natural sound arc ultra

I don't know how to answer that, we just plugged our Arc, and now Arc Ultra in, set it up to link to the TV and listen to it. Never noticed any odd sounds or operation. We do use speech enhancement on some programming. 

Maybe if you explained what you meant by cinematic/theatrical? 

Hi Stanley,

So for example, the beam is more natural and crisp in dialogue. However the arc, the voices are fuller and contains more bass when speaking. Like the difference in watching at cinema compared to tv at home. So I wanted to ask if you can tone down the settings to be more natural in speech and in sounds compared to a fuller heavier tone.

Thanks

I think you have it backwards, the Arc does a good job of reproducing the source material. Smaller Sonos do a good job given the constraints on size and cost. TV speakers do the bare minimum.

Still you could tweak the audio controls to try and limit the sound if that is what you want.

You can try to low the bass setting maybe, or turn on the speech enhancement, with that you can make the middles (voices) bright more.

It almost sounds like you have gotten used to the thin limited sound from TV speakers and expect that is normal. The TV speakers are probably the worst at reproducing what it is supposed to sound like.

Hopefully you’ve tried TruePlay tuning if you have an iOS device. If not read on….

If the Arc Ultra is operating along and you feel there’s too much base in dialogue attaching a sub4 or Sub-Mini may help. Doing so relieves the Arc Ultra of low-end (bass) duties. I know it’s another expense but that’s about all you can do outside of playing with the EQ.

Remember everyone hears audio differently meaning someone else may think the dialogue sounds fine.

I don’t use the TV speakers. However my TV have harman/kardon sound (7.2.4).

What I’m saying is, the Arc Ultra for me (an maybe for you) sounds with like a Harman curve (more bass and treble), so in Sonos you can only adjust Bass and treble so for listen better voices (middles) the only way is to use the speech enhancement (in the Ultra is better because is by AI and you can set the intensity) or lowering the bass a bit.

In theaters (with cinematic sound) the Bass (without LFE) is +10db upset and the rest of frequencies are plain, until a bit +3/4db in some treble. I think you would like the speech enhancement, in the Arc Ultra sounds very good and is the most confortable and better option. Also the Arc Ultra have the center channel more louder and with Trueplay the eq should be plane and then it won’t be cinematic more, until you play a movie.

Okay thanks for the feedback all.

One man’s normal is another man’s artificial. 

​@Martin 908 another thought just occurred to me. Since you haven’t purchased the arc ultra and are listening to demos (at a store?). You are hearing that the store is trying to show off the capability of the arc ultra. Playing movies? ie cinematic content, possibly Dolby Atmos audio. The sound of the arc ultra is going to depend of the content being sent to it. Standard stereo pcm isn’t going to sound like that.

Once you’ve purchased one, if you do, and run TruePlay tuning, which will adjust the sound for your room dynamics, you’ll see that the sound changes based on what you are watching. Based on the type of audio being sent to the soundbar.

Thanks ​@kdowling .Yes, was in the shop where I could only watch 3 set demos. As you mentioned they have probably maximised the settings for the content shown.

Given that part of the usage will be terrestrial tv which i gather is stereo 2.0. Still worth getting the ultra due to the sound format? Will also be using netflix standard account and ps5.

For me the Beam (gen 1) versus Arc choice (if either fits the space) was based on stereo imaging at my listening distance. The Beam does a good job closer to the seating position. While the Arc also does well close, it performs better at longer distances. 

For simply watching talk TV the Beam is adequate even for a larger room.

For the Arc Ultra the speech enhancement makes it my choice anywhere it will fit.

I use surrounds and Subs so I can't really comment on how the soundbar alone deals with 5.1 content.

I’m with Stanley_4 on this. However, I don’t have an arc or arc ultra. I have a Beam and a Beam 2. Smaller rooms and closer sitting distance and they are both the right choice here. But I also have subs and surrounds and don’t listen to the soundbar by itself.

I have a different, smaller room and a closer sitting distance here. I spent a fair amount of time trying to fit my old Arc into that space. It was about 10 inches too long and 2 inches too high. I looked at rebuilding the shelving unit (already done once to fit a larger tv and the Beam) but it just wouldn't fit.

Not unhappy with the gen 1 Beam there but the Arc would have been nice.

I'm a firm believer in the "You can never have too much speaker camp." Spouse is in the "But we need to leave room for us too camp." and after many years of trying her patience I'm trying to be more reasonable.

Im hitting about 10 to 11 feet to where the bar will be situated. When you say close sitting for the beam would I be still in the beam territory or arc ultra realm?

Stereo tends to be the exception, these days. Most terrestrial broadcasts are in Dolby Digital, but not all. It depends on the content, and the finances of the broadcaster (he said, snarkily)

Ten feet would see me using an Arc

Another distance discussion, looking more to screen size than soundbar choice but it is mentioned.

https://en.community.sonos.com/home-theater-229129/beam-2-v-arc-ultra-stand-alone-surround-effects-6934284?postid=16892609#post16892609

Didn't see much distance info in the sales pages, might be in the user guides though.

​@Martin 908 

You’re overthinking this. The sound will be as intended by the producers of the content. Movies sound big. Soaps/docs/news sounds natural. The Arc Ultra doesn’t add cinematic power to TV studio boom mikes.

​@Rhonny thanks Rhonny.