Beam 2 v. Arc Ultra stand alone surround effects

The Beam (Gen 2) relies more in HRTFs sound for rear and above.

You could be experimenting this better as the shape of your room, giving you different reflections by the size of the soundbar, if you like more the sound of the Beam and you don't want to add rear speakers, buy it. It is less power but if the volume isn't your problem, you can choose the Beam as I understood you like it more :)

What are HRTFs?

Head Related Function Transfer, there are things they do like a personalized eq per channel (or in Dolby Atmos for the coordinates of an object) with reverb, changes in phase, delay and more things to (frequently in headphones as they are easier to do and apply) emulate the calculations of the brain to know were a sound is.

So, if you do this; the sound goes already "processed" and your brain will think is in another position.

I know Sonos use them for the Sonos Ace and for the Beam (Gen 2). At less in the Beam for height, but it can also be for making a wider soundstage (horizontally). :)

 Never heard of this term before, thanks for posting an explanation of your use of the initialism.

Just out of curiosity, how do you ‘know’ Sonos uses this in some situations? Do you have access to the code base? Which devices do they use it for, which devices do they not?

I don't have access to their private code, only I know this tecnic I widely used across mush devices (like headphones with Dolby Atmos) to do the surround effects.

The Beam (Gen 2) I think as is the only way to do height channels (.2 or .4, some Sonos articles says one thing an others another, like it can do up to 5.1.2 and after saying 7.1.4) is by virtualize the channels, by doing this HRFT. And I know that the Beam (Gen 2) provide height sound without having physically speakers up-firing.

To do Dolby Atmos in headphones (like the Ace) you need yes or yes to do this because you only have left (L) and right (R) nothing above, in front or behind you.

I hope this helps and I comunite appropriately. :)

That's why they could be also using this or something similar for more situations, to make the stereo more wide. Or the soundstage.

Other Sonos products I dont think they could have this, because they aren't Dolby Atmos enabled and the Arc's have real speakers up-firing so they don't need to virtualize the sound.

I think they use this only when you're playing Atmos content; if not, I don't think so.

Thanks for the explanations, most interesting.

Really excellent reading:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Head-related_transfer_function