Introduction

Sony, a global visual and audio technology leader, has consistently delivered innovative visual and sound solutions to consumers, audiophiles, and casual listeners. Renowned for their blend of cutting-edge technology and sleek design, Sony audio products are synonymous with exceptional quality and immersive experiences. Sony Bravia TVs, paired with their cutting-edge home theatre systems, redefine home entertainment. Known for their impeccable picture quality, advanced technologies like OLED, XR Cognitive Processor, and Dolby Vision deliver lifelike visuals. The home theatre systems complement with immersive audio, featuring Dolby Atmos and 360 Spatial Sound. Together, they create an unparalleled cinematic experience. We have the Sony BRAVIA 7 TV, Sony BRAVIA Theatre Bar 8 & SA-SW5 Subwoofer for review.

I received the Sony BRAVIA 7 TV, theatre Sound Bar 8, and SA-SW5 Subwoofer on 31 October, and I have had the chance to review, entertain, and enjoy it for over a month.

Review of the Sony XR-65X90L (4K) & HT-S2000 3.1 Channel Sound Bar in the UAE

I reviewed the Sony XR-65×901 a few months back with the Sony HT-S2000 3.1 Channel Sound Bar. I mentioned that the Subwoofer was missing. Thanks to the Sony Middle East team, they sent me the Sony Theater Bar 8 with a very powerful 300W SA-SW5 Subwoofer. This review includes multiple products, so let us start with the Sony BRAVIA 7 TV.

Sony BRAVIA 7 TV

The Sony BRAVIA 7 TV is available in 85”, 75”, and 55”, and the one I am reviewing is 65”. You can find detailed specifications and designs at this link.

Sony 7 comes with Mini-LED Qled Backlighting, which enhances contrast and local dimming for deeper blacks and brighter whites. The TV has a cognitive processor XR, an advanced image processor for lifelike picture quality. With XR Triluminos Pro and XR Contrast Booster, the TV provides a wide colour gamut for vibrant and accurate colours and optimised contrast for stunning visuals. The TV also comes with XR Motion Clarity, which reduces motion blur for smooth and explicit action scenes.   The Sony 7 comes with Dolby Vision/HDR10, which supports high dynamic range content.

The Sony BRAVIA 7 TV comes with Acoustic Multi-Audio, which creates immersive sound with sound positioning technology and Dolby Atmos/DTS: X. The TV comes with a two-channel Stereo speaker system. The speakers are positioned down-firing and have a side-back design. The TV has full Range (Bass Reflex) x 2 and a tweeter x 2, which helps create the Acoustic Multi-audio system. It supports PCM: 48kHz 16bits, Dolby Audio, and DTS. The TV comes with Acoustic Auto Calibration, which helps with room & user position compensation.

Sony BRAVIA Theater Bar 8 – Soundbar

Visual entertainment is only complete with proper audio setup. The Sony BRAVIA 7 TV undoubtedly has an excellent built-in audio system, but a dedicated Soundbar with a powerful Subwoofer would make quite a difference in audio output. The Sony BRAVIA Theater Bar 8 is 1100 x 64 x 113mm long and weighs 4.7kg. The sound bar has a 5.0.2 channel, which is 11 speaker units. With these speakers, Sony Theater Bar 8 achieves 360-reality audio. The Soundbar is designed with 2 Side speakers facing the left & right sides. Two upward-firing speakers just beside the side-firing speaker on the left & right. Seven speakers face the front side with two small twitters, four big-size speakers and one mid-size speaker in the centre.

These 11 speaker units are controlled by an 11-channel Digital Amplifier (S-Master HX). The Soundbar comes with DSEE Ultimate sound enhancement technology. The Soundbar supports Bluetooth 5.2 and Wi-Fi. It is compatible with Dolby Vision, EARC, HDCP2.2, BRAVIA Sync and HDMI CEC. The Soundbar comes with a remote control, HDMI Cable, TV Center speaker mode cable, wall mounting brackets, wall mounting template, batteries for remote control and AC power cord.

Sony SA-SW5 Wireless Subwoofer

Adding a Sony SA-SW5 Wireless Subwoofer enhanced the lower frequency, providing the heavy bass required for the home theatre. The Sony Theater Bar 8 has decent bass for a small room. However, to get the maximum lower frequency from the audio signal from the TV or the source, you would require a dedicated power amplifier that divides the different frequency signals and a subwoofer with a 180mm cone-type design driver to produce a 300W output. The size of the driver is 200 mm × 300 mm cone type.

The passive radiator produces strong bass without wind noise. The magnetic circuit provides deep, clear bass with less distortion. The Soundbar can produce 28 – 200hz frequency. The Sony SA-SW5 Wireless Subwoofer weighs 13 kg and measures 277 × 409 × 422 mm. This wireless subwoofer works on 5 GHz Wireless Sound Specification Version 4.0. The subwoofer design is a simple rectangle with wooden and plastic frames. There is a power source port and a wireless button to connect to the compatible Soundbar.

The Review

As mentioned above, the Sony BRAVIA 7 Mini LED QLED TV, Theater Bar 8 Soundbar and SA-SW5 Wireless Subwoofer were sent to me for review for more than a month. The Sony and distributor Jumbo Electronic setup team installed the TV, Soundbar and subwoofer. As the 7 TV is quite heavy, weighing 28.3kgs, there were two people to remove the TV from the package and lay it flat on the carton box. The stand was fixed with ease.

The 2024 Sony TVs come with a new adjustable stand. The regular stand setting lowers the TV, which will cover the screen if you place the Soundbar in front of it. You can increase the height of the stand to allow the Soundbar to be placed below the TV Screen area.

The BRAVIA 7 TV measures 1445 x 832 x 57mm, has an actual display size of 64.5”, and has a seamless edge bezel design. The display has an LCD Mini LED backlight with a resolution of 3840 x 2160px and an aspect ratio of 16:9. The display has Dynamic Backlight Control, which provides Energy Savings and efficiency. The software lets you have Power Saving Mode / Back Light off Mode. The back panel is solid plastic and has a square mat design to make it beautiful, so it will still be attractive even if you place the TV in the centre of the room.

The BRAVIA 7 TV has four HDMI Ports, including 4K 120Hz (eArc/Arc) and 4K 120Hz. The ports include a LAN port, Digital Audio out (optical), an analogue port (RS-232C) for the TV Antenna, two USB Type-A ports, and an S-Center speaker IN.

Features of the Sony BRAVIA 7

When you switch on the newly opened TV, certain Apps are already built in until you log in to Google TV. The TV comes with Netflix, Prime Video, YouTube, Bravia Notifications, Media Player, Music, and other functions like Eco mode and a lot more.

The Mini LED TV comes with Google TV from the Google Playstore. This app opens up the whole world of apps, and as for the storage of the apps, it comes with 32GB storage. As you log in with your account, you can use your Google Photos as your screen saver. Also, you can download a basic gaming app which can connect to your streaming gaming account and use the 120Hz TV display.

The TV has Vivid, Standard, Cinema, Professional, Calm, Photo, IMAX Enhanced, Dolby Vision (Vivid/Bright/Dark/Game), FPS, and RTS games. With XR Motion Clarity, Live Colour Technology, 4K Processor, XR Triluminos Pro, HDR10, HLG and Dolby Vision, you get the best picture quality, 4K imaging and upscaling from 720p to 4K but depending on the source. I have tried to use YouTube 720p quality video, and it worked on some content, but again, on some content, the upscaling was not perfect and could cause digital pixelation and distortion.

The interesting feature of the Sony BRAVIA 7 is the filmmaker mode, which allows you to watch the movie as the director expects us to see the colours. You can experience this mode with specific OTT platforms like Netflix, Prime Video, Disney+, and Sony Core, as well as on particular movies that provide this mode. Generally, most TV brands have Vivid, Bright and Film Mode. But these are colour LUTS, which create or provide additional colour and contrast ratios for the output.

Sony BRAVIA 7 for Gaming

Being Sony TV, you can connect to your Playstation 5 gaming station, play your games, and get the maximum picture and audio quality, including Dolby Audio, Dolby Atmos, HDR+ and even Auto HDR Tone Mapping.  You can use PS Remote Play, and with a PlayStation Portal, you can fire up a remote PlayStation and play your games on the TV.

Sony BRAVIA 7 with Sony BRAVIA Theater Bar 8 and SA-SW5 Wireless Subwoofer

The Sony BRAVIA Theater Bar 8 and wireless SA-SW5 subwoofer were opened from the eco-friendly box. The Sony Theater Bar 8 was placed before the Sony Bravia 7 TV. It was connected with the HDMI cable provided in the box. The cable was connected to the TV’s eArc Port and the HDMI port (Out). You can add the optical cable supplied and the box to the TV and Soundbar optical port. The SA-SW5 wireless subwoofer was placed near the corner as I always believe the corner area of the room provides lower bass amplification and covers the whole room.

As this unit is wireless, there was no need to worry about wires connecting the main sound bar or main speaker, which used to be a traditional way of using the sound system. As the subwoofer connects wirelessly, you can keep it even at a distance of 10 meters. A connect button on the subwoofer ensures correct connectivity with the right sound bar if you have multiple sound bars in your house.

The Sony BRAVIA Connect App

You must download the Sony BRAVIA Connect App to activate, connect, and create the whole home theatre system. The process is straightforward: log in to your Sony account and then add the Sony BRAVIA Theatre Bar 8 via the app. You must register the sound bar and then add the SA-SW5 subwoofer following the procedure. To add the subwoofer, you have to click on the subwoofer button, which will allow you to activate the wireless search and add it to the app. Then, you can do the room optimisation test with your smartphone, and you have to activate your microphone on your smartphone.

In this test, a series of low Bass, Mids, and high Treble chime sounds are played. You have to follow the instructions, like turning the smartphone upside down and pointing the smartphone towards the TV. Once done, you can do a demo test, in which a dedicated 360-degree short music is played from the Soundbar, subwoofer and even from the TV if the dedicated optical cable is connected to the TV and Soundbar. Now, you are ready to use the Sony Home Theater system.

My Testing and Experience with the Sony BRAVIA 7 & Sony Home Theater setup.

The Mini-LED backlight TV was vibrant, and the contrast ratio was terrific. The HDR+ visual was stunning, and with Sony Core, Netflix, and Prime Video apps, I could experience DTS, IMAX, and even Dolby. Filmmaker mode was best, providing the colours I would experience in the movie theatre. I watched Avatar: The Way of the Water, where I could relate to the vibrant colours, like blue water, which I saw in the movie in the theatre.

The issue I found with the TV was the screen, where I could see the room’s reflection and surroundings, especially from an angle.

Eco-friendly Remote Control

The remote control is convenient. I can control the Soundbar volume and preset NETFLIX, Prime Video, Crunchyroll, YouTube, YouTube Music, and APPS. The remote also comes with a Google mic button. It is made of recyclable plastic, continuing Sony’s pledge to environmentally friendly products.

I tested the Sony BRAVIA TV standalone without the Soundbar and subwoofer to check its audio quality. The TV’s audio output is excellent and has a good mid-range. The treble is clear, and there was no distortion. The bass was decent, and the experience was good. I watched various genres of movies and music on YouTube, and it didn’t disappoint me.

Later, I switched on only the Soundbar and tested it with my series of testing movies and music songs, and it added more value to the sound by increasing the sound width with the 11-speaker setup. It felt good with some of the movie shots with DTS or surround sound effects. Still, I felt the lower bass rumbles were good but were missing something, which was taken care of by the SA-SW5 subwoofer. Once I added the subwoofer, I was thrilled with the full audio output. The subwoofer completed the missing very low bass rumbles, which were added and shaken by the sofa and felt like I was in the theatre.

Soundbar Remote Control

The Soundbar came with a remote control, which was handy for controlling the Soundbar and Subwoofer’s bass, changing the TV’s input to connect with Bluetooth, or even increasing the Soundbar’s volume individually.

The overall sound system is very loud, even though I have used less than 50% of the volume. Honestly, you have a noisy party with the setup. With Bluetooth connectivity, I would play the high-res audio and enjoy the full range of sound without distortion or loss in quality.

(Please note: to get the proper feel of the Audiophile experience, I would suggest keeping the Subwoofer in front of the Soundbar as the stereo output with bass coming from the front.)

Price and Availability

The Sony BRAVIA 7 65” is priced at AED7,499, the Sony BRAVIA Theater Bar 8 Soundbar at AED 2,999, and the SA-SW5 subwoofer at AED 2,299.  All the products are available in UAE via Sony Distributors like Jumbo Electronics, Sharaf DG and local retailers.

(Please note: The price may change during special holidays and sales offered by Sony and its distributors, retailers, and online power retailers.)

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