It's always funny to see people talk about reviews but they don't even understand >90% of them are nothing more than outsourced marketing content and not actual reviews, particularly in the A/V space. That someone as blatantly a marketer as A Robinson is considered a trustworthy reviewer is that much more amusing (and sad). Does it not raise any alarm bells when the guy says with a straight face that those puny speakers count as 2 (4.0.4) when it's already well established how sub-par even separate upfiring atmos speakers are? Just lol. Another tell tale sign of a bullsnicker when it comes to any atmos reviews is when they say things like "I can hear things I never heard before and it sounds like that's what was og intended" - but have they actually played the content on an actual atmos system and isolated just the atmos sounds? Of course not, but they want to believe it so they allow themselves to hallucinate the details & then pass it on as factual. (here's some tests like that if you don't know what I mean:
https://youtu.be/Nx4vve3UGUg?t=363)
The issues I see with the HT A9 are typical ones you'd get with soundbar systems in general, namely that it only makes sense from a style/convenience standpoint. The audio quality/price is absolutely awful.
When it comes to native Atmos content the problem is that the actual source material itself is trash for it (i.e. the dedicated atmos sounds are very lacklustre or outright missing) and if you want to fake it, i.e. upmix it through the AVR then it's down to having a very high-end AVR and/or using Auro 3D (which makes it even more expensive). That's if you shell out for the actual blu-rays to begin with, if we're talking streaming then it's an even bigger mess and even less worthwhile. Furthermore if you don't have in-ceilings then the quality of the experience is yet FURTHER degraded, and of course most movies/shows don't have much more than a 5.1 mix usually, particularly going back before ~2016.
So then if you leave out the "atmos factor" of the HT A9 because as stated above it's mostly a placebo and not anything of real quality, and even if it were the content for it is not really there that much, then all you're left with are 4 lousy speakers (+ the media box) that don't come anywhere near the audio quality of a set of separates even half the cost of the HT A9.
Truthfully even the style/convenience point doesn't make much sense because you could actually find better designs from some soundbars if you really care about your interior décor that much.
Imo people should ask themselves if they really know how much Atmos brings to the table before jumping in, and then to figure out how much of that they get with something like this Sony. I think for most people considering this they'd actually be much better off with just a decent 5.1 dedicated system. If I had to buy something that gave great value now I'd first look at something like...
- Wharfedale Diamond 12.0 (x4) -> £400
- Wharfedale Diamond 12.C -> £229
- BK P12-300SB-DF -> £415
- Denon AVR-S660H -> £499 (though truth be told here you can find something much cheaper SH, being "only" 5.1 gives you a lot of options)
If you wanted to you could optimise that further but I'd have no issues recommending that setup to anyone right off the bat and I think you'd get a much better experience from it than the HT A9. I think what it is really is that these kind of products like the A9 are for people who just want to go into the store & pick something up and not think about it too much. It's all about convenience.
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.
