Typically when you want a minimal surround sound system with the ability to place speakers in less-than-ideal locations, you inherently have to sacrifice sound quality. Sony has aimed to solve that issue with their HT-A9 Home Theater System. But, is the HT-A9 really worth all the hype? Or are you better off sticking with an ‘old-fashioned’ soundbar? Let’s find out!

Sony HT-A9 Design

The HT-A9 system consists of four cylindrical speakers with a flat back, allowing you to place or mount them against a wall, on a credenza, bookshelf, or a speaker stand. Finished in light pearl gray with grilles on the top and wrapped around the sides, they will look great in a modern living room or media room. And because they are wireless, you only need to plug them into power instead of running cables, allowing you a lot of flexibility in placement and less clutter. Due to their Sound Field Optimization technology, you can move your speakers where needed, even if you must put them in non-traditional locations. We’ll discuss more on this tech later on.

All four speakers wirelessly connect to a hub that serves as the “brain” of the system. It’s a small black box resembling an Apple TV but is about an inch taller and wider. On the rear of the hub, you’ll get a LAN port, USB update input, HDMI out with ARC and eARC, HDMI 2.1 in, and a center channel out to connect to a compatible Sony TV.

Sony HT-A9 Technology

Inside each of the four speakers is a soft dome tweeter, one mid/bass driver below it facing forward, and one angled on the top for height effects. Sony also includes dual microphones on each speaker unit used for calibration. Each speaker is powered using Sony’s S-Master HX Digital Amplifier, which uses less energy to produce the same signal as a traditional analog amplifier. There are 12 amplifiers inside the system for a total of 504 watts of total power.

Both drivers inside the speaker unit utilize X-Balanced Speaker designs, which are more rectangular in shape compared to a traditional circular driver unit. When you’re designing small speakers, it can be hard to make the sound match that of a full-sized bookshelf speaker. So we’re happy to see Sony use tech like this to maximize the diaphragm area on the driver. This larger diaphragm allows for richer bass and reduces driver excursion while maintaining sound pressure, resulting in less distortion and greater vocal clarity.

The HT-A9 can playback Dolby Atmos content, DTS:X, standard surround sound formats, and hi-res audio wired or wireless. It also supports Sony’s 360 Reality Audio format, an immersive way to listen to live concerts or studio sessions. Sony has even included their DSEE Extreme technology which they have developed to use Artificial Intelligence to upscale compressed music files in real time to restore the high-range sound lost in the compression.

Best Movie Platforms to Experience Dolby Atmos

The hub will support 8K, 4K/120 passthrough, Dolby Vision, HLG, and HDR. In addition, you get support for Google Assistant, Amazon Alexa, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, Chromecast built-in, Spotify Connect, and Apple Airplay. Sony certainly covered their bases in terms of connectivity, making it a breeze to watch and hear your favorite content.

Although technically, the A9 is a 4.0.4 system, Sony uses their 360 Spatial Sound technology that adapts to your environment and creates up to twelve phantom speakers, even though there are physically just four in your room. This makes it feel as though you are surrounded by all sides and envelopes you in a bubble of realistic sound, placing your right inside your favorite film.

To make the 360 Spatial Sound feature work so well, no matter what your room or speaker layout is, Sony includes their Sound Field Optimization feature. This feature runs a series of test tones to detect each speaker's horizontal and vertical position in your room, allowing it to map out and create those twelve phantom speakers all around you.

If you own a Sony Bravia XR TV, the A9 will be the perfect companion for it. Control sound settings and volume for it using the TV remote and access the menus with its integrated UI on your Bravia TV. This makes changing settings super simple, as you don’t have to go back to the A9 setup screen as often.

And at this point, you may be wondering, no center channel? We will discuss more about this in our performance section, but Sony also has you covered with a cool feature here. You can just connect your A9 Hub to your Sony Bravia TV and utilize the TV as your center speaker, adding another channel to the system to further immerse yourself in surround sound.

So, now that we’ve explained all the technology packed inside the Sony HT-A9 let’s discuss how to set it up and how it actually performs!

Sony HT-A9 Set Up

Setting up the HT-A9 could quite possibly be one of the easiest setups we ever experienced. We used a Sony TV and connected it to the A9 hub via HDMI. On the bottom of each speaker is a clear label that tells you if it’s the front right, back right, front left, or back left speaker. And even if you place them in the wrong locations, during the next calibration step, Sony will alert you and tell you to move them to the correct location.

To put it to the test, we placed them in a few different configurations at different heights and distances from our listening position. We wanted to create a real-world simulation where someone has a living room where they either can’t place them all in the perfect location or just simply don’t want to for aesthetic reasons. Since this is a huge selling point for why someone would buy the A9 rather than another system, we did all of our testing with this less-than-ideal speaker location setup.

After the hub was connected to power and the TV, we plugged each speaker into power from the port on the bottom and powered each one on with the power button underneath. Sony’s on-screen menu leads you step by step to set up the entire system. It’s important not to skip this step as this is where it confirms the speaker locations and runs its test tones to optimize and map the speaker layout for your room.

Performance

We first played one of our favorite Dolby Atmos scenes from The Adam Project on Netflix without making any other tweaks besides running the initial setup. It was immediately clear that the system sounded great but lacked the bass response that we were hoping for in the big action fight scenes. When we did our initial testing when the A9 was released over a year ago, we heard the same thing, so we weren’t too surprised by this. We redid the initial setup on the Sony on-screen menu and, this time, paired up a Sony SA-SW5 subwoofer. After playing the same scene again, the difference was night and day!

Best Dolby Atmos Movie Scenes

The low end now filled the room with more even coverage and actually allowed the dialogue and Atmos effects to be more pronounced than before. It takes it from being a standard surround sound experience to becoming a really fun, immersive, and believable one. In our opinion, get the SA-SW5 sub in addition to the A9 if you really want to get the most out of it.

We tried out a few different Dolby Atmos movies, such as Bird Box, 6Underground, The Adam Project, The Irishman, and Red Notice, all on Netflix. And with every single one, we were thoroughly impressed. Even with the speakers moved around in less-than-ideal locations, the height sound effects still seemed to bounce correctly off the ceiling and walls to create that “bubble” of sound that Sony was aiming for. Although, as with any system that relies on bouncing the sound off the ceiling for height effects, it’s important you have a ceiling that is 10 feet or shorter and preferably a hard surface with no lighting or fans in the way for the effects to sound natural and bounce back to your ears correctly.

During 6Underground, The Adam Project, and Red Notice, the A9 handled the dynamic swings of the intense action scenes with ease. Explosions, glass shattering, cars racing behind you, and gunshots whirling around your head were all extremely immersive and actually sounded like there were a lot more than just four speakers in the room with us. I’d go as far as to say you may even trick some people into believing there are twelve real speakers in the room instead of just the four.

We used The Irishman to test the dialogue as well as some of the Atmos effects that aren’t as loud and pronounced to see how well they handle the more subtle sounds. A scene we love is with four characters in a car talking. On a good system, you’ll hear the subtle nuances in their voices, and should sound full and clear. First, the A9 does a phenomenal job at creating a phantom center speaker and making the voices sound like they are coming directly from the mouth of the character on the TV. Second, the dialogue was clear and full, as if it was coming from a large dedicated center channel speaker.

To further test the dialogue and the center channel feature with the TV, we plugged in our Sony TV to the Hub and activated it as the center channel. While it did seem to make some scenes a little more immersive, in our opinion, it actually took away from the scenes with dialogue only, as the sound didn’t quite match up to the quality of the A9 speakers. And this actually makes sense because you’re asking the TV speakers to do a lot of work and match much larger dedicated speakers. So while this is a cool feature, we decided to let the A9 work its magic with the phantom center channel, which sounded much better to us.

What was also super impressive to us was how well it also sounded with Netflix content in 5.1. With the Immersive AE feature on, movies sounded as if they were actually mixed in Dolby Atmos and not just 5.1. That bubble of sound really came to life with any content, not just Dolby Atmos movies, which was really neat. It was also nice to be able to easily turn up the bass or the rear speakers directly on the remote depending on the type of content we were watching too.

And, of course, we tested a few Dolby Atmos music tracks. One that was really fun was Billie Eilish’s “Oxytocin”. That 360 bubble makes you feel like there are voices and instruments coming from all directions. We’ve listened to this song in many different Atmos theaters, with headphones and soundbars, but with the A9, there was just something unique about how it envelopes you in Dolby Atmos tracks. At some points in the song, you would think there had to be speakers directly above you.

Overall Recommendation

If you’re looking for a minimal setup but want to enjoy great surround sound and Dolby Atmos movies and music, the Sony HT-A9 might be the perfect solution for you. Ten-foot or lower ceilings with no obstructions and adding the SA-SW5 subwoofer are two additional factors that are needed to get the most out of this system and really make it worth it. The flexibility to place the speakers where it’s most convenient instead of where you have to make this system unlike most others on the market right now.

To us, it will be hard to find a soundbar that will beat this system in terms of overall immersion. The A9 actually starts to compete with a more dedicated separate speaker system, which is really crazy when you think about the price and features that it comes with. Plus, the A9 has to be the easiest surround sound setup we’ve ever done. Everything is wireless, connects automatically, and maps your room for the best sound within minutes of setup. No joke, we were literally watching our first movie within 5 minutes of unboxing the A9. Talk about an easy setup!

The Sony HT-A9 is going to be a phenomenal solution for some people. However, it may not be the exact right fit for you. If you’re unsure or have more questions, stop by one of our award-winning showrooms, or call or chat with one of our experts, and we’d be happy to help you out. And if you’re building your own home theater or media room, check out our free home theater design tool to help you get started!