Sony Bravia Theatre Bar 9

How do you follow a three-time Award-winning soundbar? This is how

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Soundbar | £1399 whf.cm/TheatreBar9

It is against its excellent, Award-winning predecessor HT-A7000 that the Bravia Bar 9 will be judged - that is still the best performance-per-pound soundbar we have tested, and you can now find it with some huge discounts. There are plenty of non-Sony rivals too, of course, most notably the Sennheiser Ambeo Soundbar Plus and Samsung HW-Q990D, the latter of which is a complete system in a box.

The Theatre Bar 9's rounded front corners and fabric cover, which shrouds 90 per cent of the bar's visible surfaces, make the Bar 9 look much softer and more discreet than the HT-A7000. It is exactly the same width at 130cm, but it's also less tall (at 6.4cm) and deep (11cm), making it seem more svelte and also more likely to sit in front of your TV without blocking the bottom of its screen. Should you prefer to wall-mount, there is a bracket included.

Under the fabric cover are 13 individual drivers (up from 11 on the HT-A7000) and quad passive radiators. Along the front are four woofers, three standard tweeters and two beam tweeters; on each end is a side speaker; and on the top are two up-firing speakers and those passive radiators.

The up-firing drivers and beam tweeters are the same as those found in the HT-A7000, but each of the other speakers is new. Of particular note are the four front-firing woofers, which are 1.7 times larger than those in the HT-A7000 and are designed to boost the bass and midrange.