Home Theater Geeks 524: Sony 2026 Product Announcements

In this episode of Home Theater Geeks, I talk about Sony's 2026 audio and video product

announcements. So stick around. Podcasts you love.

From people you trust. This is Twig.

Hey there, Scott Wilkinson here, the Home Theater Geek. In this episode, I'm going to talk about

Sony's 2026 audio and video product announcements. Now, unlike most companies,

Sony no longer announces their new products at CES in January. Instead, they wait until the spring

and they announce their products at that time with online briefings, sometimes in-person briefings.

In this case for me, anyway, it was an online briefing and they show you a PowerPoint and they

tell you all about the new products. So that's what I get to tell you about.

Now, most of the announcements this year were for audio products, but there was one new TV.

So I'll tell you about that at the end. So first up is a new addition to what Sony calls

the AA series or the premium line of sound bars. And it's the Bravia Theater 7.

It has the official model number of HTA 7100. And it joins the bar 8 and bar 9.

They're all roughly the same. They have different numbers of drivers and they're of different sizes,

but they're just different variations on a theme, shall we say.

So the bar 7 has nine drivers, including two woofers, two tweeters, a center channel driver,

two side firing drivers, and two up firing drivers for Atmos.

And it also has four passive radiators, which is meant to improve the base performance.

Now, the left and right front channels are actually two way speakers, if you will,

that each have a woofer and a tweeter. The center channel is a single driver,

and it looks like it's maybe the same driver or similar anyway to the side firing

drivers and the up firing Atmos drivers. And so all of that gives you a pretty nice

spatial immersive type sound field. Now, just for comparison, the bar 8 has 11 drivers. We're talking

9 here in the 7. The 8 has 11 drivers. The 9 has 13 drivers. And those two upper and models are

a little bit bigger than the bar 7. So the bar 7 implements Sony's 360 spatial sound mapping

and sound field optimization. And it gives you really a more immersive

sound field with what are called phantom speakers, which they illustrate here with a nice little

diagram. And I've heard examples of this in the past. I haven't heard this particular product,

but I've heard examples of it in the past. And it's pretty effective. Works pretty well.

Now, the MSRP for the bar 7 is $870. By the way, all the prices I'm going to give you today

Sony specifies them as one penny less. So the actual MSRP of the bar 7 is $869.99. Well,

I really hate that. And for my entire career as a journalist, I have rounded it up. When they

give me a price like that, I rounded up a penny to make it much nicer. So I'm going to say 870

bucks list price for the bar 7. Now, the next product category that they announced some new

items in are subwoofers. And they announced three new wireless subwoofers that you can add to

the theater bars to this new bar 7 and the bar 8 and 9. And they are the Bravia Theater sub 7,

which has an official model number of SA SW7, the sub 8 and the sub 9 with corresponding

official model numbers. But that's what they call them. Now, these replace the there are two subwoofers

in 2025, the SW3 and SW5. Now, the sub 7 has a 5 and an 8 inch driver in a ported cabinet.

And the pictures I'm going to show you are what are called x-ray renderings. So they you can sort

of see into what they look like. You saw some of that with the bar 7 as well. So the sub 7 has a

5 and an 8 inch driver. The sub 8 has a 7 and 7 inch 7 and 7 eighths inch driver say that five times

fast. And the sub 9 has dual 7 and 7 eighth inch drivers in an opposing configuration. So that's

kind of cool. Now, Sony doesn't reveal specs like frequency response. So I don't know how low they

go. I would assume that the the seven goes down a certain way as the eighth goes lower and the

nine goes even lower. Now, all three of these can be positioned in one of two ways. You can either

position it up flat up against the wall with the port aiming sideways or perpendicular to the wall

with the port aiming straight out. You can also use them in a dual sub configuration with these

with the sound bar, the new bar 7 as well as the other theater bars. And you can do it also,

you can use these are wireless by the way. I should say wireless subwoofers that connect to the

sound bars wirelessly and you can do you can use two of them, which I always recommend if you can

afford it and you have the space for it because it helps to tame room modes if you place them

judiciously. You can also use dual wireless subwoofers two of these new ones with several Sony AV

receivers such as the STR AZ 7000 ES, AZ 5000 ES, AZ 3000 ES, AZ 1000 ES and the AN 1000.

So that's a nice feature. I like that quite a bit.

So MSRP's, the sub 7 is 330 bucks, sub 8 is 500 bucks and the sub 9 is 900 bucks.

Now interestingly the bar 7, which I talked about a little earlier, can be purchased in a bundle

with the sub 7. And so that would give you a that would give you the extra space frequencies

with that sound bar. And that bundle is has an MSRP of 1100 bucks, which is a hundred dollars off

the combined MSRP of the two products separately.

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Also announced from Sony is a new rear or I should say surround satellite speaker.

It's called the Bravia theater rear nine official model numbers S-A-R-S-9.

And it replaces the RS-5. Whereas the rear eight remains in the line. But as you'll see I'm

going to recommend if you're going to spend money on on these wireless surround satellites,

the rear nine is really going to be worthwhile. The rear nine has three aluminum drivers and two

passive radiators. The front firing portion of the speaker is a two-way design with a 80-millimeter

woofer and a 16-millimeter tweeter. There's also an 80-millimeter up-firing driver for reflective

atmos. So that's cool. The rear eight does not have up-firing drivers or passive radiators and

its diaphragms are made of paper instead of aluminum. So Sony's claiming higher quality there.

And they also make a wireless connection to the sound bar just like the subs. However,

you do have to plug them into the wall because they are amplified.

Another interesting side light here is that you can get new wall mount brackets which swivel

over an angle of 60 degrees. You can also place them on a tabletop or a regular stand. But I like

that wall mount where you can aim them where they need to go. The rear nine also works with the

Bravia Connect app for easy setup and operation. And it can be controlled directly from a Bravia TV.

So that integrates things nicely if you stay within the Sony ecosystem.

So how much? MSRP is $800 a pair as opposed to the rear eight which is only 450.

So you're spending almost twice as much, but you're getting a lot more for it.

And if you can afford it, I'm thinking that's going to be worthwhile.

Finally, in the sound bar category, they've also added something new to the S series,

which is what Sony calls the foundation model rather than entry level. They don't use the word

entry level, but foundation. Okay, I accept that. The Bravia Theater Bar 5 with an official

model number of HTB 500 replaces the S 400. And it's a package that comes with the sound bar and

a dedicated subwoofer, which is not one of the new models. It's specific to the bar 5.

So the system is 3.1 with a dedicated center channel and a right and a left. And then the subwoofer is

the 0.1. And the bar 5 also uses Sony immersive virtualization, shall we say, called S force pro

and vertical surround engine, which simulates the effect of height.

And there's also a nice feature called voice zoom, which lets you adjust the level of the

dialogue separate from other elements of the soundtrack, which is always a really big problem

for a lot of people, because they can't hear what's being said. Almost the most important part of

it of anything in a movie or a TV show. It also supports Dolby Atmos and DTSX, even though you

can't add surround speakers or anything to it, if this immersive virtualization technology does

give you a nice immersive sound field. You can also control it from a Bravia TV or the Bravia

Connect app. MSRP is really nice, 350 bucks for a 3.1 system with a sound bar and a subwoofer.

How well does it perform? I don't really know, but for it's certain I have no doubt it's better

than the TV sound. Okay, they announced one new model of television in their foundational line,

not in their premium line. And it's the Bravia 3 Mark 2, which is an upgrade from the Bravia 3

from 2024. It's an LED backlit LCD TV, as you would expect from the foundational line.

The Bravia 3 had no local dimming, so I tend to doubt that this one does too, although we were not

informed of this and my question about that, I'm still waiting for a response. So I'm going to

assume not, and if it is, sorry Sony, it does have a number of significant upgrades from the

Bravia 3 that I have to mention. Upgraded processing for sure, XR processor, XR tri-luminous color,

tri-luminous pro, I should say, XR clear image processing of upscaling and reducing noise and

chaggies, as well as motion blur reduction. So those are all processors from the premium lines

of Sony TVs. It's now migrated down into the Bravia 3, which is great. And they claim up to 25%

brighter picture than the Bravia 3. Also really good.

Also really good is a native 120 Hertz panel. The Bravia 3's refresh rate, native refresh rate,

is 60 Hertz. So that's a big improvement right there. And it has four HDMI 2.1 inputs.

The Bravia 3 is, uh, implements HDMI 2.0. So there's more gaming capability in the new set,

such as 4K 120, variable refresh rate, VRR, and ERC. So that's a pretty big improvement right there as

well. Sony claims that the Bravia 3 Mark 2 is perfect for PlayStation 5. It has HDR tone

mapping, auto HDR tone mapping, auto genre picture mode selection. So when you turn on a PlayStation 5,

it switches to game mode. And when you go back to movies, it switches back to standard mode.

I hope there's a way to set it so that it'll switch back to cinema mode or to your custom

calibration mode. Although a TV at this level, you're probably not going to get custom calibrated.

So I would just pick cinema mode. You can even stream PS5 or PS4 games from another location,

another room in your house or something like that. It also has a dedicated game menu. So that's

pretty cool. If you're a gamer. Now it's a Google TV smart platform. And it's the first Sony

to incorporate Gemini AI. So that can help you search for content or even ask questions about

the content. I don't know if you've played around much with AI, but it can be pretty useful

if you're a little wary of the results and take it with a grain of salt. You'll be able to ask

Gemini just about anything about anything on the Sony TV. So this just illustrates how much AI

is being incorporated into the products we use every day.

It has live TV streaming with over 800 channels, 10,000 apps, and curated content with individual

profiles that you can set up in the TV. And you can update the watch list from anywhere.

It also of course implements voice commands, smart home control,

stuff like that. So it's pretty cool. So what about the MSRP? It comes in a wide range of sizes

from 43 inches up to 100 inches. That's a big TV. So I'll give you the prices.

43 inches at $600, 50 inches at $700, 55 at $800, 65 at $900, 75 at $1200, 85 at $1600,

and the big Whopper 100 inch TV at $3100. Now the Bravia 3 doesn't come in a 100 inch size,

but it comes in all those other sizes. And the prices for the Bravia 3 are

100 to $300 less than these prices I've just mentioned here.

So you're saving a little bit with the Bravia 3, but I think you're getting

well worth the extra money in the Bravia 3.2 with 120 Hertz panel, the upgraded processing,

25% brighter. There's a lot to like about this TV. So I would certainly recommend that you,

if you're shopping for a new TV and the Sony Bravia 3 was in your, in your crosshairs,

I would take a look at the Mark 2 for sure when it ships, which they didn't tell us when it's

going to ship sometime this year, probably not too long from now. So there you have it. Sony's new

audio video products for 2026. Some interesting stuff in there, I think. And if I get a chance,

I'll certainly give them a test run and let you know what I find out.

Now if you have a question for me, send it on along to htg at twitt.tv,

and I'll answer as many as I can right here on the show. And if you have a home theater you're

proud of, send me some pics. We might just put it on the show and might just get you on the show

to talk about it. So I hope you'll do that. Until next time, geek out!