There’s a lot riding on the Sonos Arc soundbar. This is the company’s first foray into Dolby Atmos, long after most other companies have released products that support the format.
It also follows criticism from some over Sonos announcing that its new software won’t support some older products. And it has to justify costing almost twice as much as the brilliant Beam and prove to be a worthy successor to the hugely popular Playbar.
That’s a lot of pressure, even for Sonos. But while it might be late to the Atmos party, now it has arrived, will it be the heart and soul of it?
The Sonos Arc is specifically designed to partner bigger TVs. At 114cm, it is a bit wider than a typical modern 49in TV and proportionally best partnered with a 55in model. It’s also significantly wider than the outgoing Playbar (90cm).
The Playbar was designed to work in two orientations, depending on whether it was wall-mounted or placed on a piece of furniture, but we found that it sounded better wall-mounted. The Arc, perhaps predictably, is oriented the same way regardless of positioning (the bespoke Sonos wall-mount is a £79/$79/AU$99 optional extra), and even automatically adjusts its frequency response accordingly.
Once in position, most of what you can see of the Arc is a 273-degree grille that hides the array of front-mounted and up-firing speakers. Each end also features a grille-covered driver.