Gadgetory

hey I'm Matthew Muscovy AK from C net and we're gonna take a look at the Sony HTC t5 50w this is a soundbar home theater system from Sony and it's currently selling for around $400 now the first thing you'll notice with the Sony is that while most systems consist of just a wireless subwoofer and a sound bar with sony also has a separate head unit that powers the system and also handles AV switching duties it's actually a fairly large box and around back you'll see it's packed with connectivity especially for a sound bar there are three HDMI inputs three digital audio inputs and an analog audio input now that's way more connectivity than you'll find on a typical budget sound bar although you really don't need all those ports if you end up using your TV as a switcher and the downside of the head unit is that it adds bulk to the whole system which kind of works against the idea of a sound bar in the first place now the sound bar itself is surprisingly heavy but it gives it a heft that makes it feel solidly built there's really nothing else to the sound bar which is really quite thin and there's a proprietary speaker cable on the back that needs to connect to the head unit the included subwoofer has an interesting look with the gap in the middle to keep it looking from just a big black box the sub is Wireless but surprisingly the wireless functionality isn't exactly built in sony includes two wireless cards and you'll need to install one in the sub and one in the head unit it's easy enough to install the wireless cards but it's a little strange that it's not built in the remote is actually pretty cluttered for a sound bar there are tons of buttons for all kinds of functions that have nothing to do with the sound bar itself which can make it pretty intimidating if you're not a techie the idea is that you can use the remote to control other devices in your home theater but you're better off buying a logitech harmony universal remote if you want to do that now the sony is a premium price sound bar so we were expecting premium sound quality and we didn't quite get it with this system the main problem was that the blend between the subwoofer and the sound bar wasn't quite smooth so we could always hear a gap between the two components movies just didn't quite have the impact we were looking for and music wasn't much better it's not a bad sounding system overall but the cheaper higher SBE v4 Slim's sounded better with pretty much everything we throw at it so altogether the sony HTC t 550 W doesn't quite live up to its premium price tag although it's worth considering if you need a sound bar with a lot of connectivity I'm Matthew Muscovy AK and this is the sony HTC t 550 w