Trade-focused reviewer Richard Stevenson auditions the recently released Sonos Arc Ultra and Sub 4.
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Sonos has updated its best-selling Arc soundbar with more channels, more drivers, more amplifiers, and full Dolby Atmos sound. Sprinkle in updated touch controls, Bluetooth 5.3 and Trueplay room tuning, and it comes as something of a pleasant surprise the Arc Ultra has a retail ticket in three figures, just.
The fourth generation of Sonos’ subwoofer, the Sub 4, is a natural partner. For customers wanting a true surround experience with those Dolby soundtracks, a couple of Era 300 speakers at the rear would make a formidable AV sound system for under two and a half grand in total.
Neither the Arc Ultra nor Sub 4 have changed radically in industrial design from previous generations and that is no bad thing. The build is exemplary, the aesthetic is subtle in black or white and the Arc offers desktop or wall-mount placement. With an array of upward-firing drivers to ‘bounce’ deliver spatial audio and Atmos height information, you need to give this soundbar a little space under the screen. The curvy design makes that look deliberate, but you can’t snug the Ultra up tight to a big screen to keep the in-room look super-clean.
The Arc Ultra builds on the success of its predecessor, more with a suite of upgrades on the inside designed to deliver an even more immersive and precise soundscape. Under the metal wrap-around grille is an array of 14 custom drivers, including two up-firing and a raft of updated DSP tech, including a dynamic bass equalisation system. This twiddles the LF depending on content and room acoustics (as measured by the built-in Trueplay EQ) to deliver as much bass clout from the bar as possible without falling into distortion.
Sonos Voice Control has been further refined in this generation as well as providing slick integration with Alexa and Google Assistant. All three benefit from improved mic sensitivity and better ambient noise suppression. Getting your voice heard over the Arc Ultra/Sub 4 delivering over 100dB of movie chaos, remains a challenge.
As ever with Sonos, connectivity is blissfully simple: one Fig-8 power input (complete with Sonos’ gorgeously custom-moulded Figure-8 power lead), one RJ45 should you not want to go with the Wi-Fi 6, and an HDMI port for eARC. That’s it. No optical, no analogue and no second HDMI inputs to use the Arc Ultra as a hub.
There no limits!
Limiting? Nope. Connecting additional speakers like the Sub 4 or Era models is blissfully simple, the Trueplay EQ uses the mic in your phone, and the control is linked to the TV volume or the app. Oh, and there are some funky new touch controls on top of the Arc Ultra – although touch controls on a soundbar have never made any sense to me. Maybe it’s just my arms that are too short to reach from the sofa.
The sub is simpler still. Power lead and a button press. Job done. Connect to the Sonos app, assign it to the room or speaker you want it to support and it’s up and running. The unique force-cancelling design with drivers facing inward to its giant polo-like hole in the middle, is remarkably clever as it allows placement almost anywhere. Upright in free space and the output emerges from both sides. Yet as we have found by experimentation over the years, the design can be just as easily placed one side up against a wall or laid flat under a sofa with minimal impact on overall performance.
The placement and set-up of the Ultra/Sub4 system is stupendously easy. The Sonos app, despite some nay-sayers, is incredibly slick and the whole process of registering the Arc Ultra in your Sonos ecosystems and connecting to Wi-Fi is class-leading. A few strange beeps from the soundbar, it registers on the app, grabs the Wi-Fi SSID and password and sets itself ready to rock. It then asks if you want to run Trueplay.
Sonically, the Arc Ultra and Sub 4 are simply class-leading for the price. With or without Trueplay, the sound is crisp, refined, powerful and engaging with the widest range of material. From delivering exceptionally articulate and intelligible dialogue on TV content, to smashing out blockbuster movie effects with the Sub 4 shaking the sofa, the sound is balanced and super-spacious. It’s not going to replace a discrete 9.1.4 system for object-based audio steering any time soon, but it makes a damn fine attempt at replicating the effect.
Music maestro?
Switch to music and the performance is equally compelling. There is great space in the stereo images, a richness that few soundbars manage to convey and solid, punchy bass from the Sub 4. Moreover, unlike plenty of soundbars on the market, you don’t hear a single rattle, shake, click or hum that isn’t on the material it’s playing.
The Arc Ultra and Sub 4 represent a meaningful evolution of Sonos’ technology, address feedback from prior models and add handy features and forward-thinking tech like Wi-Fi 6 and BT 5.3. They may not rewrite the rules of soundbar systems entirely, but they undoubtedly push the boundaries of performance and do so in a seamless, robust and straightforward way. They make for a good general case study of how to make complex technology brilliantly simple to install and use.
Which brings us neatly to the elephant in the room. The installer’s issue with this well-polished pairing is that they are so simple to install and use – and readily available through traditional retail channels. Adding value to the Arc Ultra and Sub 4 pairing is, frankly, tricky. Wall mounting the bar, hiding power cables, and customising the look of the app is about it, suggesting this pairing needs to be an add-on to a larger project rather than the project itself.
Either way, exceptional features, simplicity, futureproofing, robust networking and outstanding performance make the Arc Ultra and Sub 4 a super compelling addition to an installer AV armoury.
