Sony HT-AX7 in the test: Soundbar completely without cables

Many users play movies and series on their devices and also use them for games. In the mobile scenario, usually only headphones or built-in speakers are left for background sound.

Sony has recognized this gap and launched the HT-AX7, a mobile and compact soundbar system that promises surround sound for televisions as well as notebooks, tablets and smartphones completely wirelessly via Bluetooth. This makes the product attractive if you want to take it with you on holidays or to meet friends. The price of the Sony soundbar is 399 euros,

The Sony HT-AX7 looks beautiful and is of high quality. The 306 × 97 × 123 mm main unit houses the subwoofer and front speakers as well as the battery. Two round satellite speakers complete the system. It also has batteries built in. These are charged by placing them on the main unit. It is charged via USB-C and lasts for about 30 hours, with each satellite lasting about 3 to 4 hours. This applies to medium volume. At high volume, the total running time of the main unit is reduced to about 4 to 5 hours.

Sony says it placed a great deal of emphasis on sustainability when designing the HT-AX7. The housings are made from recycled PET bottles. The packaging was made from natural materials and recycled paper, but due to its bulky size it is not suitable for transporting the device. A transport cover would have been a good option, at least as an accessory.

The top of the main unit is rubberized, which also has disadvantages. Rubber attracts dust and is difficult to clean, which you can also see in our photos. The satellites are covered in fabric, only the bottom is rubberized.

One of the design features of the HT-AX7 is the satellite speaker mounting system. When not in use, they are placed on top of the main speakers to save space, where they are held magnetically and charged wirelessly.

The HT-AX7 uses exclusively Bluetooth 5.2 to connect to the signal transmitter and supports A2DP, AVRCP, HFP, HSP and SPP profiles. The 2.4 GHz radio is used to connect to satellite speakers. Cable connection to the sound source is not provided. The only input is a USB-C port for charging the main battery.

Unfortunately, Sony has limited the HT-AX7’s audio codec support to AAC and SBC. True multi-channel audio is not possible. Instead, spatial reproduction is calculated artificially.

The soundbar is set up using a simple app from Sony, which is available for iOS and Android. The app can be used to adjust the bass level and volume of the rear speakers and select different sound modes. Firmware updates are also installed with the app.

The HT-AX7 offers three sound modes for different listening scenarios. The normal Stereo mode offers unprocessed playback, while the Mono mode is designed to provide room-filling sound using any speakers that can be distributed around the room. In Sound Field mode, Sony’s audio processing is used, which aims to create virtual spatial sound.

Ultimately, the HT-AX7’s audio performance doesn’t match the device’s price: the main unit delivers an overall balanced sound, but lacks the deep bass that many users would expect from a surround system. The controls in the app don’t help either – you can’t get effective, deep bass from the little box.

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Satellite speakers sound quite weak in surround mode and are usually only used to enhance the soundscape. It does not create a coherent soundstage with locatable and stray tones.

We have HT-AX7 with powerful movies and series like Greyhound – Battle of the Atlantic, Lord of the Air, However, the Vikings even like cool movies first name Viewed and liked the game resident Evil 4 Played on an iPad. Mixed content in particular has a definite spatial sound, but it’s a far cry from the soundscape of a proper surround system. When playing music, we actually find the sound better without the satellites, but that may not be the issue.

The HT-AX7’s speakers should be placed so that the satellites are behind the listener and the listener himself sits in a triangle, the front edge of which forms the head unit. Anyone who listens alone should have little problem with this. But if there are several people sitting in the room and not all lined up on a couch, the surround sound experience is massively affected. Sony recommends placing the front and rear speakers 1 to 1.2 meters apart. In practice, this means that the front speakers should be placed not on the television, but on a coffee table.

We connected the Sony HT-AX7 to a television, an Apple TV as well as a notebook and a tablet. In all cases the Bluetooth connection was established quickly. If you want, you can also connect two devices and switch between them instantly. Regardless of the device in question, dropouts occurred extremely rarely but sporadically, but they were still mainly annoying when watching movies. The radio technology sometimes causes slight synchronization problems, which are particularly noticeable in original language scenes as lip synchronization is affected.

In terms of battery life, the HT-AX7 can deliver on Sony’s promise. 30 hours for the main unit is no problem. If you still run out of power in the middle of a movie, you only need to recharge for about 10 minutes to get about 140 minutes of power again.

The RRP was originally 549 euros, but the street price has now risen to an amount of approx 399 euros Made it equal.

The LG DQP5W (test report) is also compact and packs a punch thanks to its subwoofer, surround sound, and Dolby Atmos.

The Sony HT-AX7 is an interesting concept for a portable and, above all, wireless surround solution, but the implementation falls short. While the design and build quality are good, the audio performance ultimately doesn’t justify the price. For this to be the case, the sound quality needs to be better and the placement restrictions shouldn’t be as important.

We cover more about sound solutions for the home in the following articles: