The Sonos Arc Ultra is a big upgrade on the original Sonos Arc (I know because I reviewed them both), but it’s brand new so it hasn’t had a Black Friday discount. The original model, though, which has officially been discontinued, is down to a record-low price of just £589 at Sevenoaks.
So, while the Arc Ultra is definitely better than the original Arc, it’s not £410 better. And the Arc is still a great-sounding Dolby Atmos soundbar in its own right. If I didn’t already have a Sony HT-A9 system at home, I’d be pouncing on this.
For the money, the Sonos Arc has always offered an awful lot in terms of its feature set and sound quality, beating out almost all of the competition with its levels of finesse and dynamic expression.
In our review of the Arc, we commented on how the soundbar provides “vast quantities of deep, weighty and tuneful bass, but the lower frequencies never overwhelm and even at its loudest and deepest, the Arc remains remarkably composed”.
We find the treble to be “clean and sparkly, without veering into harsh brightness” while dialogue is clear and precise even in the most mumbly or indecipherable of shows and movies.
The Arc contains 11 Class D digital amplifiers which power 11 custom drivers to generate the bar’s Dolby Atmos soundfield. These speakers bounce sound off your walls and ceiling to create the 3D audio effect, while Sonos’ Trueplay technology tailors the sound to suit your room.
Eight drivers in the Arc are elliptical woofers (four along the front, two on top and one at each end), while the other three are silk-domed tweeters built into the front, but with two firing diagonally outwards into the room. Those upward-firing drivers are designed to deliver spectacular Dolby Atmos sound.
The Sonos Arc makes a fantastic standalone soundbar, however, it’s also excellent as an app or voice-controlled wireless speaker and can of course be combined with other Sonos speakers (such as the Era 100 and Era 300 wireless speakers) to create a complete surround-sound system or multi-room set-up.
The one limitation of this bar is the lack of included HDMI passthrough connections, which may be a concern for gamers who have consoles occupying their HDMI 2.1 sockets (providing your TV only has two). While this certainly isn’t a deal breaker, especially considering how well this soundbar performs, it is definitely worth noting.
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