, and the soundbar comes with two feet for a raised set-up if your TV has a central stand. Weighing around 5.5kg, it feels solid and well-built, with a black exterior covered in acoustic fabric on the front, sides, and top. The back has a smooth plastic surface with an attractive tile pattern, housing the connection ports in two separate recesses.

On the left side, the only port is the power input, while the right side features an HDMI TV output (ARC/eARC), an HDMI input, and a connection for the S-Centre speaker. A USB port is also available on the rear, but it’s for service purposes only. Notably, there are no optical S/PDIF inputs or USB ports for music playback.

This soundbar maintains a minimalist approach with only a slim standby button on the rear right side, which is used for power and resets. For everything else, you’ll need the included compact infrared remote control.

One of the main advantages of a soundbar is the simple setup and in this case, connecting the respective HDMI ARC/eARC ports on the TV and the soundbar using the included HDMI cable and selecting the appropriate input source was sufficient.

The bundled SA-SW-5 also sports a minimalist design, carrying on with the same fabric design language on its front where the woofer fires from. The rest of the woofer enclosure is a black wood-finished cabinet, or feels like wood at any rate.

While setting up the soundbar itself is child’s play, the set-up process of the subwoofer can be a bit more demanding, especially for the technologically challenged. It requires downloading the Bravia Connect app on your mobile, which then detects the soundbar and the subwoofer when they are both powered on, and then guides you through the steps to set up and pair the two. However, you will need to have a Sony account for the process, and go through things like audio mapping on your profile. Thankfully, you only need to do this once; it’s seamless from then on. And that is just as well, because I wouldn’t want to go through the tedious process again. It is still one of the few negative points about this home-theatre set-up as it is.

There is nothing negative about the performance, however. All that cumbersome pairing of the subwoofer is completely worth it the moment T-Rex takes his thundering steps in any Jurassic Park episode or the fantastical creatures run amok in Jumanji Welcome to the Jungle or the Next Level. Meanwhile, the precision of the soundbar ensures that all the dialogues are crystal clear and rise above every sonic boom and din in any scene in any movie.

We sat down to a living room film festival with our usual test-mule blockbusters in which the soundtrack is as much the star of the show as the actual stars— the likes of the Star Wars and Dune sagas, the Harry Potter movies, all the Planet of the Apes and the Jurassic Park series, and even some movies to especially test out the subwoofer — such as some war films like Saving Private Ryan and Ford v Ferrari — to test out how thunderous the cannons can be. And on no occasion were we disappointed.

Next level movie viewing

The soundbar and the subwoofer together do such a great job that they bring a new level to the word “immersive”. The sound that surrounded us actually gave the impression that the visual field itself had expanded, making the screen seem bigger and the action somehow larger than life — or at least larger than we were used to. When it comes to movies, not only does this Sony not disappoint but it elevates the home viewing experience to the next level.

And the audio experience remained equally high when we played music on the Bravia Theatre Bar 9 and SA-SW-5 subwoofer combination, whether it was Taylor Swift or Tchaikovsky.

The highs were clear and musical without any hint of being tinny, the lows and bass were taut and “just-right” without being overwhelming, and most importantly, the mids were unsuppressed and rendered at the forefront of the soundstage. This soundbar-subwoofer combination can definitely be your music system too.

Of course, all this comes at a price: Dh4,499 for the bar and an ongoing offer price of Dh2,299 for the subwoofer.

This combined price of Dh6,798 is perhaps our only big gripe. It’s possibly 25 percent more than we would have reasonably been happy to pay for this otherwise five-star package.

Sony Bravia Theatre Bar 9 + SA-SW-5 subwoofer

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