HT-ST5000

Overview

HT-ST5000 is Sony's 2017 Dolby Atmos soundbar. It is 1180 mm wide, 80 mm high and 145 mm deep, comes in black and can be wall-mounted. Sony lists a weight of 18.08 lb (about 8.2 kg) for the bar.

A wireless subwoofer comes in the box. Sony lists it at 9.76 x 15.87 x 16.77 inches (about 248 x 403 x 426 mm) and 31.09 lb (about 14.1 kg). Sony describes coaxial speakers in the bar, with a woofer and tweeter in one unit, and two built-in speakers that bounce sound off the ceiling for Dolby Atmos. Sony's Japanese spec sheet lists 800 W of total amplifier power.

The box also contains an HDMI cable, batteries and booklets. The TV connects over HDMI ARC, and three HDMI inputs take consoles and players. There is also an optical input, an analog input, a USB port, an Ethernet port, Bluetooth (receiver and transmitter, with LDAC, AAC and SBC) and dual-band Wi-Fi.

Over the network, the bar supports Chromecast built-in and Spotify Connect, and works with Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant. You can control it with the buttons on the bar, the remote, or the iOS and Android app.

What the specs mean

• 7.1.2 speaker setup: seven main channels, one subwoofer channel and two height channels. The height channels come from the two speakers that fire up at the ceiling, which is how the bar plays Dolby Atmos and DTS:X with sound from above.
• HDMI ARC, not eARC: the Audio Return Channel sends the TV's sound to the soundbar over the HDMI cable. ARC carries compressed formats such as Dolby Digital; the newer eARC also carries Dolby TrueHD, Dolby Atmos in TrueHD and uncompressed multichannel audio. For those formats, connect the source to one of the bar's HDMI inputs instead of the TV.
• HDMI passthrough: three HDMI inputs pass 4K video with HDR10 to the TV and support HDCP 2.2.
• Audio formats: Dolby Atmos, Dolby Digital Plus, Dolby Digital, Dolby TrueHD, DTS:X, DTS-HD Master Audio, DTS-ES, DTS 96/24, DTS Digital Surround, DTS-HD High Resolution Audio, LPCM 2ch and multichannel PCM.
• Room correction: the bar can be set up for the room it is in. Sony's Japanese spec sheet lists distance settings for the front speakers and the subwoofer and a ceiling-height setting; Sony does not name an automatic calibration feature for the HT-ST5000.
• Expandability: the wireless subwoofer is included, and no optional rear speakers or extra subwoofer are listed for the HT-ST5000.