Sonos Arc review: this soundbar sounds simply fantastic

Dolby Atmos-enabled wifi smart speaker is brilliant one-box audio upgrade for TV and music, but think twice if using Sky, Virgin or similar

Multi-room audio specialist Sonos is back with the Arc, the firm’s first Dolby Atmos-enabled soundbar that totally transforms your TV’s sound.

The £799 Arc replaces the old Playbar and Playbase, sitting above the £399 Beam as Sonos’s top-of-the-line home cinema soundbar. It is a single box of tricks that combines a smart speaker, wifi music sound system and home cinema kit in one, but like most soundbars of this type it can be dogged by audio-picture syncing issues when used with TV set top boxes – more on that later.

Dimensions: 8.7 x 114.2 x 11.6cm

Weigh: 6.25kg

Speakers: Eight elliptical woofers, three silk-dome tweeters

Connectivity: wifi b/g, HDMI (ARC/eARC), Optical (via adapter), Ethernet, IR, AirPlay 2, Spotify Connect

Audio formats:

Software: Sonos S2

CPU: Quad-core 1.4GHz A-53

RAM: 1GB

If your TV remote is set to control the sound via HDMI control rather than infrared it won’t work when playing music on the Arc.

The Arc must be plugged into the ARC-capable HDMI port on your TV, which reduces the number of HDMI ports available for actually plugging in set-top boxes, games consoles and other sources.

The smart speaker functionality works as well as an Amazon Echo or Google Home device.

Pros: sounds fantastic with music, great Dolby Atmos reproduction, super-clear vocals, Night Sound, wide soundstage, looks good, Alexa or Google Assistant, extensive music service support, simple set-up, surprisingly good bass without a sub

Cons: expensive, ARC/eARC rather than HDMI pass-through, takes up a port on your TV, can have lipsync issues like any soundbar

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