Dissapointing Atmos on Arc

I love Sonos stuff and you’d have to do something extremely nasty to get me to part with my Beam. I have invested in a lot of high-end audio gear over the years but got sick of the clutter and general obsessing but I don’t find the Beam to be anything like the compromise I thought it would be. I love the sound! But my last word on the Arc, as I’m aware I’m going round in circles...dissatisfied with both movie and music I’m afraid.

I understand the price is hefty, 100% agree and it’s not for everyone. room acoustics are important for any soundbar even with rears  (especially when it come to atmos).  I’ll be honest, even my room is not perfect for ambeo - it falls short with sounds coming from behind me but it gets close. i have a demo i recorded on my youtube channel to give you a simple demonstration if you want to hear the quality, albeit not the best through a phone.

either way, i don’t want to make this about me and my possessions on this thread.

if anything, try re-calibrating again. I heard if you calibrate the ARC sitting in the listening position, and only moving the phone around at arms length (or a few feet) in all directions (for the ceiling reach as high as you can) this can work out better then test atmos again. if you have disney+, the beginning of the Revenge of The Sith has Obi-wan and Anakin in spaceships flying around. There is a part where these little robots start walking on top of obi-wans ship and i can hear them walking right above my head. I don’t know what time to skip to, but just watch the entire beginning scene when they are flying. Raise the volume up, it may help. 

Thanks for that...I’ll give it a try

If anything, try re-calibrating again. I heard if you calibrate the ARC sitting in the listening position, and only moving the phone around at arms length (or a few feet) in all directions (for the ceiling reach as high as you can) this can work out better then test atmos again

 

Hi, thanks so much this really seems to have improved things lot! Ended up watching 5 episodes of Netflix Formula 1 Drive to Survive Series 3 last night back to back. Having Hamilton’s Mercedes coming straight at me was really quite fun! Even if it’s a placebo it’s doing it for me!

That Ambeo soundbar looks a great piece of kit!, not a bad price if you can get away without buying a Sub either.

I went from a Denon AVR with excellent, though large speakers, to an Arc, Sub, and pair of One SLs this last weekend.

I had the Arc and Sub in use for 2 weeks until I got the One SLs mounted and added last weekend. I liked the sound, and had time to tweak.

So HBO Max has ‘Justice League’ specifically labeled as ‘Dolby Atmos’...and yes, Virginia you can hear the difference. 

When I fired it up at decent volume, the sound is amazing. On a related note, the sound design on ‘The Flight Attendant’ shows off the Arc quite well.

We love the new toys. Atmos is ‘neat’, but regular old DD 5.1/Plus is damn fine.

It is a nice soundbar - just finicky with positioning. It takes a specific room to dial it in; however, even in a misshaped room it can do a damn good job. If you want booming lows then a sub is required with it - thats why i went with the ambeo because i can pair any subwoofer i want and i did not want to be stuck with the gen 3 or whatever future sub sonos puts out - i want deep subsonic bass. 

Yeah Blade Runner 2049 is a great reference disk, also Godzilla King of the Monsters, and 300 especially the arrows scene.

After reading some of these comments, would people suggest buying a Beam + surrounds for half the price than getting the Arc if Atmos is lacklustre?

Even with “lackluster” Dolby Atmos, the Arc still sounds much better than the Beam because it is a larger sound bar with more drivers. And since you use a Blu-ray player, with an eARC equipped TV or HDFury Arcana, you will be able to get lossless Dolby TrueHD/Atmos and multichannel PCM from the Arc. The Beam only supports lossy Dolby Digital 5.1.

The height channels are subtle, but I personally think Dolby Atmos sounds great with the Arc especially from Blu-ray discs.