Sony Bravia Theatre Bar 8 review

Sony’s been on a roll with its soundbars for a while now, with no new model having received less than a four-star rating from us since way back in 2019. The current flagship model, the Bravia Theatre Bar 9, is in fact the best soundbar the brand has ever produced.

Hopes are high, then, for this step-down model, the Bravia Theatre Bar 8 (or Theater Bar 8 to our US friends), which features the same styling and broad technology in a smaller and more affordable package. But what should be a recipe for soundbar success actually turns out to be an uncharacteristic misstep for the usually super-consistent Sony.

Price

The launch price of the Sony Bravia Theatre Bar 8 was £999 / $999 / AU$1499, but if you shop carefully, you should be able to get it for less. In the US, it’s now widely available for $850, and while discounts in the UK and Australia are less common and less widespread, they are usually available.

The Bar 8 is significantly more affordable than the flagship Bar 9, which nominally costs £1399 / $1400 / AU$1795 but is itself often available with a discount.

There are plenty of rivals available, but the most noteworthy is of course the Sonos Arc Ultra, which costs very similar money and currently sits atop our lists of the best soundbars and best Dolby Atmos soundbars.

Design

Design-wise, the Bravia Bar 8 is very much a shorter version of the flagship Bar 9. It has the same 6.4cm height, which makes it low enough to sit in front of most TVs without blocking the screen, and the same 11cm depth, but it’s 110cm wide compared with the bigger ‘bar’s 130cm. That makes it a better partner, visually speaking, to smaller TVs, with an average 48-inch TV having a very similar width measurement.

Should your TV’s stand prove an obstruction, you can use the handy spacers that are included in the Bar 8’s box to create a bit of a gap, and there’s also a bundled wall-mounting kit if that’s the way you want to go.

As with the Bar 9, the Bar 8 features a fabric mesh that covers around 90 per cent of the chassis, and that combines with the rounded corners to give the soundbar a very discreet appearance.

Sony has kept the design of the Bar 8 super-clean, to the extent that there’s just one button and no display. We find it surprisingly easy to cope with the former as the remote control and Bravia Connect app are more than adequate for operating the soundbar, but the lack of a display is frustrating at times: while the app is good, you shouldn’t need it to simply check basic things such as the sound format currently playing.

Features

But, as mentioned, the Bravia Connect companion app is very good, with an intuitive layout and excellent graphics. It’s through this app that you complete the Sound Field Optimisation process, which involves taking three measurements from the soundbar. It’s quick, easy to follow, and certainly benefits sound quality.

Various advanced sound features can be adjusted using the app, from dynamic range compression to the height of the sound field, but we find no need to deviate from the defaults here. Adjusting volume, changing inputs and increasing the amount of bass in the sound can be done from the main page of the app or via the remote control, and there are dedicated buttons on both for ‘Night’, ‘Voice’ and ‘Sound Field’.

‘Night’ activates the Night Mode which, as you would expect, compresses dynamics and reduces bass to reduce disruption for the people in your house who may not want to enjoy whatever movie you’re watching, ‘Voice’ is designed to boost dialogue clarity without unduly suppressing the rest of the presentation, while ‘Sound Field’ toggles the 3D audio processing on or off – you might assume this is best left on all the time, but stereo audio, particularly music, sounds much better when it’s switched off.

In terms of sound formats, the most important thing is that the Bravia Bar 8 supports both Dolby Atmos and DTS:X – the latter isn’t supported by the rival Sonos Arc Ultra. IMAX Enhanced support will be added via a future software update, too, but can only be accessed if you combine the Bar 8 with an optional pair of surround speakers and a subwoofer.

The soundbar itself features 11 drivers: along the front are four woofers and three tweeters; there’s a side-firing midrange driver on each of the soundbar’s ends; and two up-firing drivers mounted on the top. If you also have a recent Sony TV, you can have the speakers of the soundbar and television work together using the Acoustic Centre Sync feature. This can work reasonably well, but its effectiveness is heavily dictated by the specific model you’re using, so try it out and see how it sounds to you.

In terms of connections, the Theatre Bar 8 has the usual HDMI eARC port, which is what you use to connect the soundbar to your TV, plus a single HDMI input, which is something that the Sonos Arc Ultra doesn’t have. This input can handle 4K/120Hz, VRR and ALLM signals, too, so is a boon for serious gamers with limited HDMI 2.1 sockets on their TV. You can also send music to the Bar 8 using Spotify Connect, AirPlay 2 or Bluetooth.

Sound

While the Theatre Bar 8 has a lot in common with its big brother in terms of design and features, it’s unfortunately a far cry from it where sound quality is concerned. Dynamics are a real weak point, with the intro to Unbroken and the start of chapter two of Blade Runner 2049 both lacking the steady, gradual build that’s vital for the ramping up of tension. It seems that only the biggest jumps in volume trigger the Bar 8 into action, and that doesn’t even include the flak in Unbroken, which explodes rather limply in the air around the squadron of bombers.

Low-level dynamics are lacking, too, with the voices of the bomber crew in Unbroken and the dialogue during K’s baseline test in Blade Runner 2049 sounding flat and disinterested. There’s little inflection, little nuance and little emotion, and that makes these scenes unengaging. It doesn’t help that dialogue isn’t projected into the room very well, either, which means characters always sound quite distant.

The soundstage, while certainly better with Sound Field Optimisation switched on, still lacks the spaciousness and three-dimensionality of both the Bar 9 and the Sonos Arc Ultra. The audio extends beyond the confines of the TV somewhat, but it doesn’t fill the room in the way that the best Dolby Atmos soundbars manage.

Within this somewhat spatially constricted sound field, we find that the strands of complex soundtracks can sound as if they’re competing with one another rather than working in harmony. The music in the second chapter of Blade Runner 2049 is a case in point, with the arrangement turning rather cacophonous when the chaos should still be controlled.

That isn’t to say that the Bar 8 is an outright bad-sounding soundbar. It’s very clean-sounding and precise from a timing point of view, and there’s lots of detail to the delivery. When the ‘bar is provoked by a really big dynamic shift, such as a big explosion, there’s some good impact, too, and while there’s not oodles of bass on offer, it is largely well controlled, with only a bit of fuzz creeping into the extremely challenging low frequencies of Blade Runner 2049.

Moving away from movies and switching to music, the performance (once the Sound Field setting is switched off) is a little better, with the generally fairly neutral tonal balance ensuring that the sound isn’t overly coloured by the speaker system. Detail is good again, too, and there’s solid rhythmic precision.

Again, though, dynamics are lacking and vocals are somewhat recessed. There’s also a coldness to the delivery that goes beyond the clinicalness we noted in the Bar 9 and gives the whole presentation a rather soulless character.

Verdict

While the Bravia Theatre Bar 8 isn’t entirely without merit, it’s far from the more compact and more affordable Bar 9 that we were hoping for.

Detail levels are high and the Bar 8 ranks well for design, features and useability, but its sound lacks spaciousness, impact and subtlety, resulting in a peculiarly restricted and lifeless delivery. Given how superb the Sonos Arc Ultra is for the same money, that’s a bit of a problem for the usually very reliable Sony.

SCORES

• Sound 3
• Build 4
• Features 4

MORE:

Read our review of the Sonos Arc Ultra

Also consider the Sony Bravia Theatre Bar 9

Read our Samsung HW-Q990D review

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