The Sony BRAVIA Theater Bar 6, or the HT-B600, is Sony’s latest entry into the premium soundbar market, aimed at users who want a clean, compact setup without sacrificing performance. It sits below the Bar 9 and the Bar 7 in Sony’s soundbar lineup, and it is also smaller than them. Positioned as a mid-to-high tier option in Sony’s BRAVIA ecosystem, it supports Dolby Atmos, DTS: X, and integrates with Sony’s 360 Spatial Sound Mapping. On paper, it promises a cinematic audio experience in a slim package, but how well does it deliver in everyday use? Let’s break it down.
Sony Bar 6 Review
Design And Features
The Sony Theater Bar 6 is a 3.1.2ch Dolby Atmos soundbar that comes with a wireless subwoofer, and it also supports DTS: X. It weighs only 7 lbs, and it is 38 inches wide and 2.6 inches tall. It has a matte black finish with rounded corners, and a metal mesh grille on the front panel and the top panel.
There are five speakers inside the Sony Bar 6, which include two upfiring height speakers. The included wireless subwoofer is front ported, and it has a 6-inch driver. On the back panel, you have HDMI ARC and eARC, and an optical connection.
The upfiring speakers are used for Dolby Atmos and DTS: X, and they surround you with audio from above. This way, you can experience three-dimensional audio without ceiling speakers. This experience is brought to you by the Bar 6’s Vertical Surround Engine, which gives a more realistic, multi-dimensional sound to other formats as well.
Sony’s upmixer delivers rich surround sound even from stereo content. Its algorithm extracts and redistributes individual audio objects to immerse you in 3D sound. The speakers’ unique rectangular shape maximises the diaphragm area for punchy bass. It also reduces driver excursion and maintains sound pressure, ensuring less distortion and greater vocal clarity.
The Bar 6’s Voice mode enhances vocal clarity by boosting mid-range frequencies, making dialogue easier to hear in various scenes. For compatible BRAVIA TVs, Voice Zoom 3™ offers additional fine-tuning of dialogue for improved comprehension.
Using a single speaker unit to reproduce a wide frequency range from bass to treble simultaneously can cause distortion and result in a muffled and unclear sound image. The Sony Theater Bar 6’s unique signal-processing technology suppresses this distortion for clear dialogue and precise imaging.
(Image credits: WhatHiFi)
When an original music source is compressed, it loses the high-frequency elements that give detail and richness to a track. The Digital Sound Enhancement Engine (DSEE) in the Sony Bar 6 restores these to produce high-quality sound that’s closer to the original recording.
Setting Up The Sony BRAVIA HT-B600 (Bar 6)
The Sony BRAVIA Theater Bar 6 is best suited for a small room. If you want a soundbar for medium or large rooms, then you are better off looking at the Sony Bar 7 or the Bar 9. You can control the BRAVIA Bar 6 with your BRAVIA TV remote if you have one, or you can use the remote that comes in the box. For subwoofer placement, I found that placing the soundbar and subwoofer side by side got me the best sound.
The BRAVIA Connect smartphone app will guide you through the initial setup, settings, and assist you with troubleshooting. It lets you control the volume, the sound field, and more. With Bluetooth, you can connect the Sony Bar 6 to your smartphone, laptop, or tablet, and play music, podcasts, and more.
Sound Quality
The Sony BRAVIA Theater Bar 6’s sound signature is immediately dominated by an aggressively tuned subwoofer that arrives set to a loud default level. Even after dialing it back to -3 (my preferred setting after extensive testing), the bass remains prominent enough to occasionally overwhelm the midrange frequencies. This creates a noticeable gap in the upper bass and lower midrange region, making the low-end feel disconnected rather than seamlessly integrated. The subwoofer also struggles with agility during complex passages, falling behind during fast-paced action sequences where it should be keeping pace with the main soundbar drivers.
Despite these bass-heavy shortcomings, the Bar 6 excels at delivering the kind of room-filling scale and atmospheric presence that justifies its Dolby Atmos support. Height effects are genuinely convincing, placing sounds directly overhead with impressive three-dimensional depth. Dialogue remains clear and emotionally engaging, though voices occasionally take on a slightly synthetic, echoey quality during quieter moments. The soundbar’s ability to create an enveloping soundstage is remarkable for its price point, though individual effects lack the precision and detail you’d find in more refined competitors like the Sonos Arc Ultra. Music performance suffers predictably, with vocals sounding somewhat cold and the bass remaining problematic even with the Sound Field disabled.
Verdict: Should You Get The Sony BRAVIA Bar 6?
The Sony BRAVIA Theater Bar 6 is a soundbar caught between ambitions and execution. Its strengths are undeniable: exceptional room-filling presence, convincing Atmos effects, and the kind of cinematic scale that transforms movie nights. However, these positives are consistently undermined by a poorly calibrated subwoofer that dominates the mix and lacks the finesse needed for complex audio. If you prioritize big, explosive sound over nuanced audio reproduction and don’t mind spending time wrestling with bass settings, the Bar 6 delivers impressive value for US$650. For those seeking balanced, detailed sound reproduction, the compromises here are too significant to overlook, and you would be better off buying the Sony BRAVIA Bar 9.