Sony BRAVIA Theatre U Neckband Speaker Review – U R Surrounded

Sony’s new version of their neckband speaker, the BRAVIA Theatre U offers a private listening experience for those who want to get some semblance of surround sound when watching TV or movies or listening to music but don’t like wearing headphones. Is it something you need in your life? Read on to find out.

Like Headphones. But Wrapped Around Your Neck.

Sony’s BRAVIA Theatre U neckband speaker (Model HT-AN7) sells for $299 (MSRP) but was on sale for $199 at the time of publication of this review. It is similar to a pair of headphones in that it provides a semi-private listening experience for when you want to watch TV or movies or power through a late night gaming session without disturbing your roommates, family or neighbors. But instead of sitting on your ears, a neckband speaker goes around your neck, with the speaker drivers pointing up at your ears creating a personal cone of sound around your head. The band is flexible, allowing you to adjust the width and angle of the speakers for optimized acoustics.

Who is it For?

The BRAVIA Theatre U is for those who want the option of watching movies or TV shows, listening to music or gaming without bothering those around you, but without having to wear headphones. Maybe you find headphones uncomfortable or don’t like the level of isolation you get when wearing headphones. Wearing the BRAVIA Theatre U around your neck, you can still enjoy a sense of surround sound from movies and TV shows and you can still hear what’s going on around you, like a knock at the door or a family member trying to get your attention.

The Set-Up

Setting up the BRAVIA Theatre U is a pretty straightforward affair. If you’ve ever paired a set of Bluetooth headphones to your phone or to a TV, you know the drill. Hold the power/pairing button on the Theatre U until the light flashes blue in pairing mode, then load up the Bluetooth setting on your device to pair it with the neckband speaker. From then on, the neckband speaker works like a pair of headphones. It even includes a built-in microphone in case you want to take calls on the Theatre U.

Charging the Theatre U using the included cable may take up to four hours if the unit is completely spent. A full charge gets you around 12 hours of playback time at average volumes. If you forget to charge them and need them for a quick listen, a 10-minute quick charge will get you about an hour of playback time, more if you keep them at a low volume. Sadly, you cannot use the speaker while it’s charging.

Compatible Sony TVs can link up to two Theatre U speakers at a time in case someone else wants to listen with you. The speaker comes with a USB-C to 3.5mm cable for a wired connection to a compatible device and a short USB-A to USB-C charging cable in the box.

There’s an App for That

If you want to access more advanced features on the BRAVIA Theatre U, like EQ and updating the unit’s firmware, you’ll need to load up Sony’s Headphone Connect app, which is available for iOS or Android. With the app, you can also benefit from the 360 Spatial Sound Personalizer for personalized immersive sound from phones and select Sony TVs (more on that later). There’s a separate 360 Spatial Sound Personalizer app, but I found I didn’t need that when I had the Headphones Connect app previously installed on my phone.

The 360 Spatial Sound Personalizer uses your phone camera to take pictures of your ears in order to optimize spatial sound like Dolby Atmos, DTS:X and 360 Reality Audio for to your specific ear and head shape. The BRAVIA Theatre U uses psychoacoustics processing (including the “HRTF” or Head Response Transfer Function) to give you the illusion of surround sound from only two speakers. When the app knows the shape of your ears, it can create the illusion of surround sound more effectively. Once you’ve stored your personalization profile, it will work with Sony headphones, in addition to the BRAVIA Theatre U.

Listen Up

Once I had set up the personalization, I tested the Theatre U with a connected phone and with one of Sony’s 2024 model TVs (the BRAVIA 7 MiniLED TV). Wearing the Theatre U is easy to get used to. It’s quite lightweight (9.5 ounces) and sits comfortably on the shoulders without moving around too much while walking. I had thought that it would be annoying to those around me to hear everything I was listening to, but the speakers do a very good job of concentrating and focusing the sound upwards just to your specific ears. When I was recording the unboxing video, the volume was slightly loud to me, but on playback, I could see that it was barely audible to the camera’s microphone which was just in front of me.

First up, some music. I listened to a selection of different tracks in spatial audio or “immersive sound,” both in Dolby Atmos and in Sony’s own 360 Reality Audio format, on both TIDAL and Amazon Music Unlimited. The soundstage created by the Theatre U is amorphous, almost ethereal. On Celine Dion’s “My Heart Will Go On” in 360 Reality Audio, Celine’s voice floated in the space in front of me with musical accompaniment stretching all around and even behind me. Olivia Rodrigo’s “Vampire” (also in 360RA) had a similar effect, with sound coming from all around my head.

The Dolby Atmos mix of Ed Sheeran’s “Shape of You” is a wonderfully layered multi-channel immersive recording and it had a nice sense of space on the Theatre U. Similarly, the Dolby Atmos mixes of Rihanna “Lift Me Up” Taylor Swift’s “All of the Girls You’ve Loved Before” had a nice depth of field while the main vocals appeared to be coming from just in front of my face (which is interesting, since the speakers were actually projecting that sound from directly below my ears).

Midrange, including male and female vocals, were reproduced clearly and articulately on the Theatre U, and there was some nice high end detail in strings and percussion. But really there was virtually no bass to speak of. And this is probably what bothered me most. Switching over to a pair of headphones, Sony’s own ULT Wear, the bass immediately made itself known. I understand it would be difficult to reproduce low bass from the wide open, lightweight design of the Theatre U, but bass is definitely what I missed most when listening to them.

Moving onto movie and TV shows on the Sony BRAVIA 7 TV, the Theatre U continued its party trick of audio placement, giving the illusion that dialog was coming from directly on screen, instead of from two speakers below my ears. Immersive effects like the rain falling from above in the beginning of the first episode of “Andor” didn’t exactly sound like they were coming from above me, but they did create a nice diffusive effect that gave me the general impression of being immersed in a rainstorm.

Complex soundscapes like in “Dune” with the sand swirling around, interspersed with a swelling score and voices of the Bene Gesserit intruding into Paul Atreides thoughts, were represented with a decent sense of space and dimensionality. It is less like the huge “dome of sound” that you get when listening to Dolby Atmos or DTS:X soundtracks over a multi-channel speaker system, and more like a small “bubble” of sound which surrounds the listener’s head.

The surround effect is certainly more spacious and dimensional than what you get from a pair of earbuds or closed back headphones, but the overall frequency response of the Theatre U is lacking in the extremes (particularly in the bass). Personally, I prefer wearing a good pair of headphones so I can get a nice balanced frequency response, but the neckband speaker is an interesting alternative.

I should note that Sony’s Spatial Sound Personalization feature is only available in select 2023 Sony TVs (the A95L OLED) and in Sony’s 2024 Models (BRAVIA 7 MiniLED, BRAVIA 8 OLED, BRAVIA 9 MiniLED). Some older Sony TVs can support the feature with a separate add-on Wireless Transmitter (WLA-NS7).

Occasionally I did find that the sound from the Theatre U was not perfectly synchronized to the video, but this is fairly common when using Bluetooth speakers or headphones with a video source like a TV. Usually pausing and unpausing the movie or show resolved the issue.

Pros:

• Offers a more spacious soundstage than headphones
• Enjoy movies, TV shows and games in virtual surround without waking the family
• Two Theatre U speakers can be linked at a time
• Allows you to be “situationally aware”

Cons:

• Not as private as headphones
• Very little bass response
• Long recharge time (4 hours) and cannot be used while charging

The Bottom Line

I never really thought I needed a neckband speaker before I started playing with the BRAVIA Theatre U. After testing it, I’m still not convinced. But personally I don’t mind wearing headphones when watching movies or TV shows, so maybe I’m not the target audience? For those who don’t like wearing headphones but want to be considerate to those around them, and like a little taste of virtual surround sound, the BRAVIA Theatre U is worth checking out.

Where to Buy: $299 $199 at Amazon

Related Reading:

• Sony Unveils BRAVIA Lineup of TVs, Soundbars and Speakers for 2024

• Sony ULT Wear Bluetooth Headphones Review

• Podcast: Sony is Bringing the Cinema Home in 2024