back in 2013 sonos introduced their first soundbar the playbar the play
bar was followed by the playbase in 2017 and the beam in 2018
while sonos was introducing the playbase and beam their engineers had
already started working on their next generation soundbar that would take
advantage of the latest in home theater surround sound technology dolby atmos
dolby atmos entered the residential home theater market in 2014 and at audio
advice we feel is by far and away the most revolutionary surround sound
technology since the introduction of surround sound in the 1980s to get the
fully immersive sound dolby atmos has to offer the speakers have to steer sound
all around you today's review is on the new Sonos Arc their first Dolby Atmos
soundbar with its 11 drivers and specially tuned circuits the arc can
fill a room with awesome surround sound while offering all the same great Sonos
options for streaming music if you want to read our full review on the Sonos Arc
head over to audioadvice.com by clicking on our link in the description
along with this review you'll find hundreds of other reviews comparisons
buyers guides and much more now let's get started
in a departure from the look of their previous sound bars the arc has a much
more stylish rounded look the arc comes in black and white and is designed to
either sit under your television on a shelf or it can also be wall-mounted
with an optional bracket in the typical clever way sonos thinks about things
when you mount it on the bracket the arc uses magnets to sense it's been
wall-mounted it makes electronic adjustments to its acoustics
dimensionally the Arc is designed to match up best with TVs 55 inches and up
with a total width of 45 inches it fits pretty well under most of today's
televisions as it's less than three and a half inches tall and it's about four
and a half inches deep on the back you'll find an HDMI connection and
Ethernet port and a power connection the HDMI connection is designed for the new
HDMI ARC type of signal where your TV sends the sound and control signals back
down an HDMI cable connected to its HDMI ARC output
don't worry if your television is older sonos includes an optical to HDMI
converter so you can connect an optical cable from your output of your
television to the arcs HDMI input if you're not sure it will work well with
your television give us a call or chat with us at audioadvice.com and we can help
you out sonos has spent a lot of time thinking
about how to make the arc simple to use while enabling it to deliver incredible
performance results like most new sonos products there are small buttons on the
top that give you quick access to play pause track skip volume and room
grouping just by tapping or swiping the top of the arc
it also delivers big on voice commands with both Alexa and Google assistant but
should you want privacy you can simply push a button on the arc to turn off the
microphone setting up the arc is about as simple as can be the new Sonos app
will walk you through the steps and all you'll have to do is hold your smart
phone near the arc to transfer your Wi-Fi credentials over you can also
control the arc with your television remote for another level of convenience
if your television supports HDMI ARC all you have to do is make the connection
and the arc knows to work with your television if your TV doesn't have HDMI
ARC connection the Sonos app will walk you through a few quick steps to have
the arc learn the commands of your television remote so either way
operation is a piece of cake another great feature about all sonos products
is they operate within the same ecosystem and app you can easily group
rooms to fill your house with the same music or separate them for different
listening tastes sonos spent many years developing the acoustics for the
arc there are 11 speaker drivers to provide room filling sound the five
channel phased array using new custom elliptical woofers provides the left
center right and surround sound channels two hight channel speakers fire the sound
upward for the immersive Atmos experience you can add a sonos sub for
extended bass or a pair of Sonos one SL's for rears if you add the rears the
surround sound channel drivers automatically change to additional bass
drivers for the main left and right channels the team at sonos decided to
take things to the extreme in designing the sound profile of the arc they had a
dialogue enhancement feature that brings up the level of the dialogue track to
make it even easier to understand what the performers are saying on screen
there's even a night sound mode that will reduce the levels of big explosions
for those times you want to watch a movie and not wake up the kids or
neighbors a Sonos feature that came out a few years ago is something called true
play this feature is by no means unique to the arc but we think it's important
to talk about as it's a huge advantage if you ask any sound engineer what
affects the sound more than anything else they will say the room Sonos true
play is a very easy to use system that will fine-tune the sono speaker to the
physical room it is in all you have to do is walk around the room with your
smartphone and in about three to four minutes true play calibrates your arc to
sound as good as possible in that room we should point out though that true
play only works with iOS devices at this point if you have questions on how
best use the software give us a call or chat with us at audioadvice.com we
began testing the ark even before it was available to consumers in our tests
setup was super simple as it always is with Sonos we connected the HDMI Arc
input to the HDMI eARC connector on the rear of a new Sony television plugged in
power and in a couple of minutes we're up and running we like the fact sonos
pushes you to run true play first as in some rooms it can make a tremendous
difference the room we tested it in was a pretty typical family room about twelve
feet wide by 16 feet deep and a nine-foot ceiling we tried the arc first
by itself then we added a pair of play fives for surrounds and finally added
the Sonos Sub in our testing we found the arc is so good at throwing out
three-dimensional Atmos soundstage that adding a pair of rear speakers was
only marginally better we suspect if you had a more open non rectangular room
they would benefit you more but you will be far better off taking the money
a pair of rears would cost and putting that towards adding a sonos sub
while the arc has okay bass its small size does limit the deep bass it can put
out so for a much more immersive home theater experience
we highly recommend adding the sonos sub when you go the route of adding a sub
and or a pair of rear speakers the Sonos app gives you much more control over the
sound bar based surround sound system than any other sound bar we know of not
only do you get true play you can dive into the app and adjust levels
individually for each of the surrounds and the subwoofer you even get a lip
sync adjustment just like you see in better home theater receivers this makes
a Sonos full home theater system very similar to what you might get with
separate components from an adjustability standpoint the sound bar
category is one of the largest ones in the electronics industry many people do
not have the space for a system of separate speakers and a home theater
receiver but want better sound than their television speakers the Sonos arc
especially when you couple it with the sub can deliver a very impressive
performance for home theater surround since all
sonos components are wireless the only connection you need to make for
even a full system is the HDMI out from your television to the ARC the rest of
the components will all run wirelessly however there are some best practices
that we include in our video to all purchasers of Sonos equipment at audio
advice to help make sure they get the best setup the full Sonos Arc solution
does Dolby Atmos better than any sound bar we have heard but don't take our
enthusiasm the wrong way if you do have the room and budget for a system using
good separate components you will get an even better experience but if you don't
the arc solution with their sub is pretty hard to beat for the form factor
ease of use sound not to mention the great Sonos app for music enjoyment if
you have any questions about the arc or any other home audio or home theater
gear be sure to give us a call chat with one of our experts at audioadvice.com
or stop in to one of our Raleigh or Charlotte North Carolina showrooms
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