Arc - Is This Even Possible?

No. Like most soundbars Arc contains Front Left, Centre and Right channels.

The Arc is a soundbar, not a center speaker.

I realize that, but why not make it expandable and give us the choice?  That said, is it even possible?

No soundbar in existence can be used as a center speaker.  I’m sure there’s a good reason for that.  Who knows?  Maybe Sonos will be the first.  But I wouldn’t count on it, given the history.

This is the vid I watched and it really got me wondering if it was even possible with the existing hardware?

That guy grouped an Era300 pair with the Arc. Music would be in sync. TV audio through the Era pair would lag, and echo, because the system has to add a buffering delay to avoid dropouts on the grouped room(s). 

It’s possible to fiddle in the Arc’s settings to add delay to it, which might make the offset less obvious, but that would be at the expense of TV lip-sync.

Quite frankly, that guy is an idiot.  #1, there will be a delay, or a lip sync error, as @ratty says.  #2, the R/L/C channels will be duplicated by the grouped left and right, causing the soundstage to be a dispersed, muddied mess.  

Not at all saying that’s the way to do it and in fact he’s saying same. I’m asking would it be possible for Sonos to give us the choice to do it the right way via a software or firmware upgrade?

Never say never, but it is a request going back to the original Playbar, and it has never come to fruition.  It’s also a feature never before seen in any soundbar ever made.

Thanks Danny. Good answer. So maybe the question should be, could Sonos allow us to have volume control over side and up firing speakers?

Why? Sonos is not for “tweakers” but for people that want less cables and, stuff that “just works” and have the money to be (mostly) technically uninterested. Hence Trueplay: Sonos does all the work for you. Adding this kind of extra “control” would mean adding complexity (and this confusion) for these customers.

Something that would be cool for the Arc and not require electronics changes.

I had some Infinity TSS 4000 speakers that came with multiple bases of different heights so you could go from a tiny tabletop mount to a really tall floor mount.

So change the Arc’s case so the left and right ends can be disconnected from the center section and provide various length extenders so that you could get it close to the width of your TV.

So my 65” that is 57” wide could use two 6” extenders and be as long as the TV is wide.

A 75” that is about 65” wide could use 10” ones.

A 85” that is about 74” wide could use 15” ones.

Sonos already lets you change the volume of upfirinng and rear speakers relative to the main volume.  This is under settings for your home theatre room.

A few downsides I can see to this.

Would it screwup trueplay tuning a bit?  Not a 100% sure on that, since it would adjust to the room, but having variable distance between the LCR speakers in the front, as well as the side firing speakers.

Looking at the explode of the Arc, I don’t see that the there are clear places where you could ‘cut’ the end woofers off the Arc.  It would likely be a bit more than a minor physical redesign, like changing the hard buttons, but more closer to a full redesign.

Not sure if the separation of left and right sides would be just a cable connecting the 3 pieces together, or a physical plastic piece to make it appear as an even larger solid soundbar, but either way, you’ve added quite a few accessories to the Arc. I would assume you have to add connection ports to the various pieces, that provide audio and power.  You wouldn’t want to use normal speaker wire so that customers don’t decide to add 3rd party speakers or subs.  And your support will have to deal with issues when the left or right attachments are not working correctly.

And the Arc is already $900.  How many of your customers  are willing to spend even more for a bigger soundbar to cover the cost of developing new hardware and software for this?

I think I would rather Sonos just develop a center channel speaker with Era300s (or Era500s) for front left and right.  I’m sure the economics work out any better for that, but I would rather see that than a soundbar you can take apart.

...so why not allow us to also have control over the side firing speakers, assuming those create the front-left and front-right sound?  And here’s why...I use the system in my bedroom and rarely use it at high volumes, as a result, front left and right separation is much less defined.  Also, I have the height volume at max and still don’t hear the effect at lower volumes.  FYI, I’m in a 15’x15’ room with 10’ ceiling and sit about 12’ back from the screen.  My tv is against one wall and my bed is against the opposite wall.

Interface complexity. Sonos is designed for use by my mother( if she were still with us),  not someone who spends 90 minutes tweaking the software at each install. That’s reserved for much higher market audiophile companies, I’d think. 

You could be right, but I hope not.  That said, those that spend as much as we do on a sound bar + rears + subs probably expect a bit more.  giving the option means we can leave it all to True Play or tweak it to our liking.  As it is, I’ve got Height raised to max and still don’t know if I hear it or not as it’s not at all obvious from min to max.

Sonos doesn’t really ‘announce’ where their market design is intended to land, but it’s always felt to me much more ‘mass market’ and much less ‘high end’. They make great equipment and good software that appeals to the masses. If you want to have software and hardware  that you can tweak to the nth degree, that’s not Sonos. They’re much closer to ‘plug and play’, which suits their financial goals, as near as I can tell. 

There is a definite sweet spot to hear Atmos from an Arc.  If you aren’t in the range of the return when it bounces off the ceiling, then you aren’t going to hear much of an effect.  I sit around 11-12 feet from the Arc, with 9 foot ceilings and the effect is great.  Especially with DD Atmos trailers.  But if you aren’t in the proper range, or you have an irregular ceiling, you won’t hear it, no matter how loud you set the individual channel volume. 

Thanks.  That makes sense.  I have 10’ ceilings and sit about 12’ back.  Maybe my ceilings are too high for me to hear it, even at max.  I still wonder if it’s technically possible make the side firing speakers controllable though?

Unless one of us has access to the code base, and how it is written to interpret Atmos, we will never know. 

Idiot (you referenced) speaking here: you act like I didn’t call out those exact limitations in my video and address the impacts on the sound. It doesn’t mean you can’t get a glimpse (though imperfect) of what Sonos could do with their hardware. I think the experiment totally gave me a sense of the potential.