The Sonos Arc Ultra Solved My Biggest Home Theater Issue

“Wow, that’s loud.”

I had just set up the new Sonos Arc Ultra soundbar in our apartment, paired with the recently released Sub 4 subwoofer and two older Sonos:1 speakers. Through the Sonos app, I placed the volume at “50” out of habit, which is the average sound level I kept when we used the older Sonos Beam soundbar.

And that was a mistake. Unless Sonos is doing something related to Spinal Tap with volume, 50 on my new stereo setup drove me out of the room and rattled the floor. In the weeks I’ve been testing out the Arc Ultra and Sub 4, I’ve kept the volume hovering around 30. It’s still probably too loud (sorry, neighbors!) but I feel like I’m getting an incredibly immersive audio experience.

The company credits a new technology called Sound Motion for creating such powerful noise. As they explain, this transducer technology “packs greater performance into a flatter and more compact design, allowing Arc Ultra to fit three more drivers than Arc and double the bass output at 50 Hz.” Now, I wouldn’t call it compact (more on that in a minute) but I will say whatever they’re using, it offers a real punch.

I liked my old Sonos setup (the Beam, two speakers and a Gen 3 subwoofer), but one reason I was excited to try the new soundbar was their Speech Enhancement feature. As someone who’s going through a minor and annoying amount of hearing loss, I noticed dialogue in particular was getting more difficult to understand (admittedly, it might not be my hearing issue causing that).

I wasn’t worried about spatial audio or surround sound — I’ve already experienced those aspects with previous Sonos products. My test of the Arc Ultra was going to be as much about understanding what the hell people were actually saying on my favorite shows.

I tried the Sonos Arc Ultra and Sub 4 for a few weeks over the holidays. Here are some initial thoughts.

The specs:

Sound Motion™

9.1.4 spatial audio

Bluetooth

Advanced Speech Enhancement

Trueplay™ for iOS and Android

Sonos Voice Control

Touch controls

Wifi

What works:

You can set the Speech Enhancement to one of three levels. Even on the middle level, the clarity of dialogue improved immensely without seeming to affect other sounds. A game changer.
The sound for pretty much anything (but particularly movies and video games) was, as I stated before, incredibly immersive. Sonos uses something called Trueplay to “tune” your speaker system with your room and it works wonders. A true surround sound experience.

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What kind of works:

Touch controls are housed in a dedicated ledge behind the soundbar to prevent visual distraction — I rarely use the speaker controls, so this might be aesthetically pleasing and/or slightly inconvenient.
The Sub 4 is powerful enough in its normal setting that I had to tone it down for fear that I was rattling my downstairs neighbor’s ceiling.
People have complained about the Sonos app a lot, but I think it makes setup easy and the controls are intuitive and responsive. I’ve been able to adjust EQ settings, pair Sonos Ace headphones and play music over Bluetooth from my phone via the app.

Sonos Beam vs Arc Ultra — Compared to the Sonos Beam (top), the new Sonos Arc Ultra is massive

Kirk Miller

What needs work:

Remember the “compact” boast from above? The Arc Ultra is HUGE (4.35″ D x 46.18″ W x 3.13″ H, and it weighs nearly 13 lbs.). While the Beam fits easily on top of my media cabinet, I had to move my TV to the back edge to fit this new soundbar, which makes cable configuring more difficult. There’s a reason most pics of the Arc Ultra show the device mounted on a wall! Sonos also suggests keeping four inches of space between the top of the soundbar and the bottom of the television, which isn’t going to happen unless I buy a new stand for my TV.
I’ve never been able to use my TV remote to control sound with any Sonos system. It’s a feature that admittedly only works with certain controls (you need an IR remote) and it’s more the fault of the TV manufacturer, but it’s frustrating to only control volume via an app or voice control — and I have to adjust volume regularly because every channel and streaming service offers a wildly different sound experience (I’m probably the only person who wishes my Sonos had a dedicated remote).
I had to connect the soundbar to our TV’s optical port with a Sonos Optical Audio Adapter, which was not included. The Arc Ultra does come with an HDMI cable, however, which should work fine for most TVs.

Final thoughts:

The Sonos Arc Ultra offers a theater-like immersive sound experience with enhanced and very clear dialogue. It’s not cheap and takes up a fair amount of space, but if you have the room (and aren’t worried about the neighbors), it’s worth the upgrade.

Speaking of neighbors, I haven’t spoken much about the Sub 4. It offers a lot of power, depth and rumbling bass that I’m fearful of using too much in my paper-thin-walled apartment. It certainly improves the home theater experience; sadly, I have to keep the levels lower than I’d like.