£ SONOS ARC 89 9

The Arc was Sonos’s first, somewhat tardy, foray into Dolby Atmos. Costing twice as much as the brilliant Beam, the Arc is designed to partner bigger TVs. At 114cm, it is a bit wider than a typical modern 49in TV and so is best partnered with a set of at least 55in. The curvy design helps mask the Arc’s dimensions and makes it look svelte, but its 8.5cm height is not inconsiderable. The Arc’s Dolby Atmos soundfield is generated by 11 Class D digital amplifiers that power 11 custom drivers – eight elliptical woofers and three silk-domed tweeters, two of which fire diagonally into the room. Sonos refers to the Arc’s arrangement as 5.0.2, which clearly doesn’t add up to 11 but makes more sense if you think of it as using its 11 drivers to attempt to replicate the soundfield of a five-channel surround sound system with no subwoofer and two height speakers. That ‘0’ can be turned into a ‘1’ through the addition of a sub, and other Sonos speakers can be used as dedicated surrounds. The Arc uses its array of speakers to bounce sound off your walls and ceiling to create a 3D audio effect, and the soundfield is tailored to your room using Sonos’s Trueplay technology. The soundbar outputs a series of test sounds that are measured by your iOS device (Trueplay still doesn’t support Android devices), first from the listening position and then from around the room. The Arc runs exclusively on Sonos’s latest S2 platform, and it’s worth remembering that some older Sonos devices are incompatible with the latest software. For playing music, the device appears as a playback device in the Spotify and Tidal phone apps, and AirPlay 2 allows for almost any audio to be sent to it from an iOS device. It can also be controlled via Alexa or Google Assistant, with the four far-field microphones able to pick up your commands, even when music or a movie is blasting out. The Arc can also talk to your TV using HDMI-CEC: the Arc will turn on and switch to TV audio when you turn on your set, you can control the Arc’s volume using your TV’s remote, and turn your TV on by aiming your voice at the Arc. Precise placement Even the majority of soundbars with upward-firing speakers struggle to deliver a convincing Atmos experience. Often, the mistake is thinking that Dolby Atmos is simply about adding height to a soundtrack, when it should be about filling the room with sound and precisely placing effects in a three-dimensional soundfield. Thankfully, Sonos has taken the addition of Atmos to its line-up seriously. The company says it has put much work into iterating the curvature of the internal wave guides, revamping Trueplay to account for ceiling distance, angles and acoustics, and tuning Arc with Atmos content producers in music, movies and TV. All of that effort has paid off: the Sonos Arc delivers one of the most convincing Atmos presentations of any soundbar we’ve heard. Play the bombing-run scene from Unbroken and we’re immediately transported to within the fuselage of the B-24 Liberator. Our listening room is filled with wind noise and the whirr of the plane’s engines, and the incidental creaks and rattles are placed in specific spots, including right in the top corners of the wall we’re sitting against. Those incidental details are lovely, but the Arc is dynamically deft too, and it’s this combination of qualities that makes the performance so evocative. Each part of the plane sounds different – areas open to the elements are airy and cacophonous, while others are more enclosed and keep outside noise more muffled. As the camera switches between positions, the Arc conveys the subtly unique volume and texture of each. Bigger dynamic shifts are also handled with aplomb, the first fly-by of the Japanese fighter plane and the machine gun fire from the Liberator rocking the room, even at less than a quarter of the Arc’s volume. We switch to BladeRunner2049 and bullets streak across the room, while low, distant rumbles of thunder and the building music are suitably menacing. This is a supremely well judged bass performance. There are 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. Treble is clear and sparkly too, but never too bright. That tonal evenness helps make the Arc a much more musical performer than most soundbars too, although stereo music isn’t projected forward towards the listening position as much as you’d expect, given that movie soundtracks are delivered with such three-dimensionality. That slight lack of directness to music is our only criticism of the Arc. It’s otherwise a stunning performer that delivers one of the most immersive Dolby Atmos experiences we’ve heard from a soundbar and acts as a wireless speaker with access to practically every music-streaming service. Rarely does a device arrive that does so much and does it all so well.