Arc Ultra - Soundbar With Dolby Atmos and Voice Control (Black)

Excellent soundbar with a premium design and materials. As I have purchased this together with the Sub 4 my review will be for this set up. Note: For reference my previous set up was made up from 2x echo studios on proper stands for height and backed by the echo sub all of which were quite good as a home cinema set up. Positives: Great sound with excellent reproduction across the frequency range and very clear vocals. Music sounds great on it in different formats and genres and movies can be a true delight as it almost reproduces true cinema like experience. Wide sound stage, the bar is shorter than my 65" to but presents a wider sound stage. The bass from the bar alone is insane for a standalone soundbar and is reproduced very well with fairly low extension so you can feel it kicking not just hear it (again as reference it’s got more and better bass than 2 x paired echo studios which is very impressive to say the least). The sound motion driver is not a gimmick. The surround and atmos effects are well represented with excellent effects placement and room adaptation once trueplay is performed. Trueplay itself is great. Although it’s not automatic like on the echo studios the quick option work well and is easy. I have also tried the advanced mode on iOS and it can make a difference by refining the dynamics. Speech enhancement works well and can be refined with 3 levels although the voices sound very clean and clear even without it. The volume and power is just insane. My room is a small to medium open space and the bar can push so loudly I rarely go over 40 out of 100 volume and feel everything like in a cinema (again at 40 its about as loud as 2 echos plus sub at full volume so very impressive). There is a dedicated night mode that helps with that and reduces explosions and high volumes. The app is intuitive and well laid so it’s easy to use. Limited options but just enough to keep things simple and easy. It also loss quickly and works smoothly on iOS. Once paired with the Sub 4 the set up is just insane. The bar diverts some low frequencies to the sub and the sound motion driver handles low to medium transitions with excellent performance. The whole experience is cinema like with soundtracks from music to movies delivered with great quality and kick. Explosions are just insane when connected to the sub 4. Voice assistant works well with Alexa and the built in microphone is surprisingly good. The design is elegant without sticking out too much. Construction is solid with premium plastic materials and the packaging is nice and clever also. Negatives: The app is fairly basic so don’t expect too many options. Trueplay advanced takes a little practice to get the best result. The speech enhancement works well but at higher levels lowers the overall dynamics a bit (high setting is only recommended if you truly struggle). Lack of a physical remote may annoy some (personally I don’t mind and in fact prefer this way of working) The connectivity is just ok. HDMI for eARC and does support Wi-Fi 5Ghz, bluetooth and AirPlay. Personally I struggled with setting it up initially so it wasn’t as streamlined as I expected (but once set up using lan and switching to WiFi I have had no further issues and all works very well). It’s expensive (very much so for a standalone). More so if you build it up with other Sonos devices into an ecosystem. Like I said I have it paired to the new Sub 4. Final thoughts: The sound quality is great standalone and certainly think in many rooms you may not need the subwoofer but if you do want the ultimate experience I recommend getting both (of course if that’s within your budget). It’s not really a negative more of a mention it’s a very loud bar. I would recommend it for a medium to large room as in smaller rooms it can be overwhelming a bit. I have measured 80dB+mat 1.5m at only 40% volume so it’s pretty powerful. If you like Sonos or in general appreciate great sound and a cinematic experience then this might just be fire you.

Nice piece of kit

By far the best soundbar I've heard. Dialogue is really clear and natural, music soundtracks are delivered with great fidelity and emotion.

The very first thing you need to consider with this soundbar is NOT the sound. It’s the user interface and control method. It does not have a display, does not have a remote, and used hdmi-cec to control the volume. What this basically means is you must have a suitable phone (with the Sonos app) to set the bar up in the first place and the only way to control the volume is through a TV that supports hdmi-cec volume control. An important consideration in that is that when the bar comes out of standby, the volume is always reset to zero so the hdmi-cec absolutely must work or there is no convenient way to control the volume. Let me explain how that works. When you set the volume on the TV, the bar retains that information even when it goes in to standby. It is the process of the TV coming out of standby that sets the volume of the soundbar to zero. So every time the TV comes out of standby it is effectively muted. The only way round this is not to use hdmi-cec. In my case I only us the TV with a PC so it was impossibly inconvenient to need the TV remote. The solution is pretty simple. Buy the optical to hdmi adapter sold by Sonus and use the optical output of the PC. It transfers the sound to the Sonos without resetting it to zero all the time. When you get the adapter you need to go in to the app and set and tell the bar that you are using the optical input (or you get no sound out at all). At that point it uses the default volume setting all the time without resetting. The adapter will cost you £25 from Sonos, and I might add they ship it very fast and on 24hr delivery for free. I thought I would document that just in case anyone needs to use the optical in. However, having implemented that solution I discovered a problem with it. Atmos doesn't work through the optical interface. You must use hdmi for it to work. OK, so, change of plan and back to hdmi. Then I discovered that Atmos wasn't working through the hdmi interface either. What was needed was a setting in the TV to pass all the Atmos signals to the soundbar. As soon as I enabled that, nothing happened. And again, it seems, another setting in the PC that needed tweaking to allow "Passthrough". Finally Atmos started to work. That's after several days of fiddling and some £35 wasted on cables that weren't needed. Why? Zero documentation from Sonos, only one input (hdmi socket) and thank heaven for ChatGPT for solving the problem by telling me what was needed for the PC. Seriously, what a total mess it is. Working now, but I can see it defeating many people. Oh, and setting Atmos in the TV also stopped the problem with the volume resetting all the time. Who knows why? Anyway.... Playing, going between standby and play is totally automatic. There is a half second delay when it first comes on but its really good. With no display you never really know what its doing, it just does it. The quality of the sound is high. It is what I would describe as cinema sound and not really suitable for general audio although it gets by with that. The sound is very light and clearly oriented towards clear speech. However, when the bass kicks in it is impressively thumpy and exceptionally clear. Not overblown like so many other bars. No doubt, this is cinema sound! So, it excels in cinema sound but isn’t really balanced for normal audio. That’s not really a bad thing, though, most soundbars are the same. The only thing I would say about the Sonos is that you may not like the overall light balance and sense of “lack of integration” with the internal bass speakers. Is it worth the money? Sure, yes. It’s a very convenient solution. You could do better with separates for the same money, but you would lose the simplicity. My only complaint is the lack of remote inputs and a remote, which is, frankly, ridiculous, especially for this sort of money. It gets five four sound, five for value but loses a star for no other inputs and another star for no remote. Recommended.

The Sonos Arc Ultra delivers incredible sound quality with crystal-clear dialogue, deep bass, and an immersive Dolby Atmos experience. Movies, music, and gaming all sound fantastic. Setup was quick and seamless, and the sleek design looks great in any living room. A premium soundbar that truly transforms home entertainment. Highly recommended!

Have been using this for a year now and it is honestly one of the best purchases I have ever made. I only have the sound bar on its own (no sub or surround sound speakers) and this alone is enough to completely change the experience I get when listening to music, watching movies and gaming. The sound quality is incredible. Convenient connectivity via Bluetooth or AirPlay (sometimes have trouble commuting but I think this is due to my Broadband). Very premium product and packaging.

Great sounds easy installation can't fault it. I have 2 Era 100's and sub mini Great surround sound and stream over Wi-Fi or Bluetooth quality product all-round

Amazing piece of kit. Good sound and well designed.

sound much better compared with my previous soundbar. voice are much clearer.

Wow

Excellent soundbar

Higher quality and sounds

Amazing , the sound with the speakers is very good