Sonos Arc (new Sonos sound bar)

I’d buy the one sl personally. Couldn’t care about voice control.

 

Bumping... Is this still the go-to soundbar? I mean outside of shelling out $2.5k for the AMBEO.

 

Na the Sony HT-A9 is the shit now . need a sub though

 

Haha in the Sonos Arc price range tho?

 

Na a little bit more. If you want something similarly priced then the HT-A7000 soundbar which is new will be close!

 

Never heard of the Sony one. Still love my ARC with the full surround and sub setup. Only drawback I ever found is I wish it went louder on quiet tracks like classical. It certainly goes loud enough but needs a gain boost.

 

The Sony Atmos soundbars are pretty impressive, there 360° Reality isn't a gimmick its really impressive. Its for home users that don't want to build our a 7.2.1 system and I have to admit I was pretty sceptical but once I heard it it was pretty converted.

 

Listened to a few soundbars today...
Store let me pick content:
Samsung Q950A - powerful, clear, immersive but left me thinking something sounded off
Stuck with stupid BestBuy "press button to test":
Sonos Arc - powerful, clear, appealing, couldn't really test the immersion as it had no surrounds and WAS POINTING TO THE SKY, seriously WTF BestBuy
JBL 9.1 - powerful, not sure it was clear but sounded appealing, the grey colour while nice I don't think blends as well as black, wasn't pointing to the sky but was at a ~45 degree angle, couldn't test immersion as detachable "rears" were on display right next to the bar
Bose 900 - powerful, clear, appealing, also no surrounds

Sonos is 15% off with student discount and has 90 day free (they also pay return shipping) returns so figured it was a no brainer as I couldn't really test anything outside of the Samsung properly. I believe Sonos also has a history of longevity and frequent updates which I think is important as I don't plan to upgrade for 5+ years.

EDIT: Forgot the MAJOR BUMMER. Sonos Arc is on backorder until Jan 7.

 

Yeah thats a big thing with SONOS vs companies like Samsung etc doing soundbars. It’s not their bread and butter and they abandon this stuff at the drop of a hat. SONOS has been excellent with long term support for me.

If you live in Apple ecosystems then the SONOS decision is easy also…

 

I'm Android and doesn't look like it supports casting but with my current dumb soundbar I just cast to the TV anyway, so no change there.

 

Hey man still running the first gen sub?
Looking at upgrading soon, is there any negative to pairing the previous sub to the ARC?

 

Have not had a single issue honestly don’t believe there is much difference except for some controller upgrades which the ARC covers off anyway

 

Appreciated

 

Mine's still going strong almost one year in. I did have some connectivity issues to one sub, but it resolved itself somehow.
I've added a second sub and a few more One SL's around the house. Put it this way the whole house is our own cinema now love it.

 

It works better with Android - you can use the "Play from this device" feature, which is better than Airplay/Android play/whatever.

Z...

 

Yeah but that's from within the Sonos app, no? Casting works within the Spotify and other apps and from Google Home. Not a real problem though. What is a real problem is Sonos ETA came and went without an update, no new ETA. C'mon guys.... already been waiting over a month

 

Okay so I finally got my hands on it, after the courier decided to sit on it for the weekend then drop it at the pickup location.

First impressions are wow clear cinematic sound. Dolby atmos, the most incredible 3d positioning audio in the world? Don't hear it... Granted I'm in an apartment with popcorn ceiling and no sub or rear speakers. Maybe it'll fair better when I get those for the townhouse. The other half of the issue might be that Hisense just fucking suck. Goddamn is it a beautiful panel but outside of that it's a piece of shit. It'll do DDP for its built-in Android TV but won't passthrough the CCwGTV DDP. Maybe with this years bonus I'll replace the TV (and won't cheap out) and get the sub and rears...

Anyway wife is studying so I can't put it through it's paces properly until maybe tomorrow night.

 

So I'm sending the Sonos Arc back. Don't get me wrong, it's a phenomenal soundbar but probably overkill for me. I don't think I could even use 50% without getting noise complaints. Also, Dolby Atmos won't work because the TV is a turd. I've ordered a Beam (Gen2) because I figured if I'm thinking the Arc is overkill then it's baby brother will be just right. Backordered until Feb 25th though... Have 45 + 14 (shipping) days to return the Sonos Arc so will keep it until the last minute.