Subtle shifts towards home theater nirvana
When the Sonos Arc Ultra soundbar and Sub 4 were finally unveiled, all eyes (or should that be, ears?) were focused on whether they sounded better than their predecessors, and by how much.
As our full Sonos Arc Ultra review reveals, it’s “the best one-box Dolby Atmos soundbar for the price.” It’s not without its immediate flaws, namely maintaining a single HDMI input (yep, Sonos still refuses to offer HDMI passthrough) and there’s no support for DTS, although with the majority of spatial audio movie soundtracks being available in Dolby Atmos, this shouldn’t alienate too many potential customers.
I wholeheartedly agree with the statements made by my colleague Matt Bolton in our full Arc Ultra review, but having spent some time with both the Arc Ultra and Sub 4 – which have temporarily replaced my Arc and Sub 3 at home for testing – I’ve discovered a few extra little features that, combined with the stellar sound output, have me reaching for my credit card to upgrade.The Sonos diet
When we first spied leaked photos of the Sonos Arc Ultra soundbar, it was tricky to determine if there was any change at all to the design compared to the Arc. In reality, there certainly isn’t much to separate them, and the Ultra is still unmistakably Sonos. The only difference is that the new soundbar is slightly longer but also – crucially for me – marginally shorter in height. Official dimensions are 87 x 1142 x 116 mm for the Arc and 75 x 1178 x 111 mm for the Arc Ultra.
The biggest impact the Sonos diet has had for me is that the soundbar now doesn’t cut off the bottom of my LG G4 OLED. My previous Arc didn’t block the bottom of the screen massively, but I often found my eyes being drawn to it more than I would like. Now, with the Arc Ultra in its place, I can clearly see the bottom of the screen and I’ve found I’m immersed in the action on the screen a lot more, as the ‘floating screen’ effect of the G4 OLED is more prominent.
The change in depth is also another bonus for me. The LG G4’s stand, plus the fact the TV naturally sits at a slight angle (I have the 77-inch version – the 65- and 55-inch models stand flat) meant there wasn’t an awful lot of space for my old Arc to sit on the approximately 40cm deep stand. While the Arc Ultra is ‘only’ six millimeters skinnier, it has made a huge difference on my media unit.Matte attack
Another feature I’ve found to have a subtle but significant impact at home is the new matte finish of the Sub 4. When I first read about it before receiving the test unit Sonos sent me, I was unsure exactly what to expect.
