Sony HTX8500 2.1ch Dolby Atmos Soundbar

Potential to be loud

Our both our surround sound theater and our TV have “aged out”, the equipment is fine, but the software cannot upgrade any longer, as the chips are too old and no longer supported by our streaming subscriptions. Therefore neither can work as our streaming source with our TV 😫. Since the industry is “stuck” with the chip shortages yada yada, it is not a good time to be replacing the entire system, so we need to limp along until the industry gets their act together. A new Roku box solved the streaming issue, but it won’t send the sound through to the theater – again, age-compatibility issues – so, we needed something better for sound than the TV sound, which is pretty awful. The “promises” for sound bars is that they produce Surround Sound, without the wires and speakers everywhere, so this seemed a reasonable priced option to test that claim, and to get us by until the new system we plan to purchase is available.

This came as expected, easy to install, and works. On installation, it claims that you only need the HDMI it comes with if you have an ARC HDMI on the TV. Ours did not work that way, possibly because the Roku is a separate box. If you have built in streaming on the TV, it may work, but with our configuration, even with the ARC port on the TV, it was necessary to install both the HDMI and the optic cable from the TV and HDMI from the Roku box to the speaker to get the streaming sound to the speaker. Since this only came with 1 HDMI cable, we needed to obtain an additional HDMI and an optic cable to make this work, but this configuration was shown in the instructions, and once we acquired the additional cables, it works as promised.

The sound is better than the TV sound, specifically, with the TV, speech was difficult to hear and understand speech at low levels, but when we turned the sound up enough to hear the speech, the background sound was unbearably loud. The sound bar fixed that. We were able to tinker with the sound settings and now we can hear the speech without going deaf from the background sound, Yea!

Is it surround sound? No. Not even close. If you are sitting VERY close, it tries, but in a normal living room setting, if you are used to 5-1 or 7-1/2 surround sound, you will be disappointed if you expect the same from this sound bar. I did not really expect that it would, so I am happy with this. It is better than the TV sound, and provides additional control for custom sound settings that the TV alone did not have, so it is a step up, which is a realistic expectation. I would buy this again.

I have a Sony Bravia TV and the built-in speakers are pretty poor. This sound bar makes a huge difference. Conversations are clearer and sound in general is enhanced nicely.

If you’re going to spend the money on this, I highly recommend just throwing down $1000 for the higher end version. This is okay, but it’s nothing special, and will just make you wish you’d spent more money on something higher end.

Music on this sounds totally mindblowingly spectacular, but voices don’t, which is a big problem for an audio device that you’re hooking up to a TV. Whenever a scene comes on that’s mainly sound effects and music, then this thing really shines and impresses me, but when people start talking then it often disappoints. It’s better than my TV’s speakers for sure, but voices are sometimes less muddy (though lower quality overall) on my TV’s speakers. A big problem is that there are only three bass settings, and the bass is what makes the voices muddy, so you either end up having a little too much bass with voices slightly muddy, or too little bass.

The controller and integration with a Sony brand TV also leave a lot to be desired. I have a Sony TV, so you’d think there would be some nice integration, but there’s not. For example, when you turn the volume up or down, it doesn’t show the volume on the TV, only on the sound bar. The sound bar’s whole interface leaves a lot to be desired. There are like 5 LEDs that they use to display everything (including volume), which tends to be confusing. You’d think with a Sony TV at least that the TV would display the settings instead, or at least the volume, but no such luck. You’re stuck with the confusing LEDs.

The fact that it comes with a remote at all is slightly annoying; the last thing I need is another remote. The controls have a lot of complex options and functionality. There are different options you can cycle through by holding a button down instead of pressing it and vice versa. It has a bunch of presets, stuff that specific to certain kinds of content, all sorts of options. You’d think that would be good, but it often just ends up being confusing and unnecessary. The default options are probably the best (which is probably why they made it the default), and you can spend hours cycling through the other options just to find stuff that isn’t as good as the default. The whole interface and remote are needlessly complex and confusing. I would have actually preferred if you just plugged the sound bar in and there were no options, remote, or confusing LEDs.

The vertical surround sound and other surround sound stuff it does is pretty cool when you’re listening to music, but the moment it switches to voices you’re going to wish you’d spent more money for the higher end version. The surround sound does seem to surround when music is playing, but when voices are playing then it often feels like a slightly smaller sound stage than my TV’s built in speakers. The surround sound stuff seems to occasionally slightly distort voices as well, but like the muddy voices it’s often transient. This thing definitely shows off how cool it could be if you’d spent more money.

Overall, this might make a nice gift for a friend or family member (or a child) who isn’t an audiophile or who has an old TV, but I’d highly, highly recommend just spending $1000 instead if you’re going to buy a sound bar for yourself. It’s just kinda not worth it at this price point. It does look beautiful though, I’ll give it that, and when music is playing it’s totally spectacular. It is overall better than my TV’s built in speakers, but the occasional muddy or distorted voices bother me.

When i first hooked up this soundbar, i felt a little intimidated because i had grown so used to the HT-100F, which is a 2 channel soundbar, that the heavier base and enveloping sound field felt surreal, but i quickly grew accustomed to it and I am very pleased with it. ATMOS sounds great. It requires a little more set up to get used to the control so make sure you read the instructions, but it is a noticeable improvement over my previous soundbar, which i still recommend by the way. This is a good step up one piece solution. If i could change one thing it would be to have the power supply on the inside rather than the outside, but otherwise i am pleased.

Very satisfied with the sound quality. Sounds great. love the extra base. It is a whole new experience to watch a movie and hear things that you normally wouldn’t.

Great value!! LOVE it!