Sony HT-A7000

FIRST TESTS

EXCLUSIVE, IN-DEPTH VERDICTS ON THE LATEST KIT

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Soundbar | £1199 whf.cm/HT-A7000

“So effective and transparent is the performance of the wide tweeters that we repeatedly check there isn’t a speaker immediately to our side”

At the top end of the soundbar market, there are two schools of thought. The first is that costlier models warrant additional speakers for enhanced bass and surround performance. The second is that a single, high-quality soundbar should be able to deliver excellent treble clarity, bass and a room-filling sound competently on its own – with extra boxes available (though not necessary) to suit the taste, homes and pockets of the buyer.

The Sony HT-A7000 falls firmly into the latter camp. This 7.1.2 slab of sound packs two upwards-firing speakers, two beam tweeters, five front-facing drivers and a built-in dual subwoofer into a single chassis.

And it’s an approach that appeals. After all, isn’t the point of a soundbar that it delivers cinematic audio without the need for lots of speakers? Of course, we also understand that low frequencies are most faithfully reproduced by larger drivers and that reflected surround sound is no