Everything you need to know about the Sony HT-A9 home theatre system and Ht-A7000 soundbar

If there is one thing we learned during the pandemic is that nothing brings entertainment home like a large screen TV and a good sound system. Services like Netflix, Prime Video, Apple TV, Disney+ Hotstar and more have content in its highest fidelity be it in Dolby Vision, HDR 10+ (only on Prime Video) and even audio in surround sound formats like 5.1 and Dolby Atmos. Safe to say, the fidelity at which content can be streamed at home is nothing short of spectacular. 
 
While investing in a large screen TV only requires you to have the space for the TV, audio is slightly more complicated. Entertainment purists will say that you need a dedicated speaker for each channel, especially height speakers to truly enjoy an immersive Dolby Atmos experience. However, that isn't the case. Over the past few years, we have seen soundbars offer an immersive experience especially when it comes to a surround sound experience. We’ve seen soundbars come with upward-firing drivers, surround speakers with a simple plug and play setup to ensure you get an immersive experience.

However, there were still some hurdles for users to contend with. If there are sound-absorbing materials like curtains or a glass door or window on one side, the surrounding effects suffer. Also, the consumer may not have the perfect position to place the surround speakers for the optional experience. Similarly, not everyone has enough space under their TV for the soundbar. 

If you are one with such limitations, then I recommend you check out the Sony HT-A9 as it addresses a lot of real-world issues people face at home. On the other end of the spectrum, if you have the space and are looking for an immersive surround sound experience, then you can check out the Sony HT-A7000. The soundbar is modular in nature which means you can start by getting the soundbar and subwoofer first and invest in the surround speakers later. You can check out the two sound systems in detail here.

We had the opportunity to speak with Mr Gyanendra Singh, Head of Audio Business, Sony India about the recently launched Sony HT-A9 and HT-A7000.

Above: Mr Gyanendra Singh, Head of Audio Business, Sony India

Q: For those unaware, can you shed some light on the features the Sony HT-A9 and HT-A7000 bring to the table? Also, in your opinion, which one is right for what audience?

A: The HT-A9 and the HT-A7000, both come with Sony’s revolutionary technology, the 360-spatial sound mapping. In very simple words, what this technology does is that it creates 12 phantom speakers so the consumer can enjoy the content in a more immersive way. That's what the A9 does. The A9 consists of 4 speakers. They each come with a tweeter, X-Balanced speaker and an up-firing speaker. The HT-A7000 on the other hand is a premium soundbar and it comes with 5 speakers, it has beam tweeters on either side, comes with up-firing speakers, and built-in subwoofers.  The A7000 is conventional in its form factor, but nothing conventional in terms of the technology that it delivers. Of course, both of them are Dolby Atmos-enabled, so you can actually enjoy the Dolby Atmos content. And not only that, but they also actually come with the 360 Reality Audio Enabled. And you can enjoy the high-res content as well. 

• As far as pricing and availability are concerned, both the HT-A9 home theatre system and HT-A7000 Soundbar are available starting January 20, 2022. As for pricing, the Sony HT-A9 with the SW3 subwoofer is priced at Rs 1,70,980. The HT-A9 with the more powerful SW5 subwoofer is priced at Rs 1,97,980. Moving over to the Sony HT-A7000, paired with the SW3 subwoofer, it is priced at Rs 1,50,980, while the HT-A7000 paired with the more powerful SW5 subwoofer is priced at Rs 1,77,980. The SA-RS3S surround speakers for the A7000 are priced at Rs 30,990.

Q: Can you talk about the modular nature of the HT-A7000? Have you seen customers pick up the soundbar first and then enhance their experience later with the surround speakers? What has the market trend been for modular soundbars?

A: So first up, I think as a nation, we consume a lot of content, a lot of entertainment content, loads of music. So that's one thought. The other is that we would want to have a good 5.1 or 7.1 or even further, that's the kind of combination that people even their homes prefer. And we've seen even in our general portfolio, irrespective of the price point, the real 5.1 found a large part of our sales portfolio and even for the product that we talked about the Z9F (review), it was quite evident that the sales along with the rear speakers were much stronger and people came back and augmented their earlier purchase with the rear speakers. From time to time, we would run an offer on those so it's very clear consumer preferences would want to have the rear speakers in that form factor (soundbar).

Q: Speaking about the technology like Dolby Atmos, it has been around for a really long time but in the past couple of years Sony has been talking about their own 360-degree audio. For those that are not aware of dipping their toes into this technology for the first time, can you talk a little bit about 360-degree audio? How is it different or similar to Dolby Atmos and where consumers can find content to experience 360-degree audio?

A: We continue to work very closely with Dolby and a large part of the range (soundbars and home theatres) that we carry is Dolby enabled. Dolby Atmos has seen a very steady increase in our portfolio. Everything gets driven by what the consumer is really asking for. And everyone who wants to reach out is working very hard to take good technology to the consumer. So, in our case, we've actually come up with 360 reality audio. It's about being able to convey the way sound was recorded to the consumer. That's, that's your objective. And everyone in between is working with whatever resources that they have to carry out this particular thing. In Sony’s case, it's been 360 reality audio. Of course, we've seen this in various of our devices, and these two devices also carry this, it helps very simply put in three dimensions. If you put the consumer at the centre of the whole affair in 360 degrees, he should be able to place where the music or that particular specific bit is coming from, in very simple language. So that is what 360 reality audio helps do with respect to the music, you place the source, or where that music or the piece is emanating from within this 360 degree or three-dimensional domain. So that's the objective. And that's what we want to carry to the consumer. And yes, largely, you can have a lot of musical content right now, which is available across titles and various other platforms, which actually have 360 reality Audio enabled content. We'll see a steady rise in that content. I think that with a lot of technology, like 5g coming around, and a capacity increase of new, larger flies being moved with relative ease, I think we'll see more content (hi-res, 360 audio) coming to users.

Q: Now touching upon the A-9 which is a very unique setup for someone for a home theatre. The A 7000 is very traditional, it has the soundbar up front with various drivers, a dedicated subwoofer, rear speaker, so someone who wants that perfect positioning can look at it. The A-9 has just four speakers. You can place them anywhere; they don't need to be symmetrically in front of your TV or next to it. It's very customizable to the way your room is, which in the case of a lot of people the room is not symmetrically designed for home theatre. So, can you talk a little bit about the thought process behind these speakers and how they work to give you that surround sound experience despite being placed a little up-down or a little front-behind from each other?

A: Absolutely. So, I think as I say everything emanates from what the consumer is looking for. So, the A9 makes it very simple and easy. And it's the flexibility that it brings to the consumer. So, the A-9 consists of these four speakers. Each one of them has a front-facing tweeter, an X-Balance Speaker, and has an up-firing speaker. So, these are the three units inside each of these speakers. And there are four of them which constitute this complete system. You can place them asymmetrically. And the thought process is very simple – that for those people who would want to retrofit or really top-end home theatre system, this is where the A9 comes in. Even otherwise, if you want to just have the flexibility, that it could be up or down or asymmetric, in your living space. That's where the A-9 comes in. And it gives you absolutely a top-end experience in terms of immersive entertainment. It's aesthetically a very, very nice product, very good-looking product. Very well designed. So that's been the thought process.

Q: Now, speaking of the specs that the soundbars bring, one of the most interesting things that we noticed is HDMI pass-through has been there with a lot of soundbars that we've seen from Sony, but now it has been upgraded to support HDMI 2.1, which, for example, you can now just connect the PlayStation 5 directly to the soundbar. So, can you talk a little bit about this upgrade? How did it come about? And why should this feature be something that people really consider when looking at a soundbar?

A: I think very simply put, we are moving towards even better content, there is high-resolution content. You need to move more data (to consume this high-resolution content). So, when you want to have very good picture quality, all in real-time, with no lag, what you need is a good transmission, you need a lot of transmissions to happen. And I think that's where HDMI 2.1 comes in. It helps you move that large amount of data, the heavy file seamlessly so that you can enjoy your content. Yes, it supports the 8k HDR, 4K 120Hz pass through and more, that's the tech part. But in very simple words, the heavy lifting and making tech convenient for the consumer is what HDMI 2.1 does. 

Q: So, my next question here is about Sony's portfolio of soundbars. And the way the industry is moving over the past two years, a lot of people have just been staying at home. And we've really seen this trend of laptop sales go up, because people are, working from home, people want to build bring the theatre home with large screen TVs, and it's after they brought the television home is they realised that they need to enhance their, audio experience, and Sony's portfolio is really large. From the high-end soundbars that you've just announced to the HT-S20R (review), or the HT-S40 (review) are at the entry-level and even the HT-X8500 (review), which is the single bar only, which is a simple plug and play setup, you have a very large portfolio of soundbars at your disposal. Can you talk a little bit about how you've seen the market evolve, trends change, and consumer understanding change for home audio throughout these past two years? And how Sony has moved its products around to ensure that they're catering to customers' needs? Can you talk a little bit about how the market has changed over the past two years?

A: Before the pandemic sort of started, the category itself was seeing decent growth. The pandemic has accelerated and considering the amount of time that people have been spending in their homes. The first thing they realise is that there are so many upgrades that they need to do about the home and home entertainment has been one of them. Because you're staying at home and you're consuming far more content. That became a very strong lever for both large screen televisions also, not that not screen televisions are not growing earlier strongly. But I think that's been the impetus. And then there is the soundbar because then you want to have the full entertainment at home. I think that's been one driver. The other driver has been because people are unable to go out and go to the movie theatres. The other thing which has also been there with people is that “I just don't want to have a soundbar” depending on what segment that you are really looking at, “I really want to have a good home entertainment centre” – large television, enabled television, very good soundbar and more. So because you cannot go out for entertainment, you want to do your best at home. The third lever has been a lot of high-quality OTT content available. Just look around yourself and compare it to what was there two years back and see so much content now being available. So I think it's been a mix of all these three things, which has really given a real kicker if I can say to this segment, and I think it's secular, but we'll find a slight bit of a bias more towards the mid to the high segment. That's where we see stronger growth coming in for the soundbars. That's how the last two years have been. It continues to be quite strong.

Q: We've noticed a lot of people even when we've talked to our readers and our viewers who ask us for buying advice. And when we say spend that extra Rs 3000 or Rs 5000 or even Rs 10,000 more for a slightly better television or a soundbar. The consumer is inclined to do that because they know they are getting a better value for money proposition at a slightly higher price. Is this something that you have also noticed that people are okay spending a little more to get that slightly better product?

A: Well, absolutely. There are countless examples that I can give you. You talked about a couple of those products yourself. So when we launched our HT-S40R, just before Diwali, I think that that's a very good example. It was the next step beyond the entry-level. And the response has been absolutely phenomenal. It comes with wireless rear speakers. I think because people were able to find value in that, I think that outsold many of the other products, which is slightly stepped down as compared to that. And we've seen this thing play out even in the mid to the high segment. So I think that's very clear, the consumer finds value and he will find value if we are conveying the right product or taking the right product to you. You get that equation, right? I don't think people are really not willing to spend if they are able to see the value. And thankfully, so far we've been able to hit that equation very well.

Q: Anything else you would like to add?

A: The last point that I would really urge the audience to do is that they must actually surely go and check out these products, and then listen to them because listening is what will move them.

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Sameer Mitha

Sameer Mitha lives for gaming and technology is his muse. When he isn’t busy playing with gadgets or video games he delves into the world of fantasy novels. View Full Profile