I waited 5 years for this upgrade - Sonos Arc Ultra

Quick Overview

The Sonos Arc Ultra offers a significant upgrade over the original Arc, particularly in low-end performance and dialogue clarity, making the additional $799 Sub 4 potentially unnecessary for casual movie watching due to the soundbar's impressive standalone bass and spatial audio capabilities.

Key Points: The Sonos Arc Ultra significantly improves low-end performance and dialogue clarity compared to the original Sonos Arc. The Arc Ultra features a new "Sound Motion" speaker design, enabling 9.1.4 spatial audio with Dolby Atmos support. Connectivity includes a hard mic switch, Ethernet, Bluetooth 5.3, and a single HDMI eARC port, lacking HDMI pass-through. Setup is quick and easy, taking about 10 minutes including firmware updates, with intuitive app-based Trueplay room tuning. The new Sub 4, priced at $799, offers impressive, controlled bass even when cranked, but the Arc Ultra's standalone bass performance is strong enough to question the Sub's necessity for typical use cases. The Arc Ultra and Sub 4 maintain Sonos's aesthetic design, with the Sub 4 being lighter than its predecessor and offering flexible placement options, including under a couch.

Context: Linus, a long-time user of the original Sonos Arc soundbar, reviews the new Sonos Arc Ultra and the accompanying Sub 4 subwoofer. He evaluates their performance, features, and ease of setup, comparing them to the previous generation and considering their value proposition for home theater and music listening in a large living space.

Detailed Analysis

The Sonos Arc Ultra represents a notable evolution from its predecessor, the original Sonos Arc, which Linus has used for five years. The new soundbar features Sonos's "Sound Motion" speaker design, which aims to deliver deeper bass response with reduced distortion and allows for more channels within a smaller package. This enables 9.1.4 spatial audio with Dolby Atmos support, providing nine surround channels (some direct, some bounced), one subwoofer channel, and four height channels. While the Arc Ultra maintains a minimalist I/O with only a power input, a hard microphone switch, an RJ45 Ethernet port, a Bluetooth 5.3 pairing button, and a single HDMI eARC port, the lack of HDMI pass-through is a notable drawback as it consumes a potentially fully-featured eARC port on the TV. The unboxing experience highlights eco-friendly packaging. Setting up the Arc Ultra is remarkably simple and quick via the Sonos app, including firmware updates and Trueplay room tuning, which adapts the sound to the room's acoustics. The Arc Ultra delivers significantly improved bass and dialogue clarity on its own, leading Linus to question the necessity of the $799 Sonos Sub 4 for casual movie watching, despite the Sub 4's impressive and controlled bass performance even at high levels. The Sub 4 is lighter than its predecessor and offers flexible placement options, including under furniture, which Trueplay tuning can compensate for. While the new products offer premium sound and aesthetics, their high price point (both Arc Ultra and Sub 4 are $999 and $799 respectively) makes them a luxury upgrade, especially when compared to more budget-friendly DIY surround sound solutions.