SonyHT-G700 3.1ch Dolby Atmos Soundbar for TV with wireless subwoofer with Bluetooth

Having considered various sound bars the HT-G700 is considerably *less* feature-full than some of the competition; no WiFi, ChromeCast, AirPlay etc - and actually that was one of the draws as it's one less device that's clamouring for network bandwidth and requires me to have yet another app to manage it. It's connected to a TV with all those features, and a SkyQ box which also has those features.Our TV (and therefore sound bar) is wall-mounted. The HT-G700 comes with a simple paper mounting template which confusingly has four points on it despite only having two holes for mounting the unit. No special brackets are required, it just hooks over two screws. The downside of this is that it's harder to mount level accurately and there's no adjustment if one of the screws is very slightly off by 1mm which, over the length of the bar, is definitely visible!The build quality is good, as you'd expect from Sony, and the remote feels quite polished compared to a lot of sound bars (although if you drop it, the battery compartment flies open, which is a bit annoying - this clip could be designed better!)Sound quality is very subjective. My own opinion is it's 'good' - not as good as some of the higher end sound bars (but it's a quarter of the price) but will way surpass any built in TV speakers. This is a 3.1 system and you can tell the centre is there which is good, but beware of the claims that it's "7.1" or Dolby Atmos - it decodes it, yes, but there are only three speakers in the bar, plus the sub, and it doesn't have any upfiring speakers designed to emulate ceiling or surround speakers.It supports eARC, but also decodes Dolby Atmos, DTS:X, Dolby Digital, DTS-HD which is quite unusual at this end of the market. Again, it doesn't have the required number of speakers to take full advantage of it but the support is good to have and it makes a valiant effort to emulate the speakers using Sony's own virtual sound processing technology.Dialogue is crisp and clear, higher frequencies are well reproduced as are the lower frequencies (although the sub is limited by the small driver) - it's a little muddy in the mids but generally works well for most TV, movie, and music content (although music lovers not caring about the subwoofer might be better off with some of the Sonos products)Night mode is a nice touch too for not disturbing the neighbours or sleeping family members, it changes the overall EQ and reduces the impact of the sub at a push of a button whilst still offering an improvement over any TV's built-in speakers.When this launched it was £450, it was a good sound bar then but some of the competition at the time was better around the same price point. It's now around £250 and at this price it's a seriously impressive offering; you'd probably have to pay about 3x as much to get something significantly better.

As an upgrade for my flatscreen's tinny speakers this is really very good. The sound is well balanced, though don't buy it on the strength of the claims of 'verticality' - I've played Atmos content through it and it sounds very nice but it's no sort of surround system, never mid filling you into thinking sounds are coming from above.Setup is super-easy, sub connects wirelessly without any user intervention so I plugged it into my TV's ARC channel and away I went. There's a few options inside the menus but most likely you'll refer to the manual to set those then forever leave them as they are. Settings you might want to change more regularly (night mode the example) have dedicated buttons on the remote, which is nice. Beyond that - don't expect any bells and whistles. There's no 'smart' features (the bar doesn't even have a network connection). It's a nice size, about the same width as my 50" TV. Overall it does the job very well at a reasonable price.

[Update 7/22]I updated the TV to a newer Samsung model with HDR10+ support and temporarily changed the BD player to the excellent Panasonic UB820. I noted when playing a HDR10+ dynamic film that the HDR10+ was not passed through the soundbar unlike dolby vision. I had to use both HDMI outputs from the BD player to bypass video though the Sony. HDR10+ was then present.I have also "enjoyed" sound drop out issues with eARC.To be fair at no point does Sony indicate HDR10+ pass through in the specs unlike Dolby Vision. Sony has also released a firmware update to repair the eARC sound drop out problems (v1.100 or v2.111)This still retains 5 stars simply because of the support provided by Sony and it is still as good as the day I installed it.=========================================================================================I needed a lower cost soundbar when moving house to "fill" a 18x15 feet room. My expectations were not sky high as this is only a 3.1 system without tweeters but I was sure it would sound way better than the Samsung MU6470 it is connected to. First of all this is a hefty main unit. The sub woofer is much the same. It is well put together. Pairing the sub woofer was simple - it just paired! The remote is small, simply laid out and works. I used a HDMI lead to connect to the ARC on the TV and a second to connect to a Blu ray player. I simply set auto sound and height/surround on. Now for the sound quality: exceptional given its limitations. High end treble is slightly muffled as there are no tweeters. Mid range and bass reproduction is very good to excellent depending on the source. Moreover at a reasonable volume it does "fill" the room. Bluetooth connectivity was excellent with multiple sources for music playback.Please remember this is not an expensive soundbar and most certainly not an AV Hifi separates setup. But it holds its own reasonably against a 9.1 setup I have in the lounge. If you have a modest budget, don't want a mile of wiring in the room and prefer a simple solution I personally consider this to be a worthwhile alternative. Don't forget to check for firmware updates.