SONY HT-ST7 SOUND BAR SPEAKER GOES ON SALE TODAY

SONY HT-ST7

I wasn't entirely blown away by the gory new dystopian sci-fi movie Elysium, at a screening arranged by Sony in a small cinema at New York's Soho House. But I was quite impressed with the reason Sony invited journalists to watch Matt Damon try to save futuristic Earthlings (and himself). The soundtrack to the movie blasted through the HT-ST7 sound bar speaker that Sony was marketing at the press gathering and that goes on sale today.
The ST7 delivers 7.1-channel surround sound in a sleek looking black bar that you can position in front of your flat panel instead of wiring individual speakers in and around your home theater. Besides the space-saving conveniences, the audio is far superior to the sound that typically emerges from HDTV speakers and more than good enough to play music streamed off a smartphone or tablet, the source of a lot of the tunes folks listen to nowadays.

You may have noticed that the sound bar category represents one of the bright spots in consumer electronics. According to NPD, the sound bar market grew 68% over the 12 months ending in June, with some 3 ½ million units expected to be sold in the U.S. this year.

Just yesterday, Vizio announced a new trio of budget sound bars that are coming soon, including an entry model, the S2920w, that fetches a mere $79.99.

You won't find the new Sony for anywhere near that bargain basement price. The company is playing in the high rent district with the $1299 HT-ST7. Sony is not shying away from the premium price though in pointing out that about 20% of the sound bars sold today exceed $1,000.

What you get for the money is an excellent sounding system that should please most listeners (and viewers), though no sound bar that I've heard bests a home theater set-up with top-notch individual speakers.

To produce the HT-ST7, Sony leaned some on its Hollywood brethren, Academy Award winning sound engineers from Sony Pictures, including Paul Ottosson, who was responsible for the sound in such films as Zero Dark Thirty, The Hurt Locker and Spider-Man 2.
The sound bar has 9 independent speaker drivers and 7 discrete amplifiers. It also has 7 inputs (3 HDMI, 3 digital audio, 1 analog) for connecting it to your TV or for that matter other audio-visual gear.

Bluetooth for streaming music from your smartphone or tablet is supported as well, with a single button for syncing up devices wirelessly. You can also link up compatible devices via NFC. The sound bar incorporates Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio decoder technologies.

If you want the sound bar to be heard but not seen -- and it is by no means an unattractive component--you can dim or turn off the LCD screen on the front that shows off the selected input or volume level. You can also remove the front speaker grill.
There's a lot of competition in the sound bar space. The new Sony stacks up nicely, albeit at a high price.