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Hi

OK, I pulled the trigger and ordered the Arc Ultra and two Sub 4’s. 

The Sub 4 weighs less than the Sub (Gen2/3); but no loss of performance IMO. I must attribute the weight difference to materials used for the enclosure. The physical appearance of the Sub 4 is more angular around the edges/perimeters versus the gloss finish versions. However, the fingerprint test is outstanding…Zero for the black and white matte finishes. I have both; therefore, I know of what I speak. 😊. Also, the NFC is much faster during setup and it connects directly to your Wi-Fi by-passing the temporary connection to your device.

The star of the show is of course the Arc Ultra. Below is my “Everyday Person” opinion. No audiophile speak; just plain straight talk for us common folks! 😊

Ease of Setup: Easy Pee Zee. Plug in the Arc Ultra and the app walks you through the process with ease. Connects directly to your Wi-Fi with no temporary connection to its built-in frequencies.

Sound Motion Woofer: Definitely increases low-end response. I listened to a music track on my Arc that has a lot of low-end at certain passages with no sub nor surrounds. Having used a sub with my Arc since I first installed it the track sounded almost tinny without sub support. Played the same track on the Arc Ultra and the low-end jumped at me. Not as much as if a sub were installed but a definite improvement over the Arc.

Sound Stage: Wider than the than Arc. I never liked music play back on the Arc as I preferred my Fives in stereo pair. However, The Arc Ultra could (but not quite) entice me to listen to music on it without feeling I’m missing a lot of stereo detail/separation.

Speech Enhancement: Three (3) settings Low, Medium, High. Medium is the default. I honestly couldn’t perceive a lot of difference between the settings; but dialog has a definitive improvement over the Arc.

Lip Sync: This is a welcomed feature that works well. Watching Alien: Romulus I was able to fine tune it. Setting two (2) proved to be the sweet spot for me.

Dolby Atmos: Having watched Alien: Romulus on my Arc the day before; the sound to my ear was more immersive. The Arc by no means is inferior in that respect; but the Arc Ultra (to my ear) pushes the envelope a bit more. Hint: Listen to Michael Jackson’s Thriller in Dolby Atmos.

Ace Audio Swap: Works as it did with my Arc. Since I changed the room name it required setup to recognize the room as an option.

Touch Control Bar: Responsive but takes getting use to if not familiar with the volume slider on the Era series and/or Move. Voice assistant status light on the left is of course visible; but can only be toggled on/off from the back panel.

Bluetooth: Works as expected.

Voice Assistant: Sonos Voice or Alexa works as expected.

TruePlay (Enhanced Tuning): Oddly I had to delete the app and reinstall it before I could get it to work. Go Figure? 🤔 Once done Trueplay worked perfectly. It even advised me that I needed to move my hand more slowly as my first attempt failed. Not the fault of the app…it was all me. 😂 Just for “kicks and grins” I decided to re-TruePlay my other rooms as well. 

Adding Sub(s) and/or Surrounds: The app again expertly guides you through the process. Same prerequisites required that speakers used as surrounds must be individual rooms to start and will be moved over to join the room with the Arc Ultra. A new sub must first be added to your system unless one shows as unused. 

Wall Mount: I don’t use a wall mount. However, I measured the connection points. Depending on which end you measure from (after lining up one point of Arc and Arc Ultra) the other is approximately 3/8 of an inch off. Therefore, I would recommend purchasing the wall mount kit designed specifically for the Arc Ultra. It makes sense as the Arc Ultra is longer than the Arc.

 

I hope you found this information useful. Cheers!

 Which TruePlay did you use?  Lots of talk about a loss of bass when doing the full TruePlay.

@MoPac 

I used the Full TruePlay the one where you walk around your room waving your hand like an idiot 😂. I have not with my Arc; nor the Arc Ultra experienced any LOSS of bass. The term loss IMO is subjective or maybe due to a  mis-understanfding of how TruePlay works.

TruePlay is not a “silver” bullet that will cure all ills with a Sonos room. In fact TruePlay can make matters worse on the rare occasion.

One must take into account the topography of the room. My room is considered “Hard” as it has hardwood floors, no drapes, glass top tables & entertainment center, smooth walls, non-acoustic ceiling and leather theater seating. The dimensions (in feet) are 25 x 18 x 8. Keeping the same room dimensions walls/ceilings, and table tops; but adding carpeted floors, drapes and plush fabric seating the room is considered “Soft” (or at least leaning to that configuration).

Bottomline is that until Sonos (or maybe Peter Pee 😅) can verify that TruePlay causes a LOSS of bass response I’ll have to assume it’s more of an anomaly (based upon what I presented) rather than a consistent tuning failure/glitch.

Just curios (if not too much trouble) can you inset a post or two wherein the OP’s have mentioned a LOSS of bass response when using Full TruePlay.🤔

 Those comments were mostly on Reddit.

 My guess is some folks love the sound you hear when you walk into Best Buy where it’s nothing but BOOM, BOOM, BOOM.  You have to go into the bathroom to find out what’s actually playing.

 If I change from my Arc surround to Arc Ultra surround I’ll play Pete Belasco: Deeper from the album Deeper on the Arc system then on the Arc Ultra system.  That will tell me if I lost any bass.  Of course Sonos can’t touch the KEF KC62 when it comes to bass so Deeper won’t have that same impact.

 I too will wave my hand up ‘N’ down like a crazy man, but I’ll make sure my wife is not watching.

https://www.reddit.com/r/sonos/comments/1gi1kch/dont_use_advanced_trueplay_with_your_sonos_arc/

 From a Reddit topic.

I have a quick question @AjTrek1,

You mention in your initial post that there is a ‘welcome feature’ called lip-sync and have set it to two (2) - can I ask more about that feature please, because I can’t understand how the soundbar could ever get the audio in advance from a chosen source and yet you have chosen to either slow things down (or speed things up) by setting it to two.

Can you perhaps provide a little more detail, as I can’t find any information about the feature, unless you’re referring to the old ‘TV Dialog Sync’ slider control for grouping the Arc Ultra with other rooms for TV (music, usually) playback, but that’s present in the older Sonos Arc settings anyway🤔?

@Ken_Griffiths

Not a lot to explain as what it does it allows the viewer to hear dialogue in real time (sync) with the actors lip movement. My LG has the same feature in settings called lip sync. However it is strange that this feature is not explained in more detail 🤔

I’ll post a screenshot of the page when I return home later today.

@Ken_Griffiths

Not a lot to explain as what it does it allows the viewer to hear dialogue in real time (sync) with the actors lip movement. My LG has the same feature in settings called lip sync. However it is strange that this feature is not explained in more detail 🤔

I’ll post a screenshot of the page when I return home later today.

Thanks @AjTrek1 - really appreciate that.🙏

@Ken_Griffiths 

You are correct...It is “TV Dialogue Sync” but the new app seems to have taken it further to call it Audio Delay (Lip Sync). The only reason to inject the terminology of “Lip Sync” to mind indicates a “visual” aspect. 

The feature is not a result of the Arc Ultra as I have the same settings for my other Arc. However I never realized it was there. Duh 🤓!

Here are the screen shots:

 

 

Ah okay, thanks For that @AjTrek1 - I thought it might have been a brand new feature that Sonos had introduced with the Arc Ultra and I’d perhaps missed reading about it. 

I have used ‘TV Dialog Sync’ before, it buffers the TV audio on the main HT Player/Soundbar & Surrounds to help ‘slow down’ output from the HT room and bring the audio in sync with any ‘other’ grouped rooms - it’s really useful when the grouped (not bonded) players are situated in the same physical room. It allows the T`V Home Theatre audio to play in sync with all grouped players.

I mostly have only ever used the feature when playing from my TV’s built-in music Apps like Amazon Music or Apple Music, across grouped rooms. All the music audio plays in sync and I don’t need to have things in perfect lip-sync with anything on screen - usually I have the lyrics showing on-screen and so any ‘slight’ audio delay is not an issue.

Anyhow thanks for posting back here and clarifying the matter. 👍

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