Sony HT A9 impressions?

KeanuIsLife

KeanuIsLife

KeanuIsLife

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23 Oct 2019
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Going to be looking to upgrade from my tv speakers pretty soon and was looking around at options. The Samsung q950a was up there as my choice but the HT A9s have gotten extremely good reviews so far. Anyone have this or heard it and can recommend? How does it compare to the q950a for the price difference?
Please no home Cinema enthusiasts telling me that all soundbars are rubbish and not to bother, that part of the decision is made up.
Thanks for any responses!
 
melmac said:
Read the thread on the AVSforum, User's have posted up their experiences. You need to buy the subwoofer separate and more expensive sub is the only one to get. I wrote this in another thread but basically, from what I have read so far, is that

The front speakers can't be too close together.
The rear speakers can't be at the side of the listening area,
The Ceilings can't be too high.

The experience is underwhelming if any of those three things are true. However, outside of those, it's pretty versatile about where you put the speakers.

If you move the speakers or add the subwoofer later, you have to run the whole setup again.
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Thanks yeah had a look through that forum.
Those 3 things seem reasonable, when you say cant be at the side of the listening area do you just mean they need to be situated behind you?
Otherwise all of that seems to make sense!
 
melmac said:
Yeah, they need to be behind you. It seems there has to be a little bit of distance between the listening position and the speakers.

I don't know how far back they have to be to be at their best.
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Ah ok that makes sense, I was expecting to have to put them behind me and reasonably spaced apart.
I'm coming from tv speakers so I reckon anything would be a massive upgrade haha
 
XeNoNF50 said:
The few reviews out there look real good and the price looks good vs the alternative of full separates I was looking at (Yamaha amp & Focal Chora dolby atmos system) so think I'll give this a go. I doubt I will be moving until mid November at the earliest though. Hopefully stock will be decent by then. Planning on order it through a good friend who works at Sony (they get 40% discount on everything bar PlayStation).

If it works out to be good but not great it can move to living room and I'll go with my originally intended system.
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That all sounds fair, pretty much same for me minus the 40% discount.....your friend have any more of those discount codes? ;)
I won't be moving until next year sometime probably so impressions would be appreciated :)
 
Simmz said:
£1600 but has no sub so extra £500 or £700 on top if you want those. Reckon end of year though you will be able to pick it all up for £2k or less to match the Sonos package of the arc, sub + rears.
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XeNoNF50 said:
£2150 as a package with the big sub from Sony centre. I think that is reasonable vs separates.
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Yeah agree with both here. With only 1 of us having actually tested this it's very hard to agree or disagree with its value fairly. However reviews and impressions I've read or watched have been universally positive with no one saying it feels too expensive for what it provides. Yes it's a lot but so is sonos and honestly all mid to high end sound system equipment.
I feel like it's at least worth getting to try out and sending it back if it seems underwhelming, but from what people have said I doubt it
 
Simmz said:
If I didn't already have the Sonos arc, rears and sub, then I'd pull the trigger on this myself. However, trying to convince the wife to change it all as isn't even worth the hassle :cry: Hopefully if this kicks off and they iron out some of the bugs I've read on other forums, then further down the line there might be a version 2 with more speakers then I'll look to swap then. Although, still slim chances of extra front channels coming on the Sonos and upfiring rears which would then sway me to add those instead.
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Yeah depending on when I get to move next year it might end up being worth it to wait for a next gen one.....but hopefully I can move before then and get this after a price reduction or 2!
 
XeNoNF50 said:
Reviews seem way better than that. With the cut outs they released a firmware update the other week which seems to have resolved it.

Seems the only TV that works well as a centre is the A90J though.

The real test of how good the phantom centre is will be Tenet lol.

I have one on back order but I am at the back of their queue so will be a few months into next year at the very least until I get mine.
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Damn that long?? Good to hear about the firmware update though, didn't know about that. Has it broadly fixed the issue for people or are others still complaining about the cut outs? Let us know your experiences when you eventually get yours!
 
Simmz said:
I managed to get a proper listen of the system in a normal living room environment. With the update and bug fixes that came, I'm trading my Sonos system in as soon as I can get my hands on it lol! Due to this I emailed a few retailers and a few have said it's on order for them with an ETA of April, so not guaranteed, but fingers crossed.

I don't need the eco system of the Sonos and the wife would go mental with wires, so this is the next best thing. I only tend to watch TV and movies these days anyway, so music isn't a priority and currently upgraded all my storage so ripping all my disks now. With the upgrade also to a Panasonic JZ1500 will be able to get DTS:HD/X as well.

It just feels more like my old 5.1 wired system did if not better and the Atmos bubble is fantastic. Last time I got a demo of it was in a store and the room wasn't setup the best. However, hearing it in a room which is almost identical to mine I have itchy fingers ready for that order button.
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Sounds gooooood I'm either going to get this or the Dali Oberon 5 5.1 speaker package if HT A9 supply is still non existent. Won't be getting this until July at the earliest anyway so hopefully stock is better by then!
 
XeNoNF50 said:
Actually I guess I will know soon. Just called richer sounds they are expecting 15 units to come into their warehouse in the next few days, told me it should be with me within 5-10 working days as I'm 8th in queue.
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Cool as others have said let us know how you find it! It will be interesting to hear if the newest batches have any connectivity issues at all still
 
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