Sony HT-ST7 7.1 Soundbar Review

Sony HT-ST7 Review Introduction

The “high-end” soundbar market has matured over the past few years, with companies like Yamaha and B&W leading the way. But this product segment, ripe for the taking, hasn’t gone unnoticed by others. Audio-centric brands like, Definitive Technology, MartinLogan, and Bose have also jumped on board. Earlier this year, a brand outside the typical audio circles, Samsung, announced and we reviewed the $949 HW-F750 soundbar. Now, Sony has also knuckled down with the HT-ST7 Soundbar for $1299. Given the fact that Sony already has a presence in the high-end audio community with their ES and AR lineups, we were excited to see what they would do with a $1300 budget for a soundbar. Would they fall victim to the feature rich/sound quality poor models that so many other mainstream AV manufacturers use, or would they pull from their audiophile roots to design an exceptionality fine sounding unit. To answer those questions, you’ll have to keep reading the review.

Features and Overview

The HT-ST7’s design isn’t revolutionary, but it does have enough unique features to stand out. On the more run of the mill side of things, it sports a wireless subwoofer for low end response. The subwoofer enclosure is made of .5” MDF with a 100w (unspecified THD or voltage) class D amplifier. Sony does not give a rating for frequency response. It sports an active 7” driver and an 8”x12” passive radiator and weighs 24lbs 11oz. While 24lbs isn’t heavy by any means for a subwoofer, it’s still about 10lbs more than the sub included with the Bose CineMate 1 SR, which retails for $1499. I know, I know, heavier doesn’t equal better, but it can be an indicator of build quality, like more internal bracing or a bigger motor structure on the driver. But rather than guess, I took apart the subwoofer..

          

       Sony HT-ST7 Sub Rear                         Sony HT-ST7 Sub Amplifier

A 2” deep cavity on the rear of the unit houses the amplifier and has padding to prevent the amp from rattling during use. The main cavity houses the 7” active driver and 8”x12” passive radiator. Both are stamped basket. I wasn’t able to remove the active driver, but I could feel that it has a vented pole piece for improved heat dissipation. It also has a bucking magnetic to reduce the magnetic field for CRT displays. I’m not sure why these are still used on products like this as the subwoofer likely won’t sit by a CRT display. The cord from the amplifier was wrapped to prevent it from slapping around the cabinet. The bracing in the cabinet was minimal, really, pretty much nonexistent except for some extra MDF glued to the inside of the cabinet. You’ll note the round piece of MDF glued to the inside of the cabinet, which is the cutout from the driver. Although not visible in the pictures below, there was one piece batting glued to the back panel. Finally, the sub measures up at 9 ½” W× 15 ½” H × 16 ¼” D, making it pretty compact, especially considering that 2” of the height doesn’t add to the internal volume because it’s from a base that the subwoofer sets on. That’s in addition to the 2” deep amplifier enclosure. Obviously, most consumers looking for a soundbar don’t want a giant sub, so I thought the size was fine considering the application. However, the build quality leaves something to be desired.

         

Sony HT-ST7 Sub Passive Radiator           Sony HT-ST7 Sub Internal     

As for the soundbar itself, it sports an impressive array of 9 drivers in a T-M---M-M-M-M-M---M-T arrangement. The tweeters are.8” (20mm) domes and the midrange drivers are 2.56” (65mm). I was unable to find out the driver material used, but the midrange drivers look like woven fiberglass. The two tweeters and woofers flanking the outside of the soundbar are in separate enclosures from the five midrange woofers in the middle. At first glance, it looks like the pair of drivers on the outside of the unit are in ported enclosures, each with a small front firing port. Only when I was moving the soundbar around during measurements did I notice that the port is not actually a port. It just looks like one but is actually completely closed (There is a close up picture of this further into the review).

Seven independent 50w amplifiers power the 9 drivers, presumably with the two outside pairs of drivers each powered by a single amplifier. Sony touts the use of a high quality aluminum enclosure, which I do think looks nice, but most of the unit is actually constructed from plastic, including the sides, rear, and bottom.

Sony HT-ST7 Grill On

Mirroring the impressive array of drivers on the front of the unit is an impressive array of inputs on the rear. Three HDMI, two digital optical, one digital coax, and one analog audio provide enough varied connections for most anyone. The HDMI inputs not only support 3D, 4K, HDMI-CEC and standby pass-through, but can also decode DTS HD and DolbyTrueHD. HD audio decoding is something that very few soundbars support, including some more expensive models, and is a nice addition to the HT-ST7.

USB is noticeably lacking, but is made up for with built-in Bluetooth and NFC. You’ll also find a 3.5mm jack on the rear for use with the included IR blaster. Combined with the IR on the front, the HT-ST7 provides IR pass-through so feel free to cover the IR sensor on your TV with the soundbar. Like with the HD audio decoding, the inclusion of IR pass-through is an uncommon but very welcome feature that helps set the HT-ST7 apart from the competition.

Sony HT-ST7 Inputs

Sony HT-ST7 Setup & Sound Quality

Setup with the HT-ST7 is about as simple as it comes, plug in power and use the connection of your choice and you’re done. There is no auto setup mic to run, so once the physical connections are made you’re set. I could gripe about the lack of an auto setup mic, but many of them do more harm than good, so it’s not missed in the least.

Operating the unit is as simple as hooking it up, that is, until you start tailoring the sound to your personal preferences. You can adjust the subwoofer level from 0 to 12, and switch it between 3 different tones. Tone 1 is for “more crisp bass”, tone 2, the default setting, is for suitable for “various sources”, and Tone 3 is for “more dynamic bass.”  You can take those descriptions to mean whatever you want as I have no idea what they really mean, but more detail is revealed in the measurements further into the review.

The HT-ST7 also has four different sound modes: Standard, Movie, Music, and Football. While I almost always leave products in Standard, so as to minimize any extra processing, in this case I frequently utilized Movie and Standard. The manual doesn’t offer any help in determining what these sound modes actually do, but I can tell you that standard removed almost all artificial enhancements, like simulated surround. Movie offered the best experience for most movies, enabling surround simulation, but also bumped up the sub more than I would have liked. Music was a bit more of a misnomer for me with little effect, and Football seemed to be the equivalent of Cave or Bathroom with an absurd amount of reverb. Overall, each user will have to play with these settings to see what they like. Because the differences between the sound and subwoofer modes is so drastic, I was left constantly adjusting the setup to get the sound I wanted.

 

Sony HT-ST7 LED Display

The single line LED display on the front of the HT-ST7 is large and easy to read, but makes navigating the internal menu a bit difficult. If you dig through the manual you can eventually find your way around the menu as well. A plethora of useful features, like AV sync/delay, a dynamic equalizer to attenuate volume changes between channels and commercials, and a compressed music enhancer, await those who are willing to drudge through the menu.

                          

Sony HT-ST7 Remote Closed (Left); Open (Right)

The final bit of operation to cover is the included remote control. At first glance I was skeptical about the remote thanks to its unique design, but that skepticism quickly faded. The most commonly used buttons are easily located. This includes: powered, input, muting, volume +/-, sound mode, and voice. But there’s more than meets the eye. The bottom part of the remote slides down revealing another 9 buttons (reference the above photos). In the hidden compartment is housed the navigation controls for the menu, subwoofer settings, and a display button to dim or change what is shown on the front LED display. These buttons are small, cramped, and slightly recessed making them even more difficult to reach. Normally I wouldn’t care much about the hidden buttons if they were seldom used, which they are meant to be, but I found myself using them quite a bit. 

HT-ST7 Sound Quality

I used the HDMI output from my Oppo BDP-93 Blu-ray player for movie listening tests. The soundbar was set on my TV stand, about 9’ away from the listening position.  

CD: Johnny Cash American VI

The last album released before his death and my favorite of all his albums, American VI shows a different side to Cash than his earlier work. Raw, unrefined and heartfelt, this album not only sounds good but can also pull at the heart strings for someone who grew up listening to Cash, as I did. When I first popped in the CD, fired up the Oppo and switched the HT-ST7 to HDMI 1, I was shocked by the sound quality. No, not shocked in a good way. There was no heft to the tracks like I was used to, the deep grit in Cash’s voice lost its depth and detail and a thin voice came through the 9 drivers of the HT-ST7. I immediately flipped through all of the different sound and voice modes it had to offer, and while each setting made a significant change to the sound quality, none of them offered up the experience I was hoping for. The upper vocals and midrange were much louder than the rest of the mix, making it difficult to listen to at high volumes. The size of the soundstage was impressive, but that was it.

Then, I remembered that the HT-ST7 is crossed over with the sub at a high frequency (200Hz), and it was possible that much of what I was missing was being sent to the sub. I had already level matched the sub with the soundbar, but figured that I would bump up the volume on the sub a few dB and see what happens. Sure enough, the subwoofer was getting everything that I was missing. Unfortunately, the subwoofer and soundbar did not blend well. When I turned up the sub so I could actually hear the low end of Cash’s voice, it wasn’t reproduced with the same clarity of the soundbar. Through the subwoofer it sounded bloated and colored. This is an unfortunate side effect of most systems designed like the HT-ST7. Since the soundbar can’t handle low frequencies at high SPL, bass is handed off to the sub at a very high frequency. This means that the subwoofer ends up playing frequencies it has no business playing, not only because of its tuning and design, but because of its placement as well. The best physical place for the subwoofer to sit in the room when playing a 40Hz note is not necessarily the same place as when it’s playing a 200Hz note.  Frequencies above 80Hz become localizable and voice intelligibility is critical above 100Hz which needs to be handled by the actual speakers, not the subwoofer.

CD: The rocket Summer Do You Feel

After my experience with American VI, I felt that I needed to give the HT-ST7 another chance with 2ch. music. My assumption was, and still is, that the unit was not EQ’d for that style of music, or really tracks that features a strong vocal lead with minimal instrumental accompaniment. So, I grabbed a disc out of my collection with a more indie/rock style. The Rocket Summer, which only consists of Bryce Avary, is not the most popular album out there (although it does feature cameos by the likes of Andrew McMahon of Jack’s Mannequin and two members from Paramore).  It also holds a special spot in my memory as my wife and I took our first steps as a married couple to track 2 on this album

The ST-HT7 did much better with this album. Vocals were still bright but subwoofer integration was smoother because Avary’s voice doesn’t dig nearly as low as Cash’s, letting it stay anchored in the soundbar instead of being spliced into the subwoofer as well. The soundbar was much better suited for this type of music. Further testing with pop and rap proved that the HT-ST7 is best suited for people with music collects consisting of artists like Katy Perry, Jay Z and Lady Gaga rather than Schober, Krall, and Charles

Blu-ray: Hunger Games

After devouring the Hunger Games trilogy I was cautiously excited for the movie. While in this case I completely embrace the all too common “the book was better than the movie” phrase, I still liked the movie enough to pick it up the day it was released. Right in the opening scene a ship from the capital flies over Gale and Katniss as they are hunting the forest outside of the fence that encompasses District 12. The soundstage put out by the ST7 was impressive, extending a few feet outside the sides of the soundbar. There were no sounds beside or behind me, but the soundstage was still quite expansive. Throughout the movie, vocals were clear even when set on the lowest “Voice” setting. Actually, the lowest voice setting, 1, was the only one that was bearable of the 3 levels. Levels 2 and 3 boosted the vocals so much that they sounded very thin, like I was listening to TV speakers. I had the same sort of feeling when on the “Standard” sound mode, even though that was what I used for music listening. Switching to “Movie” mode made a significant difference, making voices chestier but not to the point where it was bothersome.

Later in the movie, after the initial bloodbath in the games, the canon shots marking the death of each tribute were recreated well by the subwoofer. But the real coup de grâce of sound for this movie was when Katniss is moved back into the fray of the games by a conflagration controlled by the capital. The upper register was a little harsh and during loud scenes I would have liked a bit more clarity, but the dynamic swings were handled well. The subwoofer held up its end of the bargain without any noticeable distortion or other issues, likely thanks to the steep roll off below 50Hz to keep it well behaved.

Blu-ray: Brave

There are better Disney-Pixar animation films out there, but Brave is still a fun experience with a great picture and ambient sound effects well suited for testing out a product like the HT-ST7. During the opening scene, Merida and her family are attacked in a brief encounter with Mordu, a bear so large that enormous falls far short of describing it. The HT-ST7 really surprised me in this scene, pumping out big dynamic swings and throwing a soundstage that sounded more like it was coming from my MartinLogan Theos than the soundbar. The subwoofer also jumped into action, filling out Mordu’s deep roar with intense bass that was both loud and tactile. Throughout the movie I found the experience enjoyable, with only two complaints. First, no matter what sound setting I changed the HT-ST7 to, it had an overly active upper register. Secondly, during a few musical scores, while in Movie mode, the subwoofer was bloated an undefined, resonating at higher frequencies. At first I blamed my room, but after moving the subwoofer around a bit and physically feeling the enclosure resonate, it was clear where the problem was. This was not noticeable during most of the movie, only particular scenes however.

As with my experience listening to music on the HT-ST7, this test further proved that you can’t make a decision about a product based off of a quick listening session. You really need to run each product through a barrage of tests to find out what it does well and what it struggles with. A really good product will handle all material with aplomb, but other gear will conceal and reveal its flaws depending on the task at hand.

Sony HT-ST7 Measurements & Conclusion

All measurements were taken in-room utilizing an OmniMic measurement system. 1/12^th octave smoothing was employed. A 5ms blended response was used to help remove room interaction from low frequencies.

Unlike measuring a speaker, which is typically pretty straight forward, soundbars require some experimentation. I tried setting it on the edge of my TV stand and taking measurements with the mic placed at various heights and distances. I also set the soundbar on the floor, facing straight up, and took measurements at 1m, 1.5m, and 2m. In the end, the general curve was the same, with two exceptions, no matter how I moved things around. When facing upright while on the ground, the soundbar exhibited a 10dB dip at 400Hz, this was not present in the measurements taken from the TV stand. Second, when on the TV stand the soundbar rolled off at about 260Hz but when on the floor it rolled off closer to 150Hz. According to the manual the soundbar is only rated down to 200Hz. Below 300Hz the accuracy of the results is questionable because of room interaction, so the actual crossover point is hard to determine.  However, I would favor the 260Hz measurement as the soundbar was getting boundary gain when located on the floor and I measured it down to 150Hz.

Sony HT-ST7 In-room Averaged Frequency Response

Still, the measurements showed me exactly was I expected in terms of high frequency response. The boost in treble over 3kHz certainly attributed to the thin vocals or slightly harsh sound I heard at times. Same goes with the bump at 1.5kHz. The steep drop around 200Hz shows where the subwoofer takes over, which was about where I was expecting from listening tests and measuring other soundbars.

Sony HT-ST7 Subwoofer In-room .5m Groundplane Frequency Response

Measuring the subwoofer was more straightforward. Each line represents a different subwoofer tone setting. I was not able to isolate the subwoofer apart from the soundbar, as the soundbar has to be on to measure the sub. That’s why it looks like the sub plays up to 20kHz. Moving the mic closer to the active driver boosted output over 60Hz. Moving it closer to the passive radiator increased FR below 60Hz, showing the benefit of the passive radiator. The graph speaks for itself, but suffice it to say that this subwoofer does not dig low nor does it exhibit a  very linear response.  However the boost in the 40-60Hz range does help to provide a fuller sound for the system.

Suggestions for Improvement

Functionally, the HT-ST7 performed very well. The subwoofer never dropped the wireless signal from the soundbar, there were no HDMI handshake issues, the remote operating range was good, and the sound never fell apart in any catastrophic manner. My main gripe comes down to the EQ adjustments. At Audioholics, we often advocate for a flat frequency response, maybe with a slight tilt upward in the lower registers and a slight roll off in the upper registers for a more laid back sound (my preference, anyway). When a speaker has some anomalous peak or dip in its frequency response or other design flaw, it can make for a product that sounds good with some material and bad with other material, rather than sounding consistently solid.

 

 

Sony HT-ST7 Top Panel Controls

With completely active systems, like the HT-ST7, manufacturers tend to get creative. By offering adjustments like subwoofer tone, and soundbar voice and sound mode options, users are given a tremendous amount of power to manipulate the sound. While this can be good, it was mostly annoying for me. Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad Sony included these adjustments, but I was never able to find a single setting that worked well across all material. I was constantly flipping through different sound modes and adjusting the subwoofer up or down based on the source to get it to sound the way I wanted. This shouldn’t be necessary. A user should be able to just leave a product on “standard” and only have to make occasional, minor adjustments to the EQ of the system to dial it in the way they want.  Additionally, I would have preferred to be able to turn surround simulation on or off without affecting the EQ of the entire system.

So, in the end, my advice to Sony would be to keep the features and core functionality the same for next year, but rethink the tuning and manual sound adjustments. Oh, and beef up the subwoofer too. Let’s try to get some good SPL down to the 30Hz range and also get more usable low frequency output from the soundbar to increase vocal clarity.

Conclusion

The HT-ST7 is not perfect, but it does have some real strengths. The dialogue is never hard to hear, the soundstage (when in movie mode) is massive and it works great for every day TV viewing and certain genres of music. Bluetooth, NFC, HDMI pass-through, and IR repeater functionality also bolster its attractiveness. However, a lackluster subwoofer and over emphasized upper frequencies mean that it’s not well suited for all music and it can’t deliver deep, gut wrenching bass. To be fair, none of the soundbars we have ever measured have been packed with a stellar subwoofer, so don’t think that a similarly priced offering from the likes of Bose or Samsung will fare any better. Still, I enjoyed watching movies on the HT-ST7, it was able to handle large dynamic swings and reach loud volume levels. So, is this the right soundbar for you? Only you can answer that question. There are a lot of offerings on the market and none of them are perfect. The HT-ST7 has enough to offer that it’s worth checking out, but like with most audio gear, you will want to get some hands on experience before pulling the trigger.

The Score Card

The scoring below is based on each piece of equipment doing the duty it is designed for. The numbers are weighed heavily with respect to the individual cost of each unit, thus giving a rating roughly equal to:

Performance × Price Factor/Value = Rating

Audioholics.com note: The ratings indicated below are based on subjective listening and objective testing of the product in question. The rating scale is based on performance/value ratio. If you notice better performing products in future reviews that have lower numbers in certain areas, be aware that the value factor is most likely the culprit. Other Audioholics reviewers may rate products solely based on performance, and each reviewer has his/her own system for ratings.

Audioholics Rating Scale

• — Excellent
• — Very Good
• — Good
• — Fair
• — Poor

Metric	Rating
Audio Performance
Function
Build Quality
Ergonomics & Usability
Ease of Setup/Programming/Integration
Features
Remote Control
Performance
Value