McCarthy, executive vice president of Post Production Facilities at Sony Pictures Studios, and audio engineers Bill Banyai and Edward Hernandez.Īt 40.63 inches wide, the HT-ST5 is a couple of inches smaller than the HT-ST7. For this project, participants included Tom C. Sony likes to emphasize that personnel from the company’s motion picture unit contribute to the voicing of their soundbars. Most of the lower-end bars have a simpler, flatter enclosure than the pricier soundbars, which feature Sony’s distinctive “Sense of Quartz” styling, with its geometrically intriguing shapes. In addition to the 7.1-channel HT-ST7 and HT-ST5, the Sony soundbar line includes three considerably less expensive 2.1-channel models: the HT-CT770 ($450) and HT-CT370 ($350). Does it measure up to its distinguished predecessor? Now comes the HT-ST5, with a price tag about 300 bucks lower. I gave Sony’s flagship bar, the HT-ST7 ($1,299), a five-star performance rating, which means that relative to most other soundbars I’ve auditioned, the HT-ST7 is the top of the pops. Sony is among the companies making well-above-average soundbars, at the top of their line, at least. And some bars do sound better than others. But a big part of the home theater audience wants a more convenient audio-for-video solution, especially for secondary systems. Sure, I still love orthodox speakers and receivers, and I review as many as I can. Even so, step by step, I have committed myself to the conceptual principles underlying soundbars: audio-for-video, compactness, minimal footprint, maybe a little surround magic, and user-friendliness, that last item being glaringly absent from AV receivers. Soundbars weren’t even on the horizon then. When I signed up for audio-critic duty in the late 1980s, about a decade into my tech-journalism career, I envisioned a glamorous world of gleaming waxed wood-veneered speakers, precocious multitalented receivers, and dressed-to-kill home theaters designed by Theo Kalomirakis.
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