Sony HT-X8500 2.1 ch Dolby Atmos Soundbar for TV with built-in subwoofer

Having just come from a sonos beam I expected this to sound worse, it didn't!Firstly, why did I get rid of the beam you may ask? Fabric speaker cover (not good with a 4yr old in the house), lack of Bluetooth and fairly direct and tight sound stage. It was great but really is designed to be incorporated in to the sonos ecosystem to thrive.On to the Sony.Firstly, reviews complaining of muddy dialogue are being very picky. They are muddled if you use Bluetooth, but via eArc they are excellent. On regular TV shows they are spot on, in movies they cut through well. Nothing to worry about there imo. Ours is connected to a Sony TV so I'm guessing that helps too.Moving in to the cinematic feel.This is where this little bar shines. It produces a much broader sound stage than it should, it's shocking really. I have a very expensive Samsung 5.1 soundbar setup in our games room and this sony doesn't punch way way lower. It's less complicated in its output and less nuanced, but for a living room tv I think it delivers exactly what you want. Broad, spacious, weighty (without being overwhelming), and relatively 3d. I have yet to hear a true atmos track through it, but the vertical sound processing is pretty good. Not surround sound whatsoever, but more like an imax screen of sound if that makes sense? It comes up and over and side to side a touch.It does a great service to music too, the music button giving a great curve to the sound model, with crisp highs and a full base. The Bluetooth feature may be slightly outdated compared to WiFi streaming like sonos, but it's a really practical option to have. If you have friends round they can connect and play their music for example.It looks great and it fulfills a need of ours if being tough, as it has a metal grille. This may hamper the sound a bit but it keeps it safe to some extent from jammy fingers. Unlike the sonos which picked up anything that wafted by.The downside, of which is well reported is the horrible LED interface. To confirm selection of modes it goes through a crazy combination display of this light and that light etc etc. Impossible to remember and impossible to decide just by looking at it (bar a few things like input selection). It's placement isn't an issue to me, I've seen people complain that being on the top you can't see it, but what it's trying to achieve is madness. A 2 character lcd would have been 1000x better and would be just about the only thing I would change.I think they figured it looked minimal and slick, which it does, but without any app interface available it means deep diving in to the options is a test of memory and code deciphering. Thankfully I find I onky need two modes (cinema and music) and a single press on the remote does the job.In conclusion, it's a great sounding and looking bar, with plenty of merit for TV, cinema and music but with the worst interface imaginable.

I bought a Sony tv in April, the picture quality is excellent and to be fair, the sound is ok. I wasn't expecting it to be good at all but it was average and definitely better than I had expected for a flat screen tv. I watched a lot of scifi series and movies on the tv and although the sound was tolerable you could hear that something was missing. I decided to go for a soundbar and spent a lot of time reading reviews and watching youtube videos. I was keen to get one with dedicated subwoofers as it was the bass which I knew was missing from my tv and there are other soundbars around the same price or cheaper which do not have subwoofers and I was concerned the sound reproduction would be comparable to my tv. Despite a few negative reviews for this product I decided to go for it as Sony has never let me down before. Words cannot express how pleased I am. The sound quality coming out of this soundbar is superb. You hear everything clearly and perfectly and it all sounds natural. I deliberately left it a month before I wrote a review so I could thoroughly test it. have watch Lord of the Rings on it, Band of Brothers and many other tv series and films with helicopters, cars, planes, explosions and whatever else you can think of. It is fantastic and to be honest I couldn't do without it now that I have got used to it. The bar was set high because I have got a £2000 Bose system downstairs which is out of this world so I was used to a certain quality of sound and expected things to sound a certain way on the tv series I watch regularly. Despite the specs and advertising, I wouldn't be under any illusions that this offers any kind of surround sound. This is just a very very good stereo soundbar which will play dolby atmos encoded audio streams and is perfect for bedrooms. For what it offers I think it is superb for the price (£250) and I would happily have paid around £400 if I knew it was going to be this good. I can't recommend it enough.

Well, let me start by explaining that what I was looking for purchasing this product was a big improvement over the incredibly tinny sound from my flat-screen TV and this product certainly offers that. I researched and auditioned a few and hadn’t actually heard this one before I eventually plumped for it but I have always held Sony products in fairly high regard so eventually bit the bullet and bought it - safe in the knowledge that I could return it if I wasn’t really satisfied. I ended up not disappointed.A couple of things to note on the ‘selling points’. The fact that it has a ‘built-in subwoofer’ is appealing to people, like me’ with a tiny room but the term ‘subwoofer’ is stretching it a little, especially if you’ve ever heard a good surround system with a subwoofer. Trust me, this unit isn’t going to be shaking any shelves off the walls during movie explosions but is none too shabby for a slimline unit and almost certainly better than what’s in your TV. The other claim which, to be fair, is verging on fraudulent misrepresentation is that of “vertical sound dispersion”. Engaging it makes almost no audible worthwhile difference whatsoever. It actually spoils the sound IMHO.The above quibbles aside, however, I should caveat them by saying that, as I stated previously, what I was looking for was a discreet, well-built sound bar (the build quality and solidity is superb BTW) that would massively surpass and improve on the in-built sound of my Sony TV, integrate with it well through a single remote and look smart in my sitting room for what I consider a reasonable price point of £350 and for that it ticks all the boxes. If that’s what you’re after I would definitely recommend it. If you’re expecting a full surround system with a bone-shaking subwoofer that will bounce sound off the ceilings and all around you then you may well end up disappointed.