Sonos Arc Ultra Review: Bringing the theatre home

This yr I’ve been padding out my house theatre with a projector and a terrific sound system, and after testing out the brand new Sonos Arc Extremely soundbar for just a few weeks, I believe I’ve landed on my favorite choice. I’ve been extremely impressed with it proper from the beginning, and as soon as I added a Sonos Subwoofer and rear encompass channels to the combo, it blew me away once I might discover content material to reap the benefits of Atmos-verified encompass sound.

Like the original Arc, the lengthy soundbar gives wonderful stereo separation, however this time, there’s additionally a brand new heart channel design that makes it simpler than ever to listen to dialogue when watching at medium to low volumes. The Arc Extremely is a bit slimmer than the outdated mannequin and makes use of a brand new woofer tech known as ‘Sound Movement’ to offer a whole lot of bass with a smaller design which permits for much more audio system to be jammed inside, and higher sound general.

Whenever you mix it with a Subwoofer and rear encompass audio system, it will get much more spectacular and watching motion pictures or taking part in video games with this stage of encompass sound has been a deal with.

What it’s like to make use of

Once I first arrange the soundbar, I instantly watched the 2019 model of Apocalypse Now, which has been remastered with Atmos. Then I watched Masters of The Air on Apple TV+, which additionally has incredible Atmos encompass sound. Each of those are about wars and have all types of motion scenes that go loopy with the sounds of gunfire and planes flying round. It was fairly strong with simply the sound bar, however I’ve a big beam within the centre of my front room ceiling, so the upward-firing Atmos audio system can’t bounce completely off my ceiling.

Once I added two Period 300 audio system as rear surrounds, the sound got here alive with an entire new dimension. The Period 300 even have up-firing audio system, so when mixed with the Arc Extremely (or perhaps a common Arc), this encompass sound system envelops you in a dynamic bubble of sound. The opposite day, I used to be taking part in A Plague Story: Requiem on my Xbox, and once I was working round exterior within the opening stage, it was wonderful to listen to the grass crunching beneath my ft and the bugs buzzing round me. Additional into the sport, when sneaking by means of an outdated home, you could possibly hear the house creaking round you and the sounds of individuals speaking within the distance off to 1 facet. It was extremely immersive and one thing I’m trying ahead to testing with much more video games.

Nonetheless, there isn’t that a lot content material mastered with Dolby Atmos. Extra is popping out on a regular basis, but it surely’s not one thing that’s tremendous out there, and in the event you like to look at outdated motion pictures like me, typically the perfect you will discover is common 5.1 encompass sound. 5.1 nonetheless sounds nice with the Sonos system, however be warned that not all the things can reap the benefits of all of the wonders of this Atmos. To examine and see what your soundbar is taking part in, you possibly can see it within the Sonos app’s now taking part in display screen.

That stated, even with simply the soundbar, the straightforward undeniable fact that it’s so large and bass-heavy makes it a very sturdy movie-watching software. The stereo separation is incredible, and the clear centre channel mixed with Sonos’ voice optimization software program makes it very easy to listen to all of the sounds in a movie, and the dialogue. This yr, the Arc Extremely Sonos upgraded the software program with three ranges of voice isolation that you could management by way of the Sonos app. The primary is de facto refined and simply brings the voices ahead a bit. The second stage is extra according to Sonos’ present voice enhancement tech on its different soundbars, and stage three actually makes certain the voice is entrance and centre, but it surely does degrade the background noise a bit by doing this. I believe you possibly can consider stage three as a software for enhancing the information or as an accessibility choice.

Talking of software program, there’s additionally an choice to activate ‘Night time Sound,’ which ranges the amount a bit extra so scenes with stuff like vehicles crashing or gunfire received’t be tremendous loud in distinction to dialogue. I dwell in an house and sometimes fear about holding my neighbours up at night time, so I discovered this function tremendous useful, and I exploit it most nights.

This speaker additionally permits for 2 types of Sonos’ digital tuning tech known as True Play. There’s a easy model you are able to do with iOS and Android, however if you wish to do the complete sound mapping of your complete house you’ll want to make use of an iOS machine. It’s additionally value noting that in my expertise with the Arc Extremely, it actually looks like Sonos has lastly ironed out its app, I didn’t have any points with app crashes, lacking options or any of my audio system disappearing from my setup in months. To arrange the soundbar and the Period 300s, I wanted to plug them into my TP-Hyperlink modem with a USB-to-ethernet adapter. For some purpose, they wouldn’t connect with my modem wirelessly till I plugged them in and up to date them. I had the identical drawback with the Sonos Move 2 earlier this yr and labored by means of troubleshooting it with Sonos then, so it’s a bit disappointing to see that it’s nonetheless an issue and could be very irritating for anybody with out an Ethernet adapter.

Total, the Sonos Arc Extremely is a incredible soundbar that lives as much as its excessive price ticket. If you wish to take your film or online game house to the subsequent stage, it lives as much as the hype. If you have already got the unique Arc, I’d suggest investing in Period 300s for the rear encompass as an alternative of changing the soundbar. You possibly can undoubtedly get cheaper encompass sound choices, however in order for you the perfect of the perfect and also you need it to work wirelessly, the Arc Extremely mixed with Period 300s is tough to beat.

The Sonos Arc Ultra is $1,299, and if you wish to get it with the final word immersive set that features the Sub 4 and two Ero 300s, it prices $3,042.