The Sony BRAVIA Theater Quad is a subwoofer-less version of the Sony BRAVIA Theater Quad with Bass Module. You get the same control box and four discrete speakers to position around your room, but not the Bass Module. What's left is an Atmos-compatible home theater system with HDMI 2.1 support, 4k passthrough at 120Hz, and support for Sony's Acoustic Center Sync technology.
Our Verdict
The Sony BRAVIA Theater Quad is decent for mixed usage. There's no true soundbar in this setup. Rather, four discrete speakers are placed in the room around you. As a result, this system creates a very immersive soundstage and one that you can adjust to taste by moving the speakers as you see fit. Sony's Soundfield Optimization technology also ensures the sound is optimized for your room's layout. Each speaker also has dedicated up-firing drivers which lends a sense of verticality to Atmos content. Gamers will also appreciate the HDMI 2.1 support, which lets you passthrough higher bandwidth (4k @ 120Hz signals). That said, this version of the system doesn't come with a subwoofer, so bass is lacking, and it doesn't quite get loud enough to fill larger rooms with sound.
The Sony BRAVIA Theater Quad is satisfactory for dialogue and TV shows. The four speakers produce a balanced sound across the mid and treble ranges, so voices sound accurate and true to life. On the other hand, since there's no center bar in this system, the center channel can lack focus and definition. If you have a compatible BRAVIA TV, you can use the Acoustic Center Sync Technology to use a compatible BRAVIA TV as the center channel. This system gets loud enough to fill most medium-sized rooms with sound but will struggle to fill larger spaces.
The Sony BRAVIA Theater Quad is good for music. The four discrete speakers can be placed quite far apart, which helps create a wide soundstage that lends a real sense of immersion to your audio, especially if it has been mixed with Dolby Digital or Dolby Atmos. Sony's Soundfield Optimization technology also tailors the output to the characteristics of your room. Unfortunately, since there's no subwoofer, your audio lacks thump and rumble so, as is, this system suits genres like jazz more than EDM.
Room correction feature to tailor the audio to your room.
The Sony BRAVIA Theater Quad is decent for movies. The balanced mid-range ensures that instrumental scores sound accurate and dialogue lifelike. That said, this system doesn't come with a subwoofer, so explosions lack rumble and thump. The four speakers produce an immersive soundstage and don't compress your audio much at their loudest volume, but the lack of a dedicated center channel results in a phantom center that can sound a bit blurry. While the up-firing Atmos drivers are appreciated, they only add a limited sense of verticality to your audio.
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Differences Between Sizes And Variants
The Sony BRAVIA Theater Quad (also known as the Sony HT-A9M2) comes in one color variant 'Gray.' See our unit's label. If you encounter another variant of this soundbar, let us know in the comments, and we'll update our review.
Popular Soundbar Comparisons
The Sony BRAVIA Theater Quad takes a slightly novel approach to soundbar design. Instead of a central bar that sits underneath your TV, you get four discrete speakers to position around your room, as well as a control box to connect everything up. It's a similar design to the Sony HT-A9 (in fact, the Theater Quad is also known as the HT-A9M2), but this time around, the speakers are thin, flat rectangles, making them a little easier to mount on walls. Like the HT-A9, the Theater Quad comes with Sony's Sound Field Optimization technology, which customizes the sound to the layout and acoustics of your room.
That said, neither the Theater Quad or the HT-A9 come with subwoofers, so effects like explosions lack rumble. If that's important to you, you'll want to consider the Sony BRAVIA Theater Quad with Bass Module or the Sony HT-A9 with Bass Module. All of these systems offer HDMI 2.1 compatibility with 4k passthrough @ 120Hz.
See our recommendations for the best soundbars, the best Sony soundbars, and the best Dolby Atmos soundbars.
The Sony BRAVIA Theater Quad is identical to the Sony BRAVIA Theater Quad with Bass Module, just without the subwoofer. Naturally, that means the former offers less low-bass thump and punch, so sound effects and cinematic scores sound a bit thin. That said, if you're happy to save a little money, or already have this bass module from purchasing the Sony HT-A9 with Bass Module, you might be fine without the additional sub.
The Sony BRAVIA Theater Quad is the successor to the Sony HT-A9. The newer model has flat, rectangular speakers rather than the HT-A9's cylindrical design. This makes the Theater Quad speakers easier to mount on walls or in tight areas, making the most immediate difference between them the design of the discrete speakers. Other than that, the systems perform very similarly.
The Sony BRAVIA Theater Quad and Samsung HW-Q930D have different strengths. The Samsung has a subwoofer and puts out more bass information, which is great if you like to hear the rumbles of explosions. The Samsung's central bar also renders speech more clearly than the Sony's four discrete speakers. That said, the Sony system creates a more immersive and wider soundstage.
The Sony BRAVIA Theater Bar 9 with Speakers + Bass Module is a better-performing system than the Sony BRAVIA Theater Quad. That said, the Bar 9's additional bass module accounts for much of the difference. If you already have a compatible subwoofer, then you might appreciate the more immersive sound produced by the Theater Quad. But if you consume lots of dialogue-heavy content, you may appreciate the Bar 9's dedicated center channel, which keeps speech sounding clear and detailed.
Test Results
The Sony BRAVIA Theater Quad doesn't follow the usual soundbar format. There's no bar to speak of. Instead, you get four felt-covered speakers to position around your room. Their flat design means they're easily wall-mounted via the included stands, where they might resemble small acoustic panels. The plain, grey fabric also allows them to blend in with most room decor. Should you prefer to place them standing up on their black, plastic stands, that's straightforward to do. You connect to the speakers via a small, black control box.
This version of the Sony BRAVIA Theater Quad doesn't come with a subwoofer, but you can purchase the Sony BRAVIA Theater Quad with Bass Module if you're looking for more low-bass thump. You can also add another subwoofer if you have a compatible unit.
Since this unit eschews the conventional design of a long, thin speaker that sits under your TV for four speakers, the satellites and the 'bar' are one and the same.
Two of these four speakers are designed to be positioned on either side of your TV, with the remaining two positioned behind you. This flexibility means the system can accommodate almost any size of TV, especially since the speakers are just a touch wider than conventional satellite speakers.
This set of speakers does not come with a subwoofer, but you can purchase the Sony BRAVIA Theater Quad with Bass Module instead if you know you'll want a sub. You can also add a subwoofer after purchasing the Theater Quad.
The Sony BRAVIA Theater Quad's two satellites, designed to be positioned behind you, are identical to the two speakers placed on either side of your TV. They're slightly wider than conventional satellite speakers, but their thin depth means they're easy to find space for in most rooms.
Each of the four speakers in this set comes with a stand that can easily be configured as a wall mount.
These speakers have an amazing build quality. The control box is similar to the one that comes with the Sony HT-A9 with Bass Module. It's made of durable plastic and has a large display. The speakers themselves are covered in a tightly woven fabric. This means there's no hard protection for any of the drivers other than the up-firing ones, which are covered with the plastic grille on top of each speaker.
- Sony Home Theater System Manual and pamphlets
- TV control box cable (6.5 ft/2.0 m)
- AC adapter (4.9 ft/1.5 m)
- 4x AC power cords (4.9 ft/1.5 m)
- HDMI cable (4.9 ft/1.5 m)
- Remote
- 2x AAA batteries
- Speaker stands/wall-mount brackets
This soundbar has a decent stereo frequency response. Its main limitation is its lack of a subwoofer to reproduce low- and mid-bass content like rumbly explosion effects or thumpy 808 kick drums. If you can't bear the thought of watching videos without low-end heft, it might be worth checking out the Sony BRAVIA Theater Quad with Bass Module. Regardless, this soundbar does an impressive job reproducing mid-range content like speech and treble-range content like clashing sword effects.
This soundbar comes with a Stereo Field Optimization feature which Sony says optimizes the sound to the specific layout and acoustic properties of your room. The feature runs automatically when you first boot it up, but you can re-run it whenever you wish. Subjectively, we found this feature to make audio feel more forward as if it were jumping right out of the speakers.
We tested this system's performance with the bass setting at medium with the Stereo Field Optimization enabled and DRC (for dynamic range compression) disabled.
Without the Bass Module connected, the Sony BRAVIA Theater Quad has three bass settings: 'Min,' 'Med,' and 'Max.' We used the 'Max' setting for the preliminary calibration, but the 'Med' setting for regular testing.
Because the front two speakers of the Sony BRAVIA Theater Quad can be spaced widely apart, the stereo soundstage of this soundbar can extend as wide as you choose (depending on your room size and available cable lengths). As a result, this setup produces a remarkably wide soundstage. That said, the phantom center isn't particularly focused, so audio panned centrally can sound a bit fuzzy, especially if you set the speakers very far apart.
This soundbar has good dynamics performance. It gets loud enough to fill most rooms, though if you have a huge room, you might wish it cranked out a few extra decibels. That said, it doesn't compress your audio much at maximum volume, so the audio you do hear will be pure and clean.
This bar's center performance is decent. Ultimately, the performance will depend on how far apart you set the speakers since there's no discrete central channel, so left and right speakers combined produce a phantom center. That said, we found the results to be satisfactory. Voices sound balanced, but also like they're coming from two speakers rather than one central point.
You can also pair this system with a compatible Sony BRAVIA TV and use the TV's speakers as a discrete center channel. But, as we noted in our Sony BRAVIA Theater Quad with Bass Module review, the results aren't necessarily impressive.
This soundbar's surround performance is adequate. The four satellite speakers mean that objects are rendered accurately in space, and you can easily tell where a sound is coming from. The result is an immersive experience, especially since the mid-range is fairly balanced and detailed. However, since there's no subwoofer, explosions and rumbly Taiko drums are not rendered accurately and lack thump.
This set of speakers doesn't do a bad job representing height in Atmos content. Each of the four speakers has up-firing drivers designed to bounce audio off your ceiling. For the most part, this does add a sense of height to your audio. Airy sounds like orchestral string sections are represented well, though the lack of a subwoofer means it's a little difficult to sense a clear distinction between this elevated content and earthier sounds like the rumbles from a collapsing tower. Still, the audio these drivers produce sounds very thin, though that's to be expected without the subwoofer that is present in the Sony BRAVIA Theater Quad with Bass Module. Audio is also mostly well-localized in space, and it's easy to pick out objects that pan across the field from left to right (or vice versa). Subjectively, we found it harder to notice issues with the phantom center when all four speakers were engaged than we did during Stereo Soundstage testing.
This soundbar doesn't have any presets or EQ, but you can the bass level in the companion app. You can also toggle between three modes. 'Night Mode' compresses the audio so that the bass is quieter and less likely to disturb your neighbors. 'Voice Mode' enhances speech and dialogue so that it's easier to hear in the mix. Finally, 'Sound Field' tailors the soundbar's performance to suit your room and has three further sub-modes: 360 Spatial Sound Mapping, Dolby Speaker Virtualizer, and DTS Neural:X. The system also supports DSEE Ultimate, Sony's proprietary upscaler for lossy audio.
You can connect this soundbar to your TV via HDMI, and there's an HDMI 2.1 In port. There's also an Ethernet port and an S-Center Out port, which lets anyone who owns a compatible BRAVIA TV use their TV's speaker as a center channel. Unfortunately, there's no optical port, so you might be unable to connect this soundbar to older TVs.
This soundbar is compatible with all the main surround sound formats such as Dolby Digital via eARC. It's also compatible with object-based formats like Dolby Atmos.
This soundbar supports all the common surround sound and object-based formats via its HDMI In port.
This soundbar's audio latency via ARC is acceptable. It's not able to achieve low latency scores with any of its compatible formats, so you might notice occasional lip-sync issues. That said, different apps and TVs compensate for latency in different ways, and you can use the companion app's AV Sync feature to compensate for any latency manually.
The Sony BRAVIA Theater Quad's latency performance via HDMI is passable. It's unable to achieve low-latency performance regardless of the audio format you choose, but different TVs and applications compensate for latency in different ways, so you might not notice any lip-sync issues. Regardless, you can use the AV Sync feature in the companion app to compensate for any latency issues you do notice.
This bar supports HDMI 2.1, so it can passthrough 4k signals at 120Hz and 8k at 60Hz. That means it can act as a hub between your TV and PC or gaming console. It also supports HDMI VRR and ALLM passthrough.
The Sony BRAVIA Theater Quad supports most of the common wireless connectivity options, such as Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, Apple AirPlay, and Spotify Connect. However, it doesn't support Google Chromecast.
The control box has a small interface that you can use to view inputs, settings, and the menu.
The only button on the control box is the power button, while each of the four speakers has both a pairing button and a power button.
The remote is similar to many other Sony remotes and is easy enough to use. You can also control this soundbar via its companion app, which you can view in this video.
