Sonos arc soundbar
Buy now £899, Johnlewis.com
- Dimensions: 114cm x 34cm x 11.5cm
- Weight: 6.3kg
- Speaker configuration: 5.0.2
- Connections: Optical, ethernet, wifi, HDMI ARC and eARC, AirPlay 2
- Sound formats: Dolby Atmos, Dolby True HD, Dolby Digital+, Dolby Digital
- Voice assistant? Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant
- Subwoofer? Not included, sold separately
- Rating: 9/10
Design
First thing’s first – the Sonos arc, at 1m, is long. You’ll notice it straight away, and it’s also pretty wide and heavy. It’s almost the same length as the TV we have mounted on our wall, so it’s definitely more suited to homes with bigger sets, and with room to accommodate all that chunky, cylindrical goodness. When you’re oriented in front of it, and the bar is placed under your TV, you’ll pretty much only see the grill and status LED lights shining above the Sonos logo.
On the rear, set inside a little alcove, is an ethernet port, an HDMI port and a power outlet socket. You get an optical adapter in the box, if you have an older TV that needs to be hooked up to the optical audio output, but you’ll most likely be using the ARC (audio return channel) to connect it all together.
If you don’t have your TV mounted onto the wall and are worried that the absolute scale of this soundbar will interfere with the signal from the remote to your set, fret not: the integrated IR repeater ensures all will be well.
Read more: 8 best Sonos speakers that elevate your listening experience
But considering the sheer smarts of the sound engineering found inside it, you’ll be wondering how, exactly, it’s not any bigger. Packed inside its mesh, you’ll find 11 digital amplifiers – eight separate woofers and three silk-dome tweeters.
Four of the elliptical woofers beam directly out through the grill, two fire out of each end, and the final two fire upwards into the ceiling. One tweeter beams out from the centre, and the other fires out diagonally, left and right. Put together, it covers all the bases needed for a completely immersive Dolby Atmos experience. There’s also a touch-sensitive panel for playing and pausing music, as well as one for controlling the volume. A microphone button for muting Alexa or the Google Assistant from being able to hear you is also present. Sonos says it’s supposed to replicate a 5.0.2 speaker arrangement.
All you need to do to get it working is connect the soundbar to the ARC/eARC port in your TV using the included HDMI cable, plug the soundbar into a power outlet, download the Sonos app and away you go. It’s wise to mention, though, that to get true Dolby Atmos, you’re going to need a TV that supports eARC (the “e” stands for enhanced, which is necessary for those higher-quality Dolby Atmos signals) and the TV also needs to support pass-through. If you only have ARC, you’ll still be receiving Atmos, but it will be over Dolby Digital Plus – which means the sound will be a little more compressed and lossy.
Read more: The Panasonic SC-HTB490 soundbar has fat bass, but it’s a little shrill
It’s often tricky to know whether you’re actually listening to something with Dolby Atmos due to the sheer number of different requirements needed to play it, which is why we were pretty pleased with the nice little Dolby Atmos indicator in the app, telling you if the content you’re watching is actually Dolby Atmos.
You can also run the nifty True Play tuning feature through the app, which essentially blasts a few bleeping blooping noises as you wave your phone in the air to perfectly augment the sound to the shape of your room. Sonos has also put in a TV dialogue sync feature, as well as the ability to adjust the height of the sound. If you’re finding that the audio is out of sync with your TV – a symptom of HDMI-ARC connections – you can add in a delay through the app.
Sound
But how does it all sound once you’re all fully optimised? Magical, especially when watching a film with Dolby Atmos. As usual, we’re testing the soundbar with Michael Bay’s splendidly awful but excessively loud action film Six Underground, and oh boy, does the arc shine. You can feel the cars racing from one side of your room to the other; you can feel the explosions pluming up into the ceiling; you can feel things hurtling right towards you. The soundbar really centralises you in a Dolby Atmos film, making you feel like you’re in the action. And it’s all produced by this one slender speaker.
There wasn’t any distortion or shrillness in the dialogue either, with mids and highs being particularly good. The lower frequencies did lack a little oomph if we didn’t pedal the volume up significantly, but this could be remedied with a wireless Sonos sub (£699, Johnlewis.com), which would create an even more cinematic experience.
Watching non-Atmos content, like ITV’s Love Island or the BBC’s The One Show, was also a delight, as it really showed off the wide soundstage and full, clear sound that the speaker provides, even when it’s not taking advantage of its all-singing, all-dancing features. There’s also a speech-enhancement setting in the app, but we didn’t find ourselves needing to use it.
Read more: 10 best multi-room speaker systems for wireless sound throughout your home
We particularly enjoyed the addition of the night sound feature, which reduces the intensity of loud noises, while boosting quieter sounds, like people talking. It’s great when you have someone angrily shouting at you to turn down the volume from upstairs while you’re trying to enjoy a raucous sci-fi flick.
AirPlaying music from our iPhone was also a joy. Tracks from Lorde’s new Solar Power album sounded full and loud, while the vocals came across as clean and clear. There’s also an equaliser in the app, if you want to tamper a little with the sound. It performs well at filling an entire room, helped along by its frankly domineering presence below our TV set.
Unsurprisingly, it also worked as a better smart speaker than the current Amazon Echo show 8, and that’s essentially down to the four far-field microphones that pick up our voice even if we are at a distance, or around the corner from the soundbar. Plus, setting up the Alexa and Google Assistant integration was an absolute doddle.
The verdict: Sonos arc soundbar
Now that the second-generation Sonos beam is on its way in, and it comes with Dolby Atmos, you might be thinking to yourself: do I really need the excessively big Sonos arc? While we haven’t reviewed the latest beam model yet, the specs suggest that for bigger households, the pricer option is still going to be the soundbar of choice.
The sound is rich, it’s full to the brim with neat features, and the Dolby Atmos integration is sublime. While it’s a little expensive, the arc works hard for its premium price point. Love cinematic audio? You won’t find better than this.