T
he Arc is Sonos’ first foray into the world
of Dolby Atmos and 3D audio. It includes
upfiring drivers for adding height to the
stage, as well as more effort to produce
spatial surround–like sound.
The Arc features 11 speaker drivers, with
individual amplification for each, naturally.
These include two angled upwards to reflect
sound off the ceiling and create the height
channel promised by Dolby Atmos, plus two
facing out on the left and right for extreme
width, plus another two at a less extreme left
and right angle. And some face towards you
too, which is quite handy, we’d say.
The Arc can’t really achieve surround
sound from a single bar — instead it’s more
like a wall of sound. The noise it creates
doesn’t come from the bar; it fills the wall in
front of you, up to the ceiling, wall to wall.If you’re hoping for the cinema Atmos
experience, you’re going to be a little bit
disappointed here — when it comes to height,
it doesn’t quite give you the feeling of things
bursting overhead. And as mentioned already,
it won’t feel like something is truly behind
you (though you can add more Sonos
speakers for rear surround — a pair of Sonos
One SL units are competitively priced).
But you do absolutely still get expressions
of height and width built into that wall of
sound in front of you. As is usual, you’ll notice
it most from movement: something falling
from the sky distinctly moves down in the
soundscape and strikes with noticeable
impact. Something screeching left to right
matches the pace and dynamism on–screen.
There’s more than enough bass to be
satisfying for action soundtracks, and it feelsSonos Arc
Give your big–screen television experience the
wall of rich, spatial sound that it deserves
$799 From Sonos, sonos.com
Features Eleven drivers (eight woofers, three tweeters), HDMI eARC, Ethernet, Wi–Fi, AirPlay 2
Reviews
48 SEP 2020 maclife.com