Touting its “lens to the living room” high-tech movie and TV production to consumer home theater products ecosystem credentials, Sony announced its 2024 Bravia Mini-LED TV and home theater audio equipment lineup.
Sony’s latest TVs and audio gear were previewed to the international media, including TWICE, over several days at the historic Sony Picture Studios, the former production facilities of both MGM and Columbia Pictures, in Culver City, CA.
While Sony’s video and audio demos were as impressive as always, the company’s product pricing strategy is a bit curious. Touting its version of mini-LED as brighter than and approaching par in black levels and color reproduction with OLED, Sony has priced its new flagship Bravia 9 mini-LED models between LG’s similarly-sized 2023 G3 and 2024 G4 OLED models, much higher than mini-LED models from TCL, Hisense, and others, and even higher than new mini-LED sets from Samsung, which also raised its 2024 mini-LED prices for 2024.
Whether or not retailers will be able to convey the claimed technical and quality advantages of Sony’s new mini-LED models to justify their near OLED pricing – especially since consumers have come to expect mini-LED models to offer a more affordable alternative to OLED – of course remains to be seen. Sony did not introduce an update to its XR-A95L OLED TV.
New Sony Bravia TVs
Sony unveiled four new Bravia TV models, “flagship” and “premium” mini-LED editions, the Bravia 9 and Bravia 8, respectively, a “core” full-array LED Bravia 7, and a “standard” direct LED Bravia 6.
Sony claims its top-of-the-line Bravia 9 (85” $5,499.99 MSRP, 75” $3,999.99, 65” $3,299.99) is the “brightest 4K TV Sony has ever produced,” 50% brighter than the last year’s top of the line Bravia X95L mini-LED TV and 1.5x brighter than the company’s current OLED, with a 325% leap in dimming zones. During one demo, engineers removed the from panel to reveal just the backlighting of the Bravia 9 versus a competitive set from another brand to illustrate its increased preciseness. Sony also says the Bravia 9 consumes 20% less power than last year’s mini-LED.
Sony also asserts is Bravia 8 mini-LED (77” $3,899.99 MSRP, 65” $2,799.99, 55” $1,999.99) is 31% thinner than its own A80L OLED with a 29% slimmer bezel and offers the company’s Acoustic Surface Audio+ technology.
Similar to the Mini-LED models, the FALD Bravia 7 LED TV (85” $3,499.99 MSRP, 75” $2,799.99, 65” $2,299.99, 55” $1,899.99) offers a 790% increase in dimming zones compared to its 2023 X90L full array LED model with a 15% comparative drop in power usage.
At the entry-level, the Bravia 3 (85” $1,799.99 MSRP, 75” $1,299.99, 65” $999.99, 55” $849.99, 50” $699.99, 43” $599.99) offers “dynamic” HDR with 8% power savings over last year’s X77L models.
Top Gun: Maverick director Joseph Kosinski and DP Claudio Miranda were on hand to boost the Bravia 9’s cinematic qualities. “We’ll spend weeks, if not months, color grading a movie,” Kosinski explained. “I don’t know how much a consumer understands about HDR detail, color, or shadows, but it’s good that the consumer has the option to see the filmmaker’s intention.” Added Miranda, “From the demos we saw of Top Gun [on the Bravia 9], I could see it was the exact way we shot it.”
Sony also unveiled a new auto-calibration mode for Amazon Prime content that works to automatically adjust luminance, color temperature, color accuracy, contrast, brightness, the type of TV panel detected, ambient lighting conditions, and vibrancy. According to Sony, the company’s APIs enable a streaming service to metadata flag individual content to produce precise calibration.
Home Theater Speakers
On the home theater sound side, Sony announced four Bravia Theater speaker products:
Bravia Theater Quad ($2,499.99) is, naturally, a four-speaker system, each speaker comprised of four drivers that provide 360 Spatial Sound Mapping with the Sony Bravia TV providing the center channel. The 16 speakers across the array provide 16 phantom channels so sounds sound as if they are emanating from the precise on-screen location.
Bravia Theater Bar 9 ($1,399.99) is a soundbar equipped with 13 separate speakers supporting both Dolby Atmos and DTS:X. While Sony auditioned the soundbar while paired with a subwoofer and rear speakers, the Bar 9 is sold separately, not as a bundle.
Bravia Theater Bar 8 ($999.99) is a slightly smaller, less-endowed soundbar equipped with 11 speakers.
Bravia Theater U Neck Band ($299.99) is the latest around-the-neck Bluetooth speaker that sits on a user’s clavicle and features up-firing speakers to provide a more personal surround listening experience, more open than often aurally claustrophobic and non-surround headphones. However, this latest neckband lacks the previous model’s (SRS-NB10) down-firing woofers that provide a more haptic listening experience.
Sony’s new Bravia soundbars are equipped with the company’s Voice Zoom 3 adjustable audio technology that can by tuned along a sliding scale either to isolate vocals and highlight dialog that cuts through sound effects or turn down dialog, such as muffling sports announcer chatter to achieve a more in-person ambient aural experience.
One way Sony hopes to justify its higher-priced TVs and home theater speakers is by slightly changing the focus of the potential purchase, stressing that “cinema is coming home.” “It’s not about turning the living room into a home theater,” stressed Rob Brennan, Sony’s manager of A/V products. “We’re interested in delivering a cinema experience in their living rooms.”
See also: Samsung Adds New 98-Inch Model To Ultra-Large TV Lineup
