Sony is trying to answer a very modern TV question: if you already have bright living rooms, big walls, and streaming apps that pump out Dolby Vision all day long, what is actually worth upgrading to now? With the new BRAVIA 9 II and BRAVIA 7 II True RGB TVs, plus the BRAVIA Theatre Trio sound system, the company’s 2026 lineup is a pretty loud attempt to say: this is the new baseline for “cinema at home,” not just another panel refresh.

At a high level, these launches are about three things: a new kind of backlight that promises OLED-like contrast with Mini LED brightness, a serious push on sound that goes beyond soundbars, and a tighter link between Sony’s TV hardware and its movie studio expertise. For anyone who cares about how films actually look and sound in a real-world living room, this is a genuinely interesting swing rather than just a spec bump.

Sony is calling the BRAVIA 9 II and 7 II its first “True RGB” BRAVIA TVs, and underneath the branding, there is a real shift. Instead of the usual white or blue Mini LEDs filtered through the LCD stack, these sets use independently driven red, green, and blue LEDs in the backlight itself. That means the light hitting the LCD is already “pure” color before anything is filtered, which in theory should deliver richer saturation, fewer compromises off-axis, and better control over blooming in dark scenes with bright highlights. In practice, early hands-on impressions from reviewers suggest color volume roughly doubles versus the previous Bravia 9 Mini LED, and can be up to four times higher than Sony’s own OLED models in certain tests, while still getting close to 4,000 nits peak brightness on HDR highlights.

That mix is important. OLED is still the gold standard for perfect blacks and pixel-level control, but it struggles to hit the searing brightness that HDR movies and bright rooms really reward. Mini LED, on the other hand, can go very bright, but you pay for that with blooming around bright objects and more color washout when you move off-axis. Sony’s True RGB approach is trying to sit in the middle: it keeps the basic Mini LED idea of thousands of tiny backlight zones, but changes the actual LED tech so each zone can push cleaner primary colors and be dimmed more precisely. Sony’s own RGB Backlight Master Drive Pro system is at the heart of that, handling per-LED control to boost brightness, suppress blooming, and still keep colors looking accurate instead of neon.

Both the 9 II and 7 II share this True RGB foundation. Sony’s press material is very clear that these are the highest color volume TVs the company has shipped to homes, which matters not just for “wow” store demos but for real content like animated movies, sports, and games that lean heavily on wide color gamuts. The company also leans on X-Wide Angle Pro here, its tech for keeping colors and contrast more consistent when you sit off to the side of the TV instead of right in front. That’s something a lot of families notice on game nights or during big matches, and it’s an area where traditional Mini LED has often felt more compromised than OLED.

Where the BRAVIA 9 II pulls ahead is in how aggressively Sony turns this tech up. This is the flagship, and it gets a more advanced controller setup for the backlight, plus enhancements branded as RGB Triluminos Max and Luminance Booster Pro. The result, if Sony’s own claims and third-party first impressions line up over time, should be especially smooth gradations in things like sunsets and skies, accurate skin tones even at higher brightness, and fewer of the color banding artifacts that can creep into lower-end LCD sets when pushed hard.

Then there’s the black level story. The 9 II introduces something Sony calls Immersive Black Screen Pro, essentially a new anti-glare and low-reflection screen treatment designed to keep blacks looking black even when you have windows, lamps, or overhead lights in the room. Rather than just diffusing light, Sony says this coating actually helps absorb it, which in theory reduces those annoying washed-out blacks you see on many LCDs in daylight. Sony Pictures Entertainment was involved in evaluating that surface film, which is a subtle but telling detail: the folks who master movies for professional reference monitors had input into how this consumer TV behaves in imperfect living rooms.

Size options also tell you who Sony is targeting. The BRAVIA 9 II will be sold in 65, 75, 85, and a huge 115-inch variant, a size that really pushes into “projector replacement” territory. The 7 II, meanwhile, is more flexible: 50, 55, 65, 75, 85, and 98 inches. That effectively spreads the True RGB story from mid-range living rooms all the way to giant home theaters, with the 7 II acting as the more approachable entry point and the 9 II as the “if you have the space and budget, this is the one” option.

On the audio side, both sets are trying to move beyond the thin, slightly tinny sound people still associate with most flat TVs. Sony is using full-range speakers and an updated Voice Zoom 3 system, which taps into AI to better isolate dialogue and push it forward in the mix. That’s particularly helpful for streaming platforms where the mix can vary wildly from show to show. There’s also 3D Surround Upscaling, which takes regular stereo content and tries to expand it into something closer to immersive surround. It won’t replace a dedicated system, but it makes casual viewing nicer without extra boxes.

The BRAVIA 9 II, again, gets the better treatment. It uses what Sony calls Acoustic Multi-Audio+, with up-firing beam tweeters to add more height and spatial cues to the soundstage. Combined with support for Dolby Atmos, DTS:X, and IMAX Enhanced content on both models, the idea is that even without external speakers, you get a more “bubble of sound around you” experience than what a typical integrated TV speaker can manage. It’s a continuation of Sony’s long-running trick of making parts of the screen itself contribute to the sound image, but tuned more towards big-screen cinema than just “louder TV.”

Beyond the raw hardware, Sony is leaning on what it calls “cinema-first” features. Both TVs ship with My Cinema, a mode that optimizes picture and sound to prioritize film-like presentation. There are “Studio Calibrated” picture modes that work with popular services like Netflix, Prime Video, and Sony’s own Sony Pictures Core, tuned to be closer to what studio mastering monitors would output. And there’s Ambient Optimization, where the TV measures room brightness and even viewing position to subtly adjust picture and audio so the image doesn’t look too dim in daylight or too harsh at night. Again, nothing here is unique to Sony in concept, but the stack adds up to a set you’re meant to leave in “smart” modes rather than attacking with manual settings on day one.

That brings us to the other half of this announcement: BRAVIA Theatre Trio. Instead of another “one bar under the TV” product, Sony is launching a three-piece wireless system that’s essentially left, center, and right speakers purpose-built for big-screen setups. It’s designed to sit with ultra-large TVs and even projectors, where a single soundbar can start to feel oddly small relative to the screen. The Trio was developed with Sony Pictures Entertainment’s sound creators involved from the early stages, and Sony is not shy about quoting people like Academy Award–nominated mixer Tony Lamberti and sound designer Andrew DeCristofaro praising its spatiality and ability to bring studio-grade intent into the living room.

Under the hood, the Trio uses Sony’s 360 Spatial Sound Mapping (360SSM), which can create up to 24 “phantom speakers” in the room. It does that by combining direct sound from the Trio units with reflections in your space, then applying processing that makes it feel like there are speakers in places where there are none. The system relies on a new high-performance USB-C microphone for calibration; you connect it to a smartphone with USB-C to run the routine and the Trio maps your room, adjusting delays and levels so the virtual speakers feel more convincing. The result, at least on paper, is an Atmos and DTS:X-capable sound field that wraps around you without the wiring complexity of full separates.

If that still isn’t enough, you can expand the Trio with optional subwoofers and rear speakers, including dual-sub configurations that push it closer to a scaled-down home cinema separates system. It’s not cheap – the Trio itself is priced around the $2,199 mark in the US, with add-on subs and rears pushing a full system toward $5,000 – but that’s clearly the point. Sony is aiming this at buyers who are already comfortable spending several thousand dollars on a 98 or 115-inch TV and want the audio side to match without building a rack of AV gear.

Sony is also trying to simplify things for people who want better sound but not a full Trio setup. The new Direct Connect feature lets compatible BRAVIA TVs talk directly to wireless subwoofers and rear speakers without a soundbar in the middle. That means you can treat the TV’s improved speaker system as the front stage, then add bass and rear channels wirelessly, which is a neat halfway house between “TV only” and “dedicated system with receiver.”

There’s a sustainability and accessibility story threaded through all of this, which feels increasingly mandatory for any flagship line but is interesting in its specifics. Sony says these TVs use recycled materials in both the body and internal components, including its own SORPLAS plastic. More notably, the BRAVIA 9 II is the first TV in Sony’s lineup to use a renewable plastic derived in part from used cooking oil and other renewable feedstocks. Some of that material goes into the rear cover – one of the largest pieces of plastic on the TV – and even into certain optical components, which are traditionally harder to make with recycled blends. Combine that with the inherent power efficiency of more precise RGB LED control, and you can see Sony trying to position these not just as performance flagships, but as a bit more responsible than the usual giant TV stereotype.

Accessibility gets a nod with a redesigned “inclusive remote” that puts more emphasis on tactile clarity and narration-friendly design, making it easier for people with visual impairments to feel their way around the controls. It’s a small but important detail that often gets lost in spec sheets.

On pricing and availability, Sony is staggering the rollout through 2026. Some BRAVIA 7 II models are already hitting retailers, while the rest of the 7 II and 9 II range, plus the BRAVIA Theatre Trio, are scheduled to land later in the year in different markets.

Perhaps the most interesting thing about this launch is what it says about Sony’s TV strategy in 2026. This is a year without a big new Sony OLED announcement at the top of the stack; instead, the company is betting hard on its own flavor of Mini LED, backed by processing, anti-glare engineering, and studio partnerships. True RGB, Immersive Black Screen Pro, 360 Spatial Sound Mapping – none of these are just panel supply deals. They are Sony trying to differentiate on engineering, which is harder to summarize in a big-box store tag line, but far more compelling for people who read spec sheets and care about how content is mastered.

If you are the kind of viewer who watches a lot of movies and prestige TV, has a bright living room, and wants a very large screen without going to projection, the BRAVIA 9 II plus BRAVIA Theatre Trio is clearly the combo Sony wants you to lust after. The 7 II, meanwhile, brings most of the True RGB story down to more practical sizes and prices, while still keeping enough of the picture pipeline that studio collaborators would recognize.

The real test will come once more calibrated measurements, long-term reviews, and head-to-head comparisons with high-end OLEDs and rival Mini LED sets land later this year. But taken on its own terms, this is one of the more ambitious TV and audio launches we’ve seen from Sony in a while – and a strong hint that the company sees the future of home cinema not as a choice between OLED and LCD, but as a new class of RGB-driven Mini LED displays paired with smarter, more immersive sound systems.