Sony - HT-A5000

Costco has sony ht a5000 on sale rn. I love it. But need to buy speakers to get full exp.

Quality Atmos and soundbars are kind of opposites so the high end recommendations are really not far off. Maybe a Samsung q800c with some 9200s rears. Probably above budget. Sonos beam 2 with Sonos era 100s and a mini sub. Expensive but decent. Not really for Atmos though. Sony a5000 with sw3 sub and rs3 rears. I honestly quite like that Sony setup. But with all those prices and extra pieces you may as well just get the q990c and call it a day. You may not be using all the power there, I doubt most people have it past volume 25/100, but you'll be enjoying it a lot. And at basically the same price or cheaper on sale given everything is packaged in together. Otherwise grab the lg s95qr which is probably cheaper. Solid performance for the price, like the 990c lots of height channels. Just worse performance than the 990c almost across the board. Maybe more bass ironically but that can be turned down.

I bought a Sony A5000 for my 75 inch Sony and it definitely needs a subwoofer. However I sold it 3 months later and bought a Samsung 800C which was way cheaper and sounds way better. Had it for over a year now. You are severely limiting yourself just looking at Sony ones

I can recommend from experience the Sony HTA5000 + wireless sub (SW3) + rears (RS3). Even with decades of amp + discrete speaker home theatre experience I was impressed with the quality and accuracy. With the 65, though, you might move up to the A7000 and or SW5 sub. (The line has been refreshed so both available at a discount) The new current refresh of the above line is the Theater Bar 8 & 9

I bought the 85 inch x90cl with the HTA5000+SW5+RS5 and I'm very happy with the set up. Keeping everything in the Sony ecosystem allows it all to run very smoothly.

I'll go against the grain and say that I bought a Sony HTA5000, SW5 and RS5 to go with my new Sony X90CL TV and I'm very happy with the setup.

The A5000 is decent on it own but becomes great when paired with the SW3 or SW5 subwoofers so i would definitely recommend you getting a sub with it

Sony A5000 is a great standalone soundbar

Well you would want a soundbar that has decent bass on its own, otherwise the listening experience will be pretty poor, something like the Sony A5000 and Rs3s surround speakers would be great for your application

As i wrote Sony A5000 with rs3s rear speakers is a great option 👍

After having gone through multiple different sound systems over the last couple of years i am now pretty sure Ive found something that i will keep until it breaks down. Ive had the LG SK10Y, Samsung Q950T, Samsung Q800A, HK multibeam 1100, a pair of active bookshelf speakers with hdmi arc support and also tested the A5000 for a week. All i can say about the A7000 is WOW. The A7000 just gets pretty much everything right, music performance is pretty much as good as with my previous active speakers and movie watching especially in Atmos is miles ahead! As of now i only have the bar by itself and i can tell you that if you live in an apartment or have a small room the bar on its own creates an amazing bass response and overall sound quality from the drivers that Sony has put in this are simply just top notch for a soundbar unit. Height effects are much more pronounced on the A7000 compared to every other soundbar Ive tested aswell. The fact that it also has 2.1 hdmi support and can playback pretty much every sound format there is is also a huge bonus and chromecast stability has been great. Compared to the A5000 which also is a good soundbar, the immediate thing i noticed was how much more full and warm the A7000s sound was where as the A5000 could sound a bit sharp at times. All in all im super happy that i splurged on the A7000 before its to late since its an outgoing model, i managed to get it for 900€. So if you've been thinking about getting the A7000 dont wait until its to late :)

But yes the A7000 is far superior to the A5000.

I’d opt for the HT-A9, A5000 and up, or the Q990C/D. Any of these will be awesome. I personally have the Q990C with my A80L and I cannot emphasize enough how great of a package it is.

I know it's all personal preference but I wouldn't count on JBL for longevity personally. I am sorry to hear that tho, def a bummer. It's the JBL Bar 500? Same model they have out now or an older version? Jw. Also, I have personal experience and have heard some others report bad connections between LG sound bars and subwoofers. My sister's setup is very confused where the crossover is and decides to cut out entirely for minutes at a time. So I lean away from LG for audio personally. If looking at $500 roughly for price point I'd suggest the Denon S517, The newer Klipsch Flexus Core 200 line, Polk Signa S4/S4D.. If you can get one for the steal snag a Sony A5000 before they're all gone as they bring in the Bravia 8/9 bars etc. That A5000 is a beast at its price point imo and the system is buildable. I set my parents up with it for their family room cu they have a proper basement theater, so they use it with no sub nor rears, but you can always add both or either of them later. Sony is really in a good place rn imho hardware-wise. I was aiming for that bar for them for Bravia Sync to maximize the use of their brand new TV in a new home, but I didn't expect to be so thoroughly impressed with Sony's virtual surround capabilities rn. They're doing something right. Stinks to have to replace that that soon tho 2 years is a joke. Edit: +1 any device from any brand can fail early or malfunction before too long or even right out of the box. But I did wanna say my personal 2 cents on JBL. I think the brand has its place, just longevity in home theater systems isn't my first place I'd give them points. Their portable and more rugged speakers tho that are more designed asking to take a beating, that's where they shine imo. Pretty much every other application there's another product I'd prefer. But again, that's just my preference! I won't say I have never been impressed by their sound. I may often find some of their tuning a bit bassy, but it depends on the exactly product really.

Wait why does noone speak of **accoustic center sync** here? You know, the tech that makes your BEAUTIFUL A95L work as the dedicated centerspeaker for your soundbar. They work together. Personally i have heard all the A series soundbars (which you need for this) and i can say either get the A5000 if the A7000 is too wide, and get the rear speakers 5 (RS5) and Sub woofer 5 (SW5). Connect the HDMI cable and the included aux cable to the TV and turn on ACS. Another option is to wait for the new soundbars

In about a month or so the new Bravia Theatre lineup will come out. i was coincidentally JUST reading about them. They got more speakers in them than any other soundbar out there so might be interesting. If you wanna get a bargain, find the A7000 or A5000

From Costco, get the A5000, but add the SW5 and RS5 to complete the system

I have an HT-A5000 and HT-A7000. They sound amazing. For a bigger room, you'll need to add the rear RS5's, eventually. Totally changes your experience. And get a sub no matter what. You can use dual subs and/or a 3rd party sub. For my 7000, I have the wireless SW5 and a basic klipsch 10" that's hard wired. And also have the S-Center connection. It's not life changing but I can tell the difference...adds a bit of life to the vocals and brings it up a little bit.

Yeah there's a little panel underneath. 3.5mm connection. Use a 3.5mm to RCA connection and you're in business. My 5000 is in a smaller sunroom with no rears, and it's really submersive

Sonos is currently broken. Check out recent news. It's a total shit show. Might be able to get a good used one on Markerplace right now...then wait for them to fix what's broken. You can also score big on other used soundbars. I picked up a Sony HT-A5000 for $200 and SW5 sub for $300 recently. Last two versions of the Samsung Q990 series can be found at great prices.

On FB marketplace, look for a Sony HT-A5000. Then, as budget allowed, add the SW3 or SW5 sub, and then the RS5 rears (not the RS3).

How big is your room? And do you value dual subs in your configuration? I have the A7000 with RS5's and a dual setup with the SW5 and a basic Klipsch 10" sub. It's insane. I have no issues with the height "channels", and it sounds so enveloping that my wife and one of my adult kids asked where my "side" speakers were (great phantom presence on the left and right side between the soundbar and the RS5's). The main reason I didn't look harder at the new Bravia Quads is because of the A7000's (and A5000) ability to use 3rd party dual subs. It changed everything. I also have the A5000 and smaller SW3 in my smaller sunroom and I found that I didn't need the RS3's for rear surround because the 360 spatial of the soundbar alone was enough for the space / so I returned them) I can share more details about my experience if interested.

Atmos from a soundbar is mostly about the sound bubble. It's never gonna be technicly accurate - so you can have a pretty good experience if you have the right expectations up front. (1) the quads are made for less than perfect placement, so that would be a place to start. (2) the Q990 series allow you to also set up the surround speakers up front, which might be great for your room (I have an HT-A500 with no rears in a small sunroom and the SSM "bounces" the sound around enough to give me that nice sound bubble). (3) don't go Sonos - and the 300's disable the front firing speaker during surround mode - it's very odd. And super expensive for what it does

I just bought Sony ST A5000 from costco. It's on sale for approximately $450. You also get an additional 20% off on other sony speakers buying directly from Sony. I'm thinking of getting subs and rear speakers. Hope they go on sale during black friday.

I have a Sony hta5000 and Sonos arc which both kick ass. Highly recommend both. Prefer the Sonos to the Sony but you can’t go wrong with either. A Sonos beam gen 2 is a good, cheaper option to the arc as well.

Sony Sound Bar is amazing. You can get the A5000 for $700 right now. I’m bout to upgrade to Bravia 9 Also Sony sound bar have a button for “Voice”. So it’s super clear during any scene. Totally worth it You go cheap you sleep!

I tried the Bose Smart Ultra and Sony HT-A5000. HT-A5000 sound was bad. Bose Smart ultra sound awesome in Dolby Atmos content but on normal viewing it was too artificial and in music also too artificial. Has someone an alternative? Should I try the Theatre Bar 9? I can get it for 1050€.

Sony A5000 sounds really good for both to me by itself. And I bought the sub and rears later got the whole setup under 1000 open box buys. Sounds amazing with everything.

I have the Sony Ht A5000 with SW3 and RS3S and I really like it. Got everything for less than 800 bought separately open box. Great system for a wide variety of sounds(voice, movies, music etc). Haven’t tried ACS yet. Very happy with the system.

The A5000 would be plenty it’s awesome just by itself and you can add on sub and rears later for not too much more money. You have options as well for the add ons.

I’ve really loved my Sony HT-A7000 as a standalone bar (though I do plan on upgrading to include the separate sub and rears in the future). From what I’ve seen the smaller HT-A5000 is also quite good. Sony has released some new bars in the lineup but I haven’t seen much on those, the A5/7000 seem to be still very much relevant and you can probably pick them up at a discount now

i haev the a5000, but yeah if you can id skip the bars and go straight for the hta9 like this guy said. Make sure you get the sub as well

The Sony ht a5000 soundbar is excellent .. Got a new one for $200 on eBay. Not open box, new . They were $699 but have been superseded by the Bravia 8 ( also called 8000) soundbar for $699. R*tings rated the 5000 higher than the 8000

Typically, lower priced soundbars don’t really get the features like dialogue enhancements… not to say it’s muddy but it maybe not be balanced and loud. I currently use the SONY HT-A5000 soundbar with RS5 rear speakers and SW5 subwoofer and while yes it is pricey… I have no complaints.

Costco has the Sony HT-A5000 for 500 and you can add a 300 or 500 dollar sub. I went with the 500 one off Amazon. The sale ends Nov 17 at Costco. I paired up with my Sony 85

I tried it 1 day by itself and orders 2 day ship Amazon for the subwoofer, adds more warm sound. Must tune your specific liking

Just picked up the Sony HTA5000 on sale til Nov 17 for 450+ tax . Added the SW5 and its good for the cost and my usage

Depends on your budget. I have a Sony 85 tv and got the Sony sound bar at Costco. Sale ends Nov 17. It was 500 for the A5000 model. Then I paired it with an optional subwoofer for 500. Reason is 1K was my budget and I am able to use 1 remote and it sounds real good after tuning. I mainly watch sport and some tv shows so it's good setup for me.

There's a Sony coupon in there for 100 off accessory from Sony but you gotta register and wait for them to approve and send the code so you can add rear speakers or subwoofer. Some say the smaller one hits but the big one I got is 360 wave or whatever. I just bought it instead of waiting for the code. If you do get it I'll try to find the vid that showed me to fine tune the settings. Out of the box I had the volume at 50-60, afterwards it's like 30-40 and made a big difference

A5000 is a better buy than a7000. Stay away from Sonos, full stop.

Unopened A5000 for 900 CAD. It won't go any lower than that since this is already clearance pricing. U maybe able to get cheaper prices if it's an open box or maybe kijiji or FB marketplace.

U have spent this much money on a TV, deciding to cheap out on audio is kinda ridiculous. That TV demands an equal, not an after thought. The Sony Quad, Sony a5000/7000, Sennheiser Ambeo would be good companion to this kind of caliber.

That'll do.

Bose for simplicity and ease of use. Sonos is decent but the software side right now is a complete crap show and unreliable. For me it would be either Sony A5000/A7000 or Sennheiser Ambeo Plus or Ambeo Max. For the money, Sony has the upper hand as long as the soundbar is calibrated properly.

A5000 is not bad. It just needs to be properly calibrated. But for simplicity and ease of use, Bose Ultra.

I'm a big fan of Andrew, and I'm sure the Quad is miles better than Bar 9, but as with everything else... don't just listen to one guy's proffesional opinion. Try to get a bird's eye view of things and make your own decision after. I am also owner of the flagship Sony A series soundbar. And while I did appreciate Andrew's written review of the A7000, in my view it don't mean that the A7000 is shit. But I think the problem with Sony is that they are really bad at communicating on how you properly calibrate this thing. I agree that if you just plug, turn on the soundbar and perform the sound optimization rightaway, the sound it produces is shit. But, if properly calibrated... it's pretty darn good.

Avoid the Bar series, way overpriced. Get either a5000 or a7000.

I think the recently discontinued HT-A5000 would give you a lot of bang for your buck since they’re now discounted.

I had one and liked it. It was paired with the SW3 subwoofer and the RS5 rear speakers, and the combination of those gave me nice surround sound. I ended up replacing it with the Theatre Bar 9, which has the additional advantage of side-firing drivers. I'm not sure that makes all that much difference. The main advantage of the Theatre Bar 9 is that you get louder sound out of the rear speakers. With the 5000 I had to turn them all the way up to get what I considered adequate sound out of them, which isn't necessary with the Bar 9. That being said, with the rears turned up all the way I felt it was a good system, more than adequate for my needs.

HT-A5000 has a great Voice Mode, I just bought one and a 55 Bravia 8 tv... super clear (I'm hard of hearing and with voice mode on it makes a huge difference with dialog). I have a medium large room, and it easily fills the room so much that my dog goes outside and my wife gives me the look, especially when I play music.... it just sounds great.

I use Sony Ht - A5000 plus 2 rare speakers SA RS3S. Good thing about this soundbar you are not necessarily need rare speakers and subwoofer to have a decent sound which will save you money

I can confirm it’s very good sound bar , and if you don’t have a big room just soundbar maybe will be enough for you.

I think the biggest point is if you want a soundbar because you don't want, or aren't able to have surrounds around your room. If you can do surround speakers, options open up a lot. If you don't want that, the Ambeo Max with an SVS Sub is hands down better than any other soundbar without external speakers, and it's not even close. Sony's are trash in comparison. I tried the A5000, and A7000, with the SA-SW5 300W Sub, The LG SP9YA... I never tried Sonos, but a Sonos dealer listened to my Ambeo/SVS sub after installing my TV and was blown away how much better it was.

Sony HT-A5000 at Costco for $500. You can add a subwoofer later if you think you need it. You can also add rear speakers later if you change your mind.

I bought mine in January in store. Regularly $800, on sale for $500 (and it seems like it is on sale all the time). I haven't looked at the store for a while, so maybe it's up to $550? Or $550 is just the online price. Not sure.

I have this exact combo and it’s incredible. The SW5 has the best bass I’ve ever heard from a sound bar system. Then in the future you can always upgrade to the Bar 9 and keep the SW5 and RS5s. That’s my plan

100% I'm voting the Klipsch. Sony just doesn't sound good to me & they're too expensive for the performance in my opinion. & Sonos is just a disaster right now so I can't recommend Sonos to anyone. But the Flexus system is a fantastic system. 2 4" Subwoofers that hit quite well, & it just ROCKS. And the Sub 100 is a mean subwoofer!

Room calibration doesn't make or break sound staging. I can't exactly speak on the A5000 but I can speak on the S2000. To me, all Sony soundbars are underperformers. Yea they might do DSP work better but if it doesn't sound good overall then that's a deal breaker for me. And Sony is delivering systems that are nowhere near my expectations of them. I think they're starting to get better & closer to my expectations with the Bravia bars, but I've only heard a demo before. The S2000 is their "entry level" bar that some reason can apparently get louder than the A3000-5000-& 7000 (according to rTings.com with SPL readings). And I won't lie it does get quite loud, but it definitely does NOT sound good at high volumes without doing a decent amount of EQ tweaking on my phone. Also that SW5 is the biggest joke of a "flagship" subwoofer I've ever seen. I had an old Sony 5.1 AV unit with a single 8" subwoofer and let me tell you, it was so much better than this SW5, Like twice the performance at about the same size. Hell I honestly can't personally even recommend Sony until they release new subwoofers cause these subs are just ass. The Sonos Mini Sub was legitimately half the size, sounded 10x better & honestly can probably get louder too. I had the Sonos Mini Sub literally sitting on top of the SW5 & honestly I think it might be able to sit 2 mini's on top of the SW5. My Klipsch Flexus on the other hand, entirely different animal. Has been one of my absolute favorite systems along with the Q800B & Sonos Arc + Sub Mini as close runner ups. EDM & especially guitars have an incredible richness to them on this Flexus system that the Q800B & Sonos Arc just don't come close to. And if I'm honest I think this bar has an incredible soundstage. I was watching something the other day and something was happening to the left off screen & it was madly impressive how much I actually thought there seemed to be a whole separate speaker actually making the sound instead of the bar. Also choice of a 10" or 12" subwoofer, & choice to run 2 of them if needed. I have a single 10" (Sub 100) and its definitely a subwoofer that really means business.

For listening to low volume I would recommend you to go for an all in one sound bar. Because the systems with dedicated sub will require you to crank up the volume to get the sub going. So my recommendation is go for all in one sound bar where you can add rear speakers later on to experience surround sound. And in future if you move to bigger place then you can add the sub as well. For all in one either go for sonos Arc/beam or sony’s new bravia theatre bars or if you can get good discount on previous models like A5000/7000

Far from every soundbar supports this, but there are a few that does. Around the $500-mark, there is the Bose 600. The Sony HT-A5000/7000 also supports subwoofers via RCA cable. The whole point of soundbars is ease of use, and not the ability to customize it to your liking (that’s what proper surround setups are for), so this combination of soundbar without included sub, capable of being paired with a 3rd party sub, is rather rare. However, as I said you have a few options! If you find a standalond soundbar, just Google the outputs and see if it had a sub-out. Good luck with your project! :)

HT-A5000 / 7000 with SW3 / 5. I originally got the Samsung Q series, but it didn’t play nice with my A95L.

You could look at sennheiser ambeo mini but the sonos beam is probably better. The sony ht-a5000/ht-a7000 are going to be way better than ht-s2000 and depending on your usage; you may prefer them over the sonos beam.