The HTA 9: A Review of Sony's Latest Offering

I spent a significant amount of time with the Sony X95J, trying to get it sorted out after thinking that it was just me being daft. I had plugged in my headphones and thought everything was fine, but then realized that they weren't actually connected. This took up about 15 minutes of my time, and I eventually gave up because I was running low on time. However, this experience left a sour taste in my mouth, as the system didn't seem to be working correctly.

Despite this initial hiccup, I was impressed with the surround sound and sound field effects that the X95J offered. These features were incredibly impressive, but I couldn't shake off the feeling that something wasn't quite right. My main issue with the system's fidelity was that it seemed to have a boxy quality when it came to voices. I watched a documentary with David Attenborough and was struck by how poor the audio quality was - it sounded like he was speaking from a small cave, rather than being in a spacious studio. I even checked one of my own videos and found that it sounded similar to the documentary, which was not what I expected at all.

I also had some issues with dialog clarity, which is an important aspect of any home theater sound system. The X95J didn't seem to be doing this correctly, and I couldn't help but feel disappointed. However, I will come back around with an update later to see if things have improved.

Gaming and the Great Gatsby's Ghost

Now, let's talk about gaming and the issue of Variable Refresh Rate (VRR) on Sony's TVs. This is a complicated topic, and it's not easy to navigate. The long-standing issue of VRR not being supported by most TVs, despite HDMI 2.1 features being available, has been a point of contention for gamers.

There was also the rumor that VRR would disable Local Dimming, which further added to the confusion. I tested the X95J with Fortnite and found that VRR wasn't working as expected. However, when I enabled Auto Game Mode, it did seem to work correctly. But what does this mean for the average gamer? Is VRR really worth the extra cost?

The answer is no - at least not yet. While the X95J can do almost everything the PS5 throws at it, and it looks fantastic for gaming, the lack of VRR support may be a deal-breaker for some gamers. I have to admit that I'm conflicted about this issue - on one hand, it's a lot of money to spend on a TV, and you want all the latest features. On the other hand, if you're not getting VRR support, what's the point?

To put things into context, I try to avoid looking at prices until I've evaluated the TV thoroughly. However, with some TVs, it's easy to forget prices - especially when they go on sale. The LG QN 98 is a similar TV to the X95J in terms of features, but it has more advanced backlight control and higher peak brightness. The Sony X95J may be slightly better in certain areas, but the price difference isn't staggering.

Then there's the TCL Six Series and High Sense U8G - the latter has incredibly high brightness and deep black levels, although some black crushing can occur. However, it's also significantly less expensive than the X95J. So, does the Sony X95J have twice the performance of the TCL? No, it doesn't - at least not yet.

In 2022, I think we're going to be having a different conversation about TVs and their features. The X95J is delivering on its promise of premium Sony processing, color accuracy, and overall picture quality. It's got more swagger than some of the other TVs on the market, but it's not flashy or hot rod-esque. However, if you want a bright, highly cinematic LED TV with all the bells and whistles, then the X95J is worth considering - even at its premium price point.

In conclusion, while the Sony X95J may not be perfect, it's definitely a great TV that checks most of the boxes for gamers and movie enthusiasts alike. With its advanced features, stunning picture quality, and sleek design, it's hard to deny the appeal of this TV. However, if you're looking for VRR support or more affordable options, there are other TVs on the market that may be worth considering.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: eni have literally lost sleep over this review but why i mean it's just a tv right welcome back everyone i'm caleb dennison and don't worry i didn't lose that much beauty sleep i mean i can't really afford to am i right but i have spent more than the usual amount of time thinking about this tv and its place in the market and about whether you should buy it then i walked in and i saw this and i was like sweet mercy it's gonna be that kind of day huh and that's all because i think this is a highly anticipated and highly important tv so i'm gonna do my best to do right by you and explain a little more about why i felt conflicted along the way before i dive into it now would be a good time to mention that right now as i'm recording this video the 65-inch version of the sony x95j retails for about two thousand dollars the 75 inch goes for 3 000 and the 85 inch model somewhat surprisingly is currently on sale for 3 500 i don't know how long that will last because those prices will likely have changed shortly after we upload this video but i will say that if it were me buying i'd skip right over the 75 and go for the 85 if you can fit it in your home anyway i'll be considering those prices when talking about the performance of this tv compared to other comparably priced to position tvs as well as those that cost much less so keep that in mind as we go along and as long as we're here do me a favor pop into that comment section let me know who you are by telling me what your favorite movie of 2021 was and while you're down there please click like if you enjoy these videos and more importantly hit that subscribe button because yes i am shamelessly asking for your support and buying you off with the promise of a giveaway when we hit 1 million subs and only subscribers will be eligible thanks for joining me in this bit of business now let's review a tv shall we okay so where to start well let's start with the basics or the givens if you will since sony tvs of this caliber tend to do a few things reliably sony's picture presets are once again very on point in terms of their accuracy the cinema and custom picture presets do a great job with both sdr and hdr in terms of brightness contrast grayscale and color accuracy right out of the box in fact you almost don't need to touch them at all to get a great experience hell even the standard mode is pretty good the vivid mode still a joke but i digress i would suggest turning off motion smoothing and i have but i know that many of you prefer not to and again that's fine because without doing anything this tv settings are fire good luck finding a tv that gets color so right right out of the box without doing a thing now there are a few little tweaks you can make to get the average picture level brighter in sdr if you want to which leads me nicely into our numbers for knit nerds section let's talk knits in the custom or cinema mode with local dimming set to medium and peak luminance set to off i got 400.1 nits that 0.1 is not important but i thought it was funny so i left it in when i moved the peak luminance setting to low i got 569.1 nits when i moved it to medium i got 750 and when i moved it to high i got 986 this is all with a little 10 percent size window on the tv that my friends is pretty outstanding for sdr can this tv battle bright rooms and glare it absolutely can this is indeed what one would consider a bright room tv if you want it to be in a dark room it will do great as well since sony offers a wide range of controls as for hdr the highest reading i got in custom or cinema mode with brightness maxed out peak luminance and local dimming set to high on a 10 window was 1400 nits now i understand that is higher than some other reviewers who have tested this tv got why is that the case i don't know we've seen variants before but i will say that i'm getting slightly higher readings just using the test patterns and i'm pretty confident that specular highlights are getting up to around 1400 nits as well in vivid mode i got around 1500 nits so yes i'm pretty confident with that number and i'm going to put that number into context here in a moment but we can't talk about peak brightness without talking about the backlight control and black levels as well and that's really where that conflicted feeling i've been having starts to come in so this is sony's best 4k led tv right and with the z9j8k tv we saw some pretty incredible performance in terms of backlight control black levels and peak brightness good enough to lure me away from oled potentially i said and i stand by that so we know what sony is capable of and we want to see some of that superior control in the x95j right well at least i do just because i don't want to go 8k and spend an obscene amount of money doesn't mean i don't want really good backlight control when other brands are out there offering it in their flagship 4k tvs so let's take a look at what i'm seeing first off while i'm not seeing a bunch of dirty screen effect this is a fairly clean panel i am seeing the back lights when the screen goes dark but not off i can see one two there's at least like three backlight hot spots i don't see them often and it doesn't affect real world performance but there they are and wow not very many of them and even though sony makes it really hard to count local dimming zones i can tell there aren't a ton of those either now normally that's okay i've actually stood by sony's stance that it isn't the number of zones you have but how you use the backlight that matters but i think sony isn't going to be able to hold on to that position much longer look at this footage from about nine minutes in on one of netflix night on earth documentary episodes now when we see the moon going through its stages in time lapse i'm not aware of the backlight much at all i see bright moon surrounded by inky blacks all good but if i turn on the closed captions there is a significant amount of halo or blooming around the bright text on the black background it's not very bright to sony's credit but it takes up a large amount of screen space revealing that there aren't a ton of leds back there and therefore few dimming zones still this is a torture test do i see the backlight as being a problem in normal viewing no at least not yet i might on the long term but i don't get to keep this tv that long so it's hard for me to say for sure sony's magic is at work and it's effective here but in the back of my mind i know that sony can do better and i wish they would have for this tv i just want that extra bit of oomph in the highlights and more exacting backlight control but real world the tv looks fantastic for watching movies and tv shows there's a good amount of brightness on tap for impressive hdr highlights and this tv avoids crushing blacks as well if not better than every other tv i've tested this year it's really too close to make a call i don't think i could measure a difference and make an objective call on that front plus the color accuracy and color volume is supreme really beautiful still something's bugging me but we'll get back to that here are some other things for which this tv totally rules upscaling is as good as you'll find on any tv in existence today still not a miracle worker my local news stations it can get pretty ugly honestly but that's not the tv's fault if you watch a lot of cable or satellite tv those 720p signals will be upscaled as well as they can be and the tvs contrast does a lot to make that content look impressive too switch to streaming and you'll wonder if you're watching a 4k blu-ray dolby vision content netflix disney plus hbo max all of that stuff looks especially fantastic true story the theater i watched doon at it looked like garbage i wish i had just popped some popcorn poured myself a gallon of root beer thrown 60 bucks into the garbage can and watched the movie right here because it looks so much better on this tv than it did in that garbage non-imax theater i know my fault i waited too long anyway let's move on to sound for a moment on its own the x95j has the potential to sound great but it is severely lacking in the bass department i was pretty disappointed about that but i have the sony hta 9 system here to the rescue right well yes it does sound better in some respects with the hta 9 but i ran into a few problems no matter how hard i tried i could not get the x95j to act as the center channel with the hta 9 in the mix it thought headphones were plugged in i spent like 15 minutes trying to sort it out and then i gave up because frankly i was out of time but it should just work and it didn't so i'm not thrilled about that i will say the surround sound and sound field effects are insanely impressive but i've got an issue with the system's fidelity and i haven't sorted out if it's the speakers or a setting yet i will say voices sound boxy i was watching a documentary with david attenborough and it sounded like he was in a small cave i watched one of my own videos because i know exactly how that should sound and i kid you not it sounded like i recorded it with my head in a garbage can like this and i promise you i didn't so dialog clarity which i think is one of the most important performance aspects of any home theater sound system not okay with me on the hta 9 so far i will come back around with an update later but for now i'm a little disappointed now let's talk about gaming and great gatsby's ghost is that ever a complicated topic now right i mean the long and storied issue of sony's tvs not supporting variable refresh rate even though other hdmi 2.1 features are supported and then the firmware release that was supposed to enable it but then there's the rumor that vrr disables local dimming and what a mess here's what i can tell you notice that the x95j is not listed here as benefiting from vrr on this update and we tested the tv with fortnite and found that sure enough vrr was not happening did local dimming turn it off in game mode no it didn't did auto game mode work not exactly does any of this matter i'm conflicted i mean it's a lot of money to spend on a tv so you want all the latest features but let's be honest this tv can do almost everything the ps5 throws at it and it looks fantastic for gaming it's responsive low input lag like only the most hardcore of hardcore gamers are gonna balk and honestly i'm gonna point you out an lg tv if you come a balkan at your boy okay now let's put all this stuff into context one of the things i do with tv reviews is avoid looking at the price until i've evaluated the tv sure i probably knew what the price was at some point but i cover a lot of tvs and with some it's easy to forget plus prices change stuff goes on sale where i'm going with this is that i was a little bothered by the backlight control on this tv not being as advanced as i thought it should be but then i saw the price and i couldn't help but feel like perhaps i was judging this tv a little too harshly the samsung qn 98 is a little less expensive has more advanced backlight control and higher peak brightness but the sony's performance in some key aspects is a bit better and the price difference isn't staggering the lg qnet 90 series a similar story on price though it is on par in terms of peak brightness and again the sony outperforms it in some key aspects then we have the tcl six series and high sense u8g the high sense uh g has incredibly high brightness deep black levels though some black crushing but it's also significantly less expensive like half the price so does the sony have twice the performance no it's a better tv but not twice the tv the tcl six series is sort of a gap bridger but also hard to get at its original coming out price so look i suppose when you take the price into consideration the x95j is delivering the premium sony processing color accuracy and overall picture quality that sony is known for albeit at a premium it doesn't flash some of the hot rod specs that other tvs do but it's got more swagger it's got more decorum it's just a more refined tv so even though i think sony is going to need to step up its backlight game in the years going forward the x95j does enough to justify its price point in 2021. in 2022 i think we're going to be having a different conversation so is the x95j the working man sony z9j like i'd hoped it would be no i'm afraid not but should you buy the x95j yeah i think if you want a bright highly cinematic led tv with the suave and swagger sony is known for and you can afford it pull the trigger you will not be disappointed thanks as always for watching everyone after all this waiting what do you think of the sony x95j leave me a comment about that down below don't forget to like and subscribe and here's two other videos that i think you'll likei have literally lost sleep over this review but why i mean it's just a tv right welcome back everyone i'm caleb dennison and don't worry i didn't lose that much beauty sleep i mean i can't really afford to am i right but i have spent more than the usual amount of time thinking about this tv and its place in the market and about whether you should buy it then i walked in and i saw this and i was like sweet mercy it's gonna be that kind of day huh and that's all because i think this is a highly anticipated and highly important tv so i'm gonna do my best to do right by you and explain a little more about why i felt conflicted along the way before i dive into it now would be a good time to mention that right now as i'm recording this video the 65-inch version of the sony x95j retails for about two thousand dollars the 75 inch goes for 3 000 and the 85 inch model somewhat surprisingly is currently on sale for 3 500 i don't know how long that will last because those prices will likely have changed shortly after we upload this video but i will say that if it were me buying i'd skip right over the 75 and go for the 85 if you can fit it in your home anyway i'll be considering those prices when talking about the performance of this tv compared to other comparably priced to position tvs as well as those that cost much less so keep that in mind as we go along and as long as we're here do me a favor pop into that comment section let me know who you are by telling me what your favorite movie of 2021 was and while you're down there please click like if you enjoy these videos and more importantly hit that subscribe button because yes i am shamelessly asking for your support and buying you off with the promise of a giveaway when we hit 1 million subs and only subscribers will be eligible thanks for joining me in this bit of business now let's review a tv shall we okay so where to start well let's start with the basics or the givens if you will since sony tvs of this caliber tend to do a few things reliably sony's picture presets are once again very on point in terms of their accuracy the cinema and custom picture presets do a great job with both sdr and hdr in terms of brightness contrast grayscale and color accuracy right out of the box in fact you almost don't need to touch them at all to get a great experience hell even the standard mode is pretty good the vivid mode still a joke but i digress i would suggest turning off motion smoothing and i have but i know that many of you prefer not to and again that's fine because without doing anything this tv settings are fire good luck finding a tv that gets color so right right out of the box without doing a thing now there are a few little tweaks you can make to get the average picture level brighter in sdr if you want to which leads me nicely into our numbers for knit nerds section let's talk knits in the custom or cinema mode with local dimming set to medium and peak luminance set to off i got 400.1 nits that 0.1 is not important but i thought it was funny so i left it in when i moved the peak luminance setting to low i got 569.1 nits when i moved it to medium i got 750 and when i moved it to high i got 986 this is all with a little 10 percent size window on the tv that my friends is pretty outstanding for sdr can this tv battle bright rooms and glare it absolutely can this is indeed what one would consider a bright room tv if you want it to be in a dark room it will do great as well since sony offers a wide range of controls as for hdr the highest reading i got in custom or cinema mode with brightness maxed out peak luminance and local dimming set to high on a 10 window was 1400 nits now i understand that is higher than some other reviewers who have tested this tv got why is that the case i don't know we've seen variants before but i will say that i'm getting slightly higher readings just using the test patterns and i'm pretty confident that specular highlights are getting up to around 1400 nits as well in vivid mode i got around 1500 nits so yes i'm pretty confident with that number and i'm going to put that number into context here in a moment but we can't talk about peak brightness without talking about the backlight control and black levels as well and that's really where that conflicted feeling i've been having starts to come in so this is sony's best 4k led tv right and with the z9j8k tv we saw some pretty incredible performance in terms of backlight control black levels and peak brightness good enough to lure me away from oled potentially i said and i stand by that so we know what sony is capable of and we want to see some of that superior control in the x95j right well at least i do just because i don't want to go 8k and spend an obscene amount of money doesn't mean i don't want really good backlight control when other brands are out there offering it in their flagship 4k tvs so let's take a look at what i'm seeing first off while i'm not seeing a bunch of dirty screen effect this is a fairly clean panel i am seeing the back lights when the screen goes dark but not off i can see one two there's at least like three backlight hot spots i don't see them often and it doesn't affect real world performance but there they are and wow not very many of them and even though sony makes it really hard to count local dimming zones i can tell there aren't a ton of those either now normally that's okay i've actually stood by sony's stance that it isn't the number of zones you have but how you use the backlight that matters but i think sony isn't going to be able to hold on to that position much longer look at this footage from about nine minutes in on one of netflix night on earth documentary episodes now when we see the moon going through its stages in time lapse i'm not aware of the backlight much at all i see bright moon surrounded by inky blacks all good but if i turn on the closed captions there is a significant amount of halo or blooming around the bright text on the black background it's not very bright to sony's credit but it takes up a large amount of screen space revealing that there aren't a ton of leds back there and therefore few dimming zones still this is a torture test do i see the backlight as being a problem in normal viewing no at least not yet i might on the long term but i don't get to keep this tv that long so it's hard for me to say for sure sony's magic is at work and it's effective here but in the back of my mind i know that sony can do better and i wish they would have for this tv i just want that extra bit of oomph in the highlights and more exacting backlight control but real world the tv looks fantastic for watching movies and tv shows there's a good amount of brightness on tap for impressive hdr highlights and this tv avoids crushing blacks as well if not better than every other tv i've tested this year it's really too close to make a call i don't think i could measure a difference and make an objective call on that front plus the color accuracy and color volume is supreme really beautiful still something's bugging me but we'll get back to that here are some other things for which this tv totally rules upscaling is as good as you'll find on any tv in existence today still not a miracle worker my local news stations it can get pretty ugly honestly but that's not the tv's fault if you watch a lot of cable or satellite tv those 720p signals will be upscaled as well as they can be and the tvs contrast does a lot to make that content look impressive too switch to streaming and you'll wonder if you're watching a 4k blu-ray dolby vision content netflix disney plus hbo max all of that stuff looks especially fantastic true story the theater i watched doon at it looked like garbage i wish i had just popped some popcorn poured myself a gallon of root beer thrown 60 bucks into the garbage can and watched the movie right here because it looks so much better on this tv than it did in that garbage non-imax theater i know my fault i waited too long anyway let's move on to sound for a moment on its own the x95j has the potential to sound great but it is severely lacking in the bass department i was pretty disappointed about that but i have the sony hta 9 system here to the rescue right well yes it does sound better in some respects with the hta 9 but i ran into a few problems no matter how hard i tried i could not get the x95j to act as the center channel with the hta 9 in the mix it thought headphones were plugged in i spent like 15 minutes trying to sort it out and then i gave up because frankly i was out of time but it should just work and it didn't so i'm not thrilled about that i will say the surround sound and sound field effects are insanely impressive but i've got an issue with the system's fidelity and i haven't sorted out if it's the speakers or a setting yet i will say voices sound boxy i was watching a documentary with david attenborough and it sounded like he was in a small cave i watched one of my own videos because i know exactly how that should sound and i kid you not it sounded like i recorded it with my head in a garbage can like this and i promise you i didn't so dialog clarity which i think is one of the most important performance aspects of any home theater sound system not okay with me on the hta 9 so far i will come back around with an update later but for now i'm a little disappointed now let's talk about gaming and great gatsby's ghost is that ever a complicated topic now right i mean the long and storied issue of sony's tvs not supporting variable refresh rate even though other hdmi 2.1 features are supported and then the firmware release that was supposed to enable it but then there's the rumor that vrr disables local dimming and what a mess here's what i can tell you notice that the x95j is not listed here as benefiting from vrr on this update and we tested the tv with fortnite and found that sure enough vrr was not happening did local dimming turn it off in game mode no it didn't did auto game mode work not exactly does any of this matter i'm conflicted i mean it's a lot of money to spend on a tv so you want all the latest features but let's be honest this tv can do almost everything the ps5 throws at it and it looks fantastic for gaming it's responsive low input lag like only the most hardcore of hardcore gamers are gonna balk and honestly i'm gonna point you out an lg tv if you come a balkan at your boy okay now let's put all this stuff into context one of the things i do with tv reviews is avoid looking at the price until i've evaluated the tv sure i probably knew what the price was at some point but i cover a lot of tvs and with some it's easy to forget plus prices change stuff goes on sale where i'm going with this is that i was a little bothered by the backlight control on this tv not being as advanced as i thought it should be but then i saw the price and i couldn't help but feel like perhaps i was judging this tv a little too harshly the samsung qn 98 is a little less expensive has more advanced backlight control and higher peak brightness but the sony's performance in some key aspects is a bit better and the price difference isn't staggering the lg qnet 90 series a similar story on price though it is on par in terms of peak brightness and again the sony outperforms it in some key aspects then we have the tcl six series and high sense u8g the high sense uh g has incredibly high brightness deep black levels though some black crushing but it's also significantly less expensive like half the price so does the sony have twice the performance no it's a better tv but not twice the tv the tcl six series is sort of a gap bridger but also hard to get at its original coming out price so look i suppose when you take the price into consideration the x95j is delivering the premium sony processing color accuracy and overall picture quality that sony is known for albeit at a premium it doesn't flash some of the hot rod specs that other tvs do but it's got more swagger it's got more decorum it's just a more refined tv so even though i think sony is going to need to step up its backlight game in the years going forward the x95j does enough to justify its price point in 2021. in 2022 i think we're going to be having a different conversation so is the x95j the working man sony z9j like i'd hoped it would be no i'm afraid not but should you buy the x95j yeah i think if you want a bright highly cinematic led tv with the suave and swagger sony is known for and you can afford it pull the trigger you will not be disappointed thanks as always for watching everyone after all this waiting what do you think of the sony x95j leave me a comment about that down below don't forget to like and subscribe and here's two other videos that i think you'll like\n"