Sonos Arc Ultra feedback

Hi ​@BigHazard 

Welcome to the Sonos Community!

I am glad to hear that you are more than happy with your Sonos Arc Ultra! Thanks for sharing!

​@BigHazard, I completely agree with you. It is getting to the point where I honestly cannot watch television without the Sonos system turned on now.

However, unlike you, I find myself constantly tweaking the sound settings, especially when I am switching between different types of content like films and music. I have also had a very similar experience with the overall quality, though I am still trying to get the best out of Dolby Atmos. At the moment, I am not quite getting those immersive 3D sound effects, and I suspect the reason might be that my system is still missing a second Subwoofer to really balance out the room.

About the only tweaks I do (normally) is to fiddle speech enhancement and night sound.

-- Not normally, if my hearing aids batteries are dead I boost the treble.

With my room a single Sub is more than adequate but for difficult rooms, or wanting a lot of impact from video, a second one can be nice.

You have hit the nail on the head there, ​@Stanley_4. I am currently running my system with just a single Sub, but I used to have a dual setup previously. In my experience, if you are after that true, room-shaking cinematic rumble, having two units is unmatched.

It is fascinating just how responsive the hardware is to any minor tweaks we make in the app. A slight adjustment to the sub levels or the crossover totally transforms the entire soundstage. That flexibility and responsiveness is exactly what makes the system feel like a proper premium setup, as you can really tailor it to the room.

I can attest that room size is a key component as to how a Sonos HT setup sounds. I think my 25 x 18 x 8 room is perfect for my ArcUltra, Era 300 surrounds with Sub 4 x2. Dolby Atmos is cinematic especially on disc.

On the other hand I have the same setup in an open concept space with a single Sub 4. In that room the Sub 4 is located behind the sofa backed up to a wall. The low-end is great as I can feel it which IMO approximates the same experience in the smaller space above.

Bottom-line is that without tweaking the low-end proper placement of the sub can make a world of difference when trying to get the right balance in any space.

Finally if the space is cathedral like it will be challenging to get an immersive feel. Therefore, can’t blame Sonos as some spaces just don’t lend themselves to an immersive experience.

I'm fond of placing Subs in corners at a 45° angle for maximum coupling to the room. 

I have a smaller room with two Rooms, an HT and a 300 Atmos setup. The HT corner Sub is a lot more impressive than the mid-wall 300 sub even though it sits a few inches from my toes at my desk. Both together are fun but the imaging is pretty much destroyed, just really loud mono. 

That is an excellent point about room acoustics and placement, ​@AjTrek1. It sounds like you have the absolute ideal setup in that dedicated room, and getting that full cinematic experience from a physical disc is exactly what this hardware was built for.

I am currently running a single Sub with my Arc Ultra and Era 300s, and I am fairly certain that missing second unit is the final piece of the jigsaw for my room.

Your mention of placing the Sub 4 behind the sofa is very interesting. I am curious about your experience with that kind of proximity. Have you ever tried placing a Sub directly under the sofa, or right up against the frame? I am wondering if that direct, tactile vibration through the furniture gives a better physical impact for low-end effects, or if it risks becoming a bit overwhelming compared to a more traditional corner placement.

Am I unusual for never watching TV without the Sonos..? I don’t quite get why you’d connect Sonos for TV but not use it in certain circumstances. Surely turning it on and off is far more trouble than it’s worth?

I’ve heard of people who don’t use their soundbar system for things like the news or sitcoms; only using it for movie nights and the like, but I just don’t get it.  I’ve personally never sat there and said “Gee, this audio is so plain, I think I’ll listen to it on the crappy speakers that are in the TV.”  It makes no sense to me.  It also flies in the face of other things you hear, like “I paid for all these speakers, I better be hearing all of them all the time!”. 

Then again, I have a relative who once said “I can’t hear the TV, the volume is too loud”, so what do I know?  

​@jgatie 

I really like your last statement above. 😂😂😂

No lie, an exact quote from a close relative, who has also been known to say “Turn it down, I can’t hear it!” about the radio volume. 

I agree with someone your guys. The thing with the sonos arc speakers are literally the same hifi speakers drivers you find in a bookshelf or floorstanders for example they use silk dome tweeters almost every hifi brand prefer these. In this case its really hard to get them working at there best its like they wont give you wow factor you will have to tune them for hours but you will never ger a result simply because they are designed to a limit but they sound great 👍 stop stressing on the settings menu. You have speakers at £30.000 using same silk dome tweeters there aint meant to be messed around with just follow your ears and stick to one settings. If you have to adjust go for it but they will never give you the sound you are looking for. But again silk dome tweets are amazing and better then metal tweeters. Let the speakers break in this can take 2 to 3 weeks to fully open up 

​@jgatie 

Jokes aside…In defense of your relative maybe the below may apply:

If you really want the best of the best sell the house and sell the family and get your self a focal utopia speakers you will never go back 

At $37,000 plus they must be the “Timothy Leary” version of speakers…you probably won’t come back to anything 😵‍💫

My guess would be that they use the soundbar for music sources a lot, and don’t have auto switching turned on?  Maybe they like to have music playing while they watch/listen to TV?

There are also folks that have projectors they have to setup at every use due to aesthetic reasons. I can understand why they might skip connect the sound system if they don’t see much benefit for the content they plan on watching.

Lastly, if you use bluetooth headphones with TV content frequently, switching between headphones  and TV speakers is much easier than headphones and Sonos soundbar (if you don’t have Ace)

​@jgatie 

Jokes aside…In defense of your relative maybe the below may apply:

 

No, this person just liked to complain.  The type who sees people watching a movie with the volume up loud and thinks “Someone is having a good time, and by God, they must be stopped!!!!”

honestly there ain't much difference. But people have money and they spend lots of it on hifi gears. You will tell them all audio cables sound the same but they will bring out a speaker cable that cost £12.000 and say hear the difference. I dont know man

I can definitely hear the difference between my KEF speakers & Sonos speakers.  KEF doesn’t do Dolby Atmos so that’s why I have Sonos.

I like feeling my music, loved the LaScalla pair that was all I had room for in the house, and sadly the budget.

https://www.klipsch.com/products/lascala-floorstanding-speaker

If there was any way, aside from replacing the house and spouse, and after winning a lottery I'd have these.

https://www.klipsch.com/products/jubilee-floorstanding-speaker/

Maybe at half the price?

https://www.klipsch.com/products/klipschorn-ak7/

Those speakers look amazing. You do know your hifi speakers this is final stage of speakers. You dont see them selling that much on aftermarket and there do demand serious hifi amplifier 

They are amazingly efficient, mine suggested a 100 Watt minimum but they did fine on a 500 Watt amp.

The Sonos Amp should be more than adequate soundwise, for appearance some nice glowing tubes (valves for you furrinrrs that talk funny) would be nice.

You are not unusual at all, @Rhonny. I think my earlier wording might have been a bit unclear. What I meant is that I find the audio quality so addictive that going back to standard TV speakers now feels completely flat and unlistenable.

@Melvimbe actually guessed part of the issue correctly. Since the Arc Ultra introduced Bluetooth connectivity, it has become an incredibly handy feature for streaming audio straight from other devices like my work laptop.

The main snag is that the auto-switching logic isn't quite as clever as it could be. For instance, if I have been listening to something on my laptop via Bluetooth, turning on the television doesn't automatically trigger the system to grab the eARC signal. Instead, I have to manually disconnect the Bluetooth link on my laptop first, and occasionally fiddle with the TV audio settings to force it back onto eARC. It is a bit of a faff, but given how fantastic the system sounds once it is running, it is a minor grievance I am willing to tolerate.

​@TheWhiteWater

What brand TV?  Is TV Autoplay & Ungroup on Autoplay set in the app?

Unfortunately, Ungroup on Autoplay doesn't address ​@TheWhiteWater’s concern about their setup not auto-switching to eArc when done sending BT audio. Ungroup refers to as it says...disconnecting from a Group of Sonos speakers upon turning on the TV.

What may help (emphasis on may help) is turning on Idle Auto-Disconnect from Bluetooth. The key however is I don’t know how long it takes for the feature to kick-in which I suspect is longer than 30 seconds 🤔

I have an alarm set for my Arc Ultra in my bedroom to play everyday at 7am. However, on the weekend I may get up early around 6am and turn on my TV for news/weather.  The alarm will still engage at 7am. When that happens the TV eArc connection is interrupted. I have to stop the alarm and pull the HDMI cable from my Arc Ultra to reset things. 

I think it’s just the nature of the beast. However, for BT I think the setting suggested will work; but not instantaneously. It may still require disengaging the  BT connection to the laptop either via the Arc Ultra’s BT switch or via the laptop menu.