Sony HT-CT370 2.1 Channel 300W Sound Bar with Wireless Subwoofer, Bluetooth, and NFC

UPDATE: I have used this product daily for 15 months now and I have had no problems, it works perfectly, and I am very pleased with the sound. Everything I said in this review below still applies. Great 5 Star product.I had very specific wants, so the sound bar/subwoofer for me just hadn’t come to market, until the Sony HT-CT370 that is. My shopping list included:> low profile sound bar that doesn’t block the TV screen or TV remote’s operation> compact wireless subwoofer> sufficient power to play loud and clear> up-to-date HDMI connections and ARC (audio return channel) feature for future proofing> moderate priceThis system has all this and more. The sound bar is streamlined at 2” H x 4.5” D x 35.5” W (my measurements). Finding a “skinny” sound bar along with all the other features I wanted was the biggest challenge. Admittedly, I wondered how good could the sound be from a 2” high enclosure? Well, after several months of usage, I can say that it sounds and looks great. For example, dialogue is very clear, even for occasional cockney accents on PBS (a truly tough test for these American ears, LOL). And, in comparison with the TV’s built-in speakers, no contest, the Sony HT-CT370 wins easily.The wireless subwoofer is compact at 14.25” H x 15.4” D x 5.25” W (my measurements) and can be set on end or side and looks good either way. Set horizontally, it will fit in most AV furniture cabinets with their typical 17-19” wide shelf enclosures, although I don’t use it that way. Being compact, it doesn’t put out as much deep bass as some that I have heard including my old Yamaha subwoofer. But I’m not a bass junkie so it’s plenty adequate and clear and it blends in with the sound bar to produce a well balanced overall sound in my average size room.I wanted to get rid of some clutter, so this system replaces my old 5.1 sound system (large and heavy AV receiver, 5 surround speakers, and large subwoofer with built-in amp). With wires running to speakers, subwoofer, and AV receiver and two AC power cords to boot, it had lots of tangle and don’t even ask how hard was it to hide the wires for the back of the room speakers. Not only did I get rid of clutter, I prefer the sound of this new system. The old system had a bigger sound, but the Sony HT-CT370 has a clearer sound.I use the Sony HT-CT370 to switch signals between the TV and video devices. High speed HDMI cables run from the Tivo DVR/cable box to sound bar (HDMI 1), Blu-ray player to sound bar (HDMI 2), laptop to sound bar (HDMI 3), and between sound bar and TV HDMI ARC connections. That sounds complicated but it’s not - there are just four cables.The Sony HT-CT370 and my 2013 Sony HDTV, Tivo DVR/cable box, and 2014 Sony Blu-ray player operate well together. I was able to program the Tivo remote for on/off, volume, and mute functions. So, only this remote is needed most of the time. However, I use the Sony HT CT-370 remote to switch inputs as needed. I still keep the TV remote handy to access TV set up features and the TV menu for some internet content. And, I still use the Blu-ray player remote when operating the player (on/off, open/close, fast forward, etc).I watch the Tivo DVR/cable box (HDMI 1) most of time. When I turn on the Blu-ray player (HDMI 2) to watch a movie, the signal automatically switches and the movie appears on screen. To switch back to the Tivo DVR/cable box, I use the input button on the Sony HT-CT370 remote to cycle through the input choices menu (HDMI 1, HDMI 2, HDMI 3, Analog, Bluetooth Audio, and TV). These choices display on the sound bar as I cycle through. Switching is simple and easy.By the way, you can use your TV as a signal switcher instead of the sound bar, but CNET cautioned that many TVs downgrade the incoming audio signal to stereo rather than preserving a true surround sound signal. The CNET article of 12/13/2013 is: “20 TVs tested: Which sets can pass surround sound to a sound bar?” and here is the link:http://www.cnet.com/news/20-tvs-tested-which-sets-can-pass-surround-sound-to-a-sound-bar/One inconvenience occurred when I muted or paused the signal for twenty minutes - the Sony HT-CT370 turned itself off and I would have to turn it back on with its remote. But then I read the manual (as a wise guy once said, “if all else fails, read the manual”). I learned that there is an automatic audio power feature that turns off the Sony HT-CT370 if no incoming audio signal is detected for twenty minutes. Hmm, I turned this feature off in the settings menu and presto all was good.Another minor inconvenience happens when turning on the TV and Sony HT-CT370. A screen message appears “Switching audio to external speakers.” After a few seconds delay, the sound turns on and the message disappears. I’m guessing the sound bar and subwoofer have to do a start-up handshake. This is forgivable and not that big a deal.Connecting the system to my other equipment was a snap with the clear directions provided. The wireless connection between sound bar and subwoofer was easy to establish and has worked from day one. They have not dropped out or caused any problems in months of use. I can’t say how much set-up and easy operation is helped by using the latest high speed HDMI cables and staying in the Sony family with a Sony TV and Blu-ray player, but I’m sure it didn’t hurt.The question of bass adequacy in many sound systems is a source of endless debate and disappointment for some. This is bound to happen. Some people like bass and others love bass. Some not only want to hear bass, they want to actually feel the bass in the louder passages (Ah, fond memories of great live rock concerts come to mind).Truth is you just won’t know about the Sony HT CT-370’s bass for sure until you hear it in your system with your own ears. All I can do to help you is say that IMHO there is plentiful bass, but it’s more of a hear-the-bass sound rather than a feel-the-bass sound.I highly recommend this well designed and high performing sound system and it’s a great value for the price.

This is an outstanding product. I have a 50" Sony TV that is wall mounted, and I wanted to "hang" the Sound Bar from the bottom of the TV, but I did not necessarily want to install it on the wall under the TV. I bought the Sewell Direct Universal Sound Bar Bracket with the purchase of this Sony Sound Bar, and was able to easily "hang" the Sound Bar from the wall mounted TV in a matter of minutes (20-30 minutes). The Sound Bar comes with a wall mounting bracket that has two "keyholes" that would have to align perfectly if installed on a wall, like hanging a picture or clock that has a keyhole slot for the screw to slip into. I did not like that option, and found that the Sound Bar keyhole brackets can be unbolted from the Sound Bar leaving two threaded bolt holes for your use. I inserted the Sewell Universal Sound Bar Bracket in between the TV's two rear bottom holes and the wall mount bracket, then tightened them up a bit. I now had the Sewell hanging below the wall mounted TV. With the help of a partner holding the Sony Sound Bar up, I aligned the two threaded bolt holes at the rear of the Sound Bar to the Universal bracket. Using the bolts from the now removed Sound Bar keyhole brackets, I then attached the sound Bar onto the Universal bracket, and "hung" it below the TV. I have AC outlets behind the TV and so my installation is clean with all cables running inside the wall. But, keep in mind you will need an AC outlet to plug your Sound Bar into. If installing on a table, then the installation is super easy, but wall mounting takes some thought. Now, for the sound quality, volume, and features. Excellent! The sub-woofer being blue tooth is outstanding because you can place the woofer anywhere in the room (it needs an AC outlet). The Sound Bar produces great sound that can be applied to different situations such as music, games, sports, or movies. One of the things I love about this product is the Blue Tooth AUX setting where I paired my phone with it and now can play anything from my phone on the sound Bar. I highly recommend this product.

*Edited: (Knocked down from 5 stars to 4 due to app issues and weak Bluetooth, see review). I never realized how the weak stock audio on our 50" Plasma was only giving us half of the home entertainment experience. By no means "surround sound" this Sony system pumps things up to where they should be and makes everything finally complete.The bar is sleek and almost invisible under our table top set Samsung TV. Running 2 HDMI cables, the power cable and an optical cable (recommended directions from the Sony guide for my equipment stated to use both an HDMI and optical audio) from the speaker is a little cumbersome, but the speaker is low enough to where I can push it up against the bottom of the TV and run the wires behind it, so they are not seen. Almost as if the TV and speaker are one integrated piece. *If you mount it on a wall, I don't know how you are going to hide all the thick wires unless you have a power outlet behind your mounted TV. The wireless subwoofer automatically syncs to the speaker bar without any programming or button pushing. The subwoofer power cable is also pretty short, 5 or 6'?I first thought the downloadable smartphone app was really cool, *but I soon found it does have its quirks. You can easily and quickly program all of the speaker features and control it from the app. Volume levels, and sound settings for each connected device (TV/DVD/etc) are saved so you never have to manually change settings. Example: when you program it to be in "movie" mode when the DVD player is on, or "music" mode when you stream from your iphone, it will remember this. No having to change the sound settings when you switch between different devices. Compared to the old school way of doing an onscreen menu or scrolling through choices on the device with the remote, this app is way more convenient and intuitive. *The app gets confusing when dealing with/switching devices and can be slow to load up devices when you switch (DVD, Bluetooth, TV) and kind of leaves you hanging. Going to the remote will solve the problem, but I don't know why the app hangs. It could be made simpler.When I first had the unit for 2 days, I played with BlueRay DVD's, streaming from Iphone Itunes and from the Spotify App, and TV. TV is so much more "full" and well rounded, even at low volume. From other rooms in the house, I get that full sound of the broadcast, no tinny voices or muffled bass blob noise. I popped in a regular DVD "Star Wars Phantom Menace" with THX and cranked the Sony up to FULL power sound. No distortion, no rattling or ringing. The light sabers, rocket sounds, lasers and "force push" noises were very cool and enveloping. Very nice bass from the sub. While I would think cranking it up to max volume would hurt my ears or get annoying, it was fine. The system is perfect for a small to medium living room. My set up has both speakers about 15 feet in front of a couch that is backed up against a wall. Listening to a live baseball game while 2 rooms away in the kitchen, I could pick out nice little nuances with the speakers in "Sports" mode without having it cranked to full volume. I put in a Blue Ray of "The Matrix" and was also impressed. I noticed it came out louder. Don't know if it was because it was BlueRay or if the settings on the speakers were tweaked different. The punches had "punch", voices were clear and the bass boomed and resonated.Streaming music is effortless and really sounds fantastic *when the bluetooth is within range. I was very impressed with the overall quality and the bass response. You can add your music/radio apps to the Sony app and access them through the Sony app. I did notice some occasional "hiccups" while streaming songs with my iphone just 20' away from the soundbar and to the right of it. *After 3 days, I figured out that the Bluetooth signal is pretty weak. I have a small 1200 sg ft house with decent sight lines between rooms and a 1/2 split level upstairs. Unless my iphone is directly in front of the soundbar (15' away) and not beyond a 45 degree angle of the device, the music will get choppy and skip. Two rooms away (50'?) with open sight I had my iphone in my shirt pocket and opened my refrigerator door and the Bluetooth music got choppy and completely dropped from my phone and had to be manually reconnected. While I was 15' away and parallel the unit along a wall (beyond that 45 degree angle) with my iphone on a table, the music would get choppy and drop in and out every 10 to 20 seconds.Another thing I noticed was that if you turn off the speakerbar, then turn it back on again, it drops the bluetooth connection to my iphone and the app. They do not automatically search each other out when the speaker is turned back on again, but if I go into the bluetooth settings on my phone and click the "Sony" device, it instantly reconnects and will stay there as long as I'm within range and the speaker is not turned off.*I dropped my previous 5 star rating to 4 because of the app bugs and the weak bluetooth signals for streaming, though the choppy streaming issue is really my biggest gripe so far. I know you can buy a 5.1 surround system with speakers and receiver for the same price, but I did not want speakers all over my living room and a big boxy receiver (which I just retired thanks to this device). If you can do without the "surround" experience, don't wander too far when streaming, and are a minimalist, this device is for you.

This Sony 2.1 channel sound bar and wireless subwoofer combo is really good for its price range. It gives you a good amount of power (at 300 watts of sound output) and nice bass. This set up supports most current HD sound formats, so you get really nice, high quality surround sound for all your favorite TV shows, movies, and video games. The sound reproduced is crisp and clear and has pretty decent "omph" when the volume is turned up. You get a choice of hooking up your sound bar to your TV or receiver with either an optical cable or HDMI cable, which is nice. I prefer the HDMI hook up because it gives you the ARC (audio return channel) ability. This means the sound bar can be hooked to your TV's ARC compatible HDMI input and will thus turn off the sound bar and subwoofer when the TV is turned off. This eliminates the need to turn them off individually. Aside from the ARC compatible HDMI output slot, you have three HDMI input slots that you can connect three separate HDMI compatible devices to the sound bar. This is also a nice feature beacuse you don't have to unplug and reconnect different devices. As far as the size of the sound bar and subwoofer goes, they're on the smaller side. The sound bar is thinner and flatter than some other sound bars, it takes up little space in front of or under your TV or when wall mounted. The subwoofer is fairly small and doesn't take up too much space, so you can set it pretty much anywhere you want without any worries. So if you're looking for a nice, reliable sound bar + wireless subwoofer set up for under $400, this one is well worth the money.

Best Dollar for the sound bar that I have found for my Sony TV. I was a little concerned at buying a sound bar until I saw all the rave reviews here online for this Sound Bar. All true, what full rich sound that is so close to Surround Sound, that it made me fee like I was at Imax watching a movie.One caveat, I think the instructions are not the best for setup. The quick setup suggests using the optical cable as your connection from the TV to the Sound Bar, I setup it up that way and the quality of sound was not very good. Also since I didn't plug in the HDMI ARC, the TV was not controlling the sound bar.After setting up a friends a few months ago, I knew it was best to hook up an HDMI cable to the ARC input. Hooked everything up and connected the PS3, TIVO and my Security DVR to the Sound bar. Turned on the TV and was not getting any signal from the sound bar. The TV showed that it did switch to the External Sound Bar speakers.Remember to use a High Speed HDMI cable. As soon as I swapped out the cable to the High Speed HDMI, everything worked perfect. The sounds are rich, bass is awesome loud and voices are clear.Another Awesome Sony product

I bought this on Black Friday. I have lousy hearing, my big TV has tiny speakers, and I've always wanted something to improve the audio. I resisted sinking money into a sound bar for a long time because I didn't feel the technology was mature, but I finally decided it was time to buy. There's a few different ways to connect this sound bar:1) you can use an HDMI passthrough where your media device(s) connects to the sound bar, which then connects to your TV. The sound bar can switch between multiple media devices.2) you can use audio return channel where your media device(s) connects to your TV, which then returns audio through another cable to the sound bar3) you could also use optical or analog output, either from your media device or TV to the sound bar.I initially tried #1, connecting my Tivo to the soundbar and then connecting the soundbar to my TV. This worked initially but stopped working about a week later. I tried repowering and diagnosing the sound bar to no avail, but I didn't spend a whole lot of time. I suspect something was wrong with the HDMI inputs, so I've deducted a couple stars because of that. I decided to pursue strategy #2, instead and found that to be superior, and that would be my suggested connection method. When I turn the TV on it says something like 'external speakers detected; switching to external speakers'. It takes it a couple of seconds. The advantage of this approach is that your TV is capable of operating fully independently from the soundbar. If there's ever a problem with the soundbar or misconfiguration of the settings (think visiting relative), the TV will work just fine without it.The audio quality is significantly better than my TV's internal speakers, which had some annoying harmonics. I'm able to understand voices a bit better. The improvements are nice, but they're not earth shatteringly better.Installation was fairly easy. I purchased a 'Sewell Direct Universal Soundbar Bracket' and was able to mount the soundbar to my TV. I like this a lot better than other installations where people mount the soundbar directly to the wall (requiring additional anchors). I highly recommend using something like the sewell bracket.I have noticed that if I leave my Tivo paused for a really really long time, that the TV 'forgets' about the soundbar, and switches back to its internal speakers. This happens rarely, and is resolved by turning the soundbar's power off and then back on.

Well made SONY sound bar with simple set up that works with our SONY flat screen TV remote. One remote turns it on and off. Wireless Sub-woofer is the only way to go. Basically, this unit connects to the TV with one HDMI cable. If you add a Blu-ray player, which we did, you connect the Blu-ray to the sound bar via HDMI and the signal is routed to the TV. Again, turn on the Blu-ray and the system knows to switch over the sound and turn on the TV. Seamless compatibility with SONY TV remote. Sound from the sound bar is spectacular. Clean dialog and several simple settings on the remote to tailor the sound, if desired. Separate volume for the sub-woofer, so you can get as much or as little base punch as you prefer. Clean appearance. One minor issue is that we had to put a couple pieces of wood under the TV stand to lift it up two inches. Otherwise, the remote control signal at the base of the TV was blocked by the sound bar. It would make a lot of sense to put the TV remote signal receiver at the top of the screen instead of the bottom so that this would not be a problem.

I really wanted to like this sony especially having a Sony TV etc. The truth is the bass is probably the best I've ever heard on a soundbar, however when you think about what a voice is supposed to sound like this sound bar makes everything sound like a speaker in a box. It's like all of my audio is constantly talking into a pillow. And yes they do have a voice enhancing mode which is ultimately is what sold me on this one, however it really does nothing at all, they have three voice settings the first one is a speaker in a box, the second one you can hear a slight improvement, the third one you hear good amount of vocal clarity however it crushes everything down so all you really hear is treble. Now I know what you must be thinking surely you can just enhance the bass, I tried this and yes it made it sound a little bit better..but it did not do anything to help the fact that this sony sound bar just absolutely forgot to add the mids into the system. I'm sitting here trying to calibrate it as we speak and it just isn't going my way, and when you consider the fact that this is a relatively expensive product it definitely does not live up to the dollar sign that it asks for. It is beautiful to look at, it is easy to take out of the box / install, it is packaged beautifully with beautiful graphics on the outside of the box, but at the end of the day it just does not deliver any form of mids for vocals. This is highly frustrating considering the fact that I actually really like Sony and I'm pretty much buying everything Sony, however when it comes to their sound bar my bravia has better sound which is pathetic! if I'm paying you nearly $300 for better sound, then that of my TV deliver it. So stressful, this sound bar really is not a strong performer for its price range, you will be better off just looking elsewhere as much as it might hurt you to do so or irritate you. There is nothing worse than having no lug a giant sound bar back to the UPS store to ship it off. Trust me and learn from my mistake. Positive reviews are clearly coming from people who have either never owned a sound bar before, for people who just go into it expecting it to sound like a TV speaker. By no means are any of these positive reviews actually accurate.. I decided to listen to the positive reviews and as a result I'm stuck having to end up as one of the negative. Don't be that guy that overlooks the negative things that people are saying is specially in my case because what I'm telling you is the truth. The Sony ct 370 is just not worth your money go spend it somewhere else good luck.

great system sony as put out , great sound and conpact. .

Decent sound quality and a sleek design. The soundbar itself was easily mounted with velcro.