Sony Bravia Theater Trio review: The three-piece soundbar alternative

If you were hoping for a bunch of audio channels spread across these three speakers, get ready to be let down, as that's not how Sony configured them. Despite only being a 3.0.2-channel system, which is quite limited by today's soundbar standards, the Theater Trio does an admirable job with 5.1 and 7.1 content. If you're looking to really blanket your living room in immersive directional audio, you'll want to add either the Rear 9 or Rear 8 speakers to this collection. And for booming bass, you'll need to tack on a wireless subwoofer; Sony offers three options of those in varying sizes and strengths.

As a more-than-capable TV sound boost, the Theater Trio does very well. Dialogue is primarily kept in the center speaker while the two side units handle the rest. This physical location spread offers a sense of movement when needed, especially during fight scenes in Marvel movies or grand prix clips in an episode of Drive to Survive on Netflix. All of the claims Sony makes here about audio clarity hold up, and there's more than enough detail to keep you locked in to whatever's on screen.

The Bravia Theater Trio has a warm sound profile for music, and that crisp clarity allows acoustic instruments to really shine. Across various albums from Punch Brothers, Tyler Childers and Billy Strings, all of the guitars, mandolins, banjos and bass seemed to float through the mix. And Billy Strings' live album seemed to wrap my living room with crowd noise for a fleeting sense of being at the shows. Multi Stereo mode also meant that there wasn't any weird instrument separation across the speakers, which could impact performance if the vocals are only in the center and not spread to the side units.

Those softer musical styles sound good — even great at times — but for most bass-heavy genres, the Trio just doesn't offer enough low-end tone. Bayside's "Already Gone" lacks the energy that would normally be brought by the driving beat and thumping kick drum. And it was a similar story with synth-laden electronic tunes, like Nine Inch Noize. For some genres, the Theater Trio will be adequate, but you'll eventually find a track that puts demands on this unit that it simply can't fulfill.

The only issue I encountered during my month testing the Bravia Theater Trio, after my initial setup speed bump, was thankfully something that was resolved quickly. While streaming TV shows from Disney+ on an Apple TV unit, the center speaker randomly cut out , leaving only audio from the two side speakers. I still had dialogue, but the overall sound quality was obviously degraded. After power cycling the set of speakers and restarting both my TV and Apple TV, audio was restored to all three members of the Trio. I'll also note this has only happened once.