A soundbar is perhaps the simplest way to improve the sound quality of your TV setup and the one that requires the least equipment. While you could go down the rabbit hole of surround sound systems, multi-speaker setups, or wiring your walls and ceiling for sound, a well-placed, quality soundbar will get you most of the way there. The Sony BRAVIA Theater Bar 9 is the newest top-of-the-line soundbar from Sony, and with its support for Dolby Atmos sound and 360-degree spatial mapping, it promises to be the closest thing to a single-device replacement for a real surround sound system. I got to spend some time with the Theater Bar 9 in my home while testing the Sony Bravia 9 TV, to see if it really lived up to that promise.

Price, availability, and specs

The Sony BRAVIA Theater Bar 9 retails for $1,400 and is available at Amazon, Best Buy, and directly from Sony online.

The Sony BRAVIA Theater Bar 9 soundbar boasts 13 speakers placed throughout its 51″ long frame. This powered soundbar is Bluetooth and Wi-Fi enabled but is primarily intended to output the audio from your TV with bigger, better sound than your TV is capable of on its own.

This high-end soundbar supports Dolby Atmos among a slew of supported codecs, allowing the Theater Bar 9 to produce 360-degree spatial sound, mimicking the auditory experience of a 7.1 surround sound system. When set up with video pass-through to your TV, the Theater Bar 9 supports Dolby Vision, 4K HDR, and even 8K HDR through HDMI.

Users can also wirelessly stream their music to the soundbar using Spotify Connect, Apple AirPlay 2, and Bluetooth.

What I liked about the Sony BRAVIA Theater Bar 9

Easy setup and great sound

The soundbar was a breeze to set up, taking about 5 minutes to get it out of the box and connect the proper HDMI in and out cables to the back of the soundbar. After powering it on, I was able to use the BRAVIA Connect app, which walked me through the rest of the setup process, including using my phone as a microphone to aid in the spatial mapping audio setup for Dolby Atmos.

Once I was up and running, I started watching the first episode of the latest season of Stranger Things, which supports Dolby Atmos sound. I have to say, it was really unbelievable. The entire opening of the episode was designed to be a medley of ambient sounds, like the wheels of a bike, a kettle coming to a boil, a pencil writing on a page, and a kitchen timer going off.

Each sound came alive with depth and direction, easing you into the auditory illusion of Dolby Atmos. I felt like sounds were coming from behind me or beside me, even though I was fully aware the soundbar was placed squarely in front of me. It’s really quite spectacular, and something that needs to be experienced to fully understand.

Turning up the volume on voices

The Theater Bar 9 offers a feature that Sony is calling Voice Zoom 3, which it says is “powered by AI machine learning” that can recognize human voices in whatever you’re watching and amplify or reduce them independently of the rest of the audio. Honestly with a lot of modern movies and TV shows, I find that the audio mix makes it difficult for me to understand what people are saying, though maybe I’m just getting old. Truly though I used this feature constantly and was impressed how well it worked without amplifying extraneous noises.

What I didn’t like about the Sony BRAVIA Theater Bar 9

Television as a center speaker

One of the integrations the Theater Bar 9 offers with Sony BRAVIA televisions is the option to use the TV as the center speaker. While this can amplify center channel audio, such as dialogue, it ultimately diminishes the overall audio quality. I spent quite a bit of time watching TV and movies while using a Sony BRAVIA 9 as a center speaker through the Theater Bar 9 connection, and it became distracting to hear some of the center audio coming out of the less impressive built-in speakers, so I ultimately unplugged it and went back to solely using the Theater Bar 9.

Verdict: Should you buy the Sony BRAVIA Theater Bar 9?

The Sony BRAVIA Theater Bar 9 is unquestionably one of the highest-end soundbars on the market today, and its feature set befits its price. In my own home, I’ve spent about the same on my speakers and receiver setup, but that is much harder to move, more cumbersome to set up, and far less sightly than the sleek Theater Bar 9.

360-degree spatial audio, Dolby Atmos, and a direct video pass-through setup make the Theater Bar 9 sound absolutely gorgeous, while being extremely easy to set up. Its HDMI inputs make it compatible with just about any console, television, or PC, though pairing with a Sony TV allows for simpler control over your whole setup from the BRAVIA Connect app or a single remote control.

If you don’t currently have an audio setup aside from your TV’s built-in speakers, the BRAVIA Theater Bar 9 would be a great place to start.