Sonos Arc Ultra review: a benchmark in premium soundbars

I won’t hide the fact that I was impatiently awaiting the Arc Ultra. Very satisfied user of the Arc since 2020, to the point of having replaced my home cinema combining several speakers with a complete Sonos system, I was impatient at the idea of ​​seeing the developments that the brand would bring to its flagship of the living room. Here is the Arc Ultra, a soundbar launched a little on the sly, after several complicated months due to an application update which broke everything.

I was actually waiting for a soundbar with higher power, likely to better accompany a pair of Era 300 speakers (a little acoustic gem marketed since 2023). Judging by the way Sonos communicated about the Arc Ultra, one might believe that it is only a version 1.5 of the Arc, with an identical price (€999). But the new soundbar brings more than notable developments, making it an instant reference in its segment. With two additional Era 300s, the experience is truly spectacular — especially in Dolby Atmos.

A design as simple as ever

Sonos is known and recognized for the simplicity of its products, as well as for their manufacturing quality. Delivered in attractive packaging, available in white and black, the Arc Ultra is adorned with a huge pierced metal shell for the most beautiful effect. It’s functional and efficient, knowing that the design is ultimately quite close to the Arc. It is just a tad wider and a little lower (so it will obstruct the bottom of the television less). Optionally, you can hang it on the wall.

The Arc Ultra inherits the new control layout of Sonos products, namely a touch zone on which you simply slide your finger to manage the volume. At the back, we find the same connectivity: a single HDMI port to connect to your television (in ARC or eARC), an Ethernet port (in the event of faulty Wi-Fi) and a final port for power. On this point, there is no change compared to the Arc, except that the optical adapter is no longer supplied.

If, from the outside, the Arc Ultra looks a lot like the Arc, inside, everything has changed. Sonos engineers have completely revised the acoustic architecture of the soundbar. It goes from 11 to 14 speakers and is notably equipped with a compact woofer powered by Sound Motion technology. The latter would be “ one of the most important innovations in audio engineering in almost 100 years », with a reduction of the speakers without compromising on the quality of reproduction. In terms of sound reproduction, the Arc Ultra promises rendering in 9.1.4, compared to 5.0.2 for the Arc.

La configuration simple

Sonos postponed the release of the Arc Ultra for good reason: the application experienced several weeks of setbacks after a failed redesign. The company has corrected all or part of the problems and, thus, the configuration of the Arc Ultra is done in a few minutes. Just plug it in and follow the instructions, the longest step will probably be the update. You will simply have to make sure to connect it to the ARC or eARC port of your television so that all the other products in your installation can benefit from its qualities.

Otherwise, it should be remembered that Sonos products are integrated into a complete ecosystem, both multi-channel (several speakers together) and multi-room (several rooms). The application allows you to control everything, whether to play a playlist on several speakers at the same time or create a home cinema in the same room (with a subwoofer and speakers at the back).

The Sonos application also allows some adjustments. On this subject, we can only encourage activating the Trueplay functionality, which performs precise calibration from your smartphone’s microphone (which requires waving your arm around the room). The manual options (bass, treble, vertical audio, etc.) should be used sparingly, as they can distort the overall result. For once, Trueplay considerably improves the experience, without too much hassle.

The Arc Ultra comes without a remote control, but you can control the volume from your sofa using the app or via the remote control of your TV (or your Apple TV if necessary).

Everything is better with the Sonos Arc Ultra

Sonos targeted the two main defects of the Arc: the bass rendering (without a subwoofer) and the quality of the dialogues. And I might as well say it right away, the progress made is quite astonishing. The beautiful bass reserve changes everything in the dynamic range, with a rendering that occupies more space and gains power and depth. The bass is so well worked that the use of an additional subwoofer – still costing €800 – turns out to be much less relevant in a small space. You will need a more extensive living room to justify its acquisition (knowing that you can combine two, just in case).

On the vocal register, we must once again take our hats off to Sonos. Intelligibility is exemplary, with precise and appreciable cutting, even with noise in the background. The Arc Ultra also offers three different settings, and the lowest one already achieves great feats in considerably improving listening. The dialogues are not always very easy to process and transcribe, and seeing the Arc Ultra make this an argument constitutes a lot of added value.

Otherwise, we find a balanced, detailed and fair listening experience, with excellent spatialization work (on the sides, at the head) which extends the soundstage (on video games, it’s incredible). We even perceive some elevation effects, but, as is already the case for the Arc, they have difficulty passing to the rear (half-dome impression). On Dolby Atmos content loaded with effects (no DTS:X compatibility), the Arc Ultra has no trouble handling it and ensures a rewarding, precise and powerful show. If you switch from your TV speakers to this bar, you won’t believe your ears. In musical use, things are also better, even if the Arc Ultra is still intended more for video content.

We didn’t fail to combine the Arc Ultra with two subwoofers (that’s too many) and a pair of Era 300s (speakers designed for Dolby Atmos). And there… the immersive pleasure is breathtaking, with effects bursting from everywhere. On the film The Fall Guyavailable in Dolby Atmos on myCanal, we had the impression of being immersed as close as possible to the action, with overflowing generosity and a soundbar that was never overwhelmed (unlike the viewer). In video games, we let you imagine the benefits (pay attention to the volume or warn your neighbors). It’s frankly astonishing, even if this configuration exceeds €2,500.