The Sonos Arc with Dolby Atmos is a truly powerful soundbar, with 11 high-performance drivers that fire in all directions, delivering an ultra-wide soundstage and impressive base. What does that mean for your living room? A full, immersive sound that gives you a beautifully cinematic experience great for TV, movies, music gaming and more.
I’m Vanessa Joy, wedding and portrait photographer in the New York and New Jersey area. You usually see me talking about photography, but today, I’m here to introduce you to the Sonos Arc.
Sonos Arc Premium Smart Soundbar ()
The Arc one of the most technical products that Sonos has ever come out with, but I promise it’s easy to set up. Downloading the newly redesigned Sonos S2 app on your mobile device will walk you through the process. Plus, there aren’t a ton of complicated and unattractive wires to figure out either. A simply designed welcome packet will give you everything you need to get going. From the app, there are adjustable EQ settings including bass, treble, and loudness (plus two other features we’ll get to shortly).
Setup and connectivity
One of the things I like about the Sonos Arc, in addition to the easy setup and connectivity to your phone, is its ability to tune itself to the room that it’s in. By running a few tests and walking around your TV room with your phone, you’re able to set the sound system perfectly. The Arc’s Trueplay tuning technology will auto-adjust to the room’s condition so that you have the most premium sound specialized to the unique acoustics of your room. The result is theater-like, really, in your own living room.
The Arc can stand alone in your home with a sleek-looking white or black matte finish option that mounts easily to a wall with the near-invisible mount (available as an add-on purchase), or can be placed on a surface below your TV, like I do. Optionally, you can expand the entertainment set to include rear surrounds and a subwoofer for deep bass. It gives you the freedom to start off with the soundbar and then keep adding to it if you’d like. All of Sonos’ devices have a chic look to them that will modernize, but not obtrude, your home aesthetic. At 45 inches long and just under 14 pounds, it’ll make a statement that upgrade your room.
You don’t need to necessarily hook the Arc to your TV since it can connect to your phone to stream music, radio, and podcasts. Easily tap into your favorite music sources like Spotify, Amazon Music, and Apple — the Arc works with more than 100 streaming services. Play what you have already on your mobile device, or use Sonos Radio. Sonos Radio lets you tap into local radio stations in your area, or some of their own specially crafted stations by popular music artists.
Features for theater-like listening
Personally, one of the things that I appreciate the most is speech enhancement. I’ve recently taken to keeping subtitles on when I watch something just to clearly understand the dialogue. Now I don’t have to. Instead, I now turn on Speech Enhancement and it clarifies the dialogue when characters talk quietly or action intensifies.
The other feature that I’m new to is Night Sound mode that reduces the intensity of loud sound effects. It basically means that I won’t be waking up my sleeping children when I’m watching The Avengers. The Sonos Arc tempers down the loud parts of whatever you’re listening to. Finally, I can stop freaking out and turning the volume down when action sequences pop up! The Arc, hands down, sounds incredible. It immerses you in the experience and makes you feel like you’re right there.
I’m an Alexa user, and I know like most voice-control users, it’s hard to stop using it once you’ve started. The built-in voice control means that you can use Amazon Alexa or Google Assistant with the Arc soundbar. You can play music, check news, set alarms, ask questions, and more, completely hands-free. Naturally, you can also tap right on the soundbar to play, pause, adjust volume, mute the microphones, and swipe right to skip tracks, or left to go back a track.
The rest of the information like ethernet, optical audio and HDMI Arc port specs can be found on Adorama’s product page here. There is so much to appreciate with this soundbar, including the infrared receiver that syncs with your TV remote, and WiFi capability.
The Sonos Arc is where science meets art, which is certainly something I can appreciate. It’s a sophisticated feat of engineering I love having in my home.
Feature photo by Vanessa Joy
