Sony’s flagship soundbars will now work just like a $2,000 sound system

If you own a Sony HT-A5000 or HT-A7000 Soundbar, you might want to manually trigger an update – once you do, you’ll turn them into a near-$2,000 sound system. What the update is adding is a feature called 360 Spatial Sound Mapping that allows everyone in the room to feel like they’re sitting in a fully-encompassing bubble of sound with front height and front back audio cues – a feature we first last on the $1,999 / £1,599 / AU$2,499 Sony HT-A9 Home Theater System. According to Sony, the HT-A5000 and HT-A7000 use built-in microphones to ingeniously measure the relative height and position of the soundbar and rear speakers and then generate multiple phantom speakers by synthesizing sound waves based on the positional information.

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