Available on June 10th, Sonos Arc is the premium smart soundbar for TV, movies, music, gaming, and more. Arc brings brilliant surround sound in 3D, along with immersive music, elegant design, and voice control built in. Experience shows, films, and games with the precise and immersive sound of Dolby Atmos, and enjoy incredible sound streaming music, podcasts, and audiobooks.
Extraordinary sound meets elegant design
Eleven high-performance drivers, including custom elliptical woofers and precisely angled side tweeters, produce vivid detail and impressive bass for home cinema and music streaming. Arc's upward-firing drivers create a multi-dimensional soundstage that moves around you, rendering every whisper and explosion with dramatic clarity, detail, and depth.
With its elongated shape, soft profile, and seamless façade, Arc discreetly mounts to the wall or sits beneath the TV without pulling focus. When mounted, a magnetic sensor detects the orientation and smartly adjusts the EQ to temper bass resonance.
Arc’s sound was specially tuned with the help of Oscar-winning sound engineers to emphasize the human voice so you can always follow the story. The advanced processing creates five phased-array channels that masterfully deliver sound to your ears from all directions at the exact right moment. Use enhanced Trueplay tuning technology to optimize the sound for the unique acoustics of your room, even calibrating the height channels for precise localization.
You can also make a surround sound setup with a pair of our surround capable Sonos speakers, such as a pair of Sonos Ones, or amplify it all with a Sub for an extraordinary surround experience.
Some more details on Sonos Arc:
Simple to set-up. Plug Arc into power and then connect it to your TV using the HDMI-ARC cord. Bring your phone up to Arc to automatically pair and securely transfer WiFi credentials using near-field communication (NFC).
HDMI eARC. Increased bandwidth supports high-quality audio and has lip-sync compensation built in.
Dolby Atmos. Play Atmos and Atmos-encoded audio to play from your collection and favorite services through your TV’s HDMI ARC or eARC connection.
Ambient light sensor. Arc detects how bright the room is and automatically adjusts the brightness of the LEDs to be visible but not distracting.
Automatic remote sync. Arc connects to your TV's HDMI eARC port with a single cable and automatically syncs with your remote.
Control your way. Control Sonos Arc with your voice, the Sonos app, your existing TV remote, your favorite music service’s app, or AirPlay 2. Capacitive touch controls for play, pause, skip tracks, adjust the volume, and group rooms just by tapping or swiping the top of the soundbar. LED indicates status, mute status and voice feedback.
Smart voice recognition. A four far-field microphone array used for advanced beamforming and multichannel echo cancellation makes sure you’re heard, even when the music is blasting, even when playing in immersive surround sound. For privacy, turn the microphone off with a tap. The LED light is hardwired and will always indicate if the microphones are enabled or if your voice assistant of choice isn't listening.
Optimized for your listening. From within the Sonos App, tap Speech Enhancement so you never miss a word, or Night Sound to amplify quiet noises and reduce loud ones so you can enjoy late night TV without waking the entire house.
Tune with Trueplay. Trueplay puts the speaker-tuning capability of the pros in the palm of your hands, adapting and optimising the sound of the speaker to the unique acoustics of the room. iOS device required.
Low profile and compact size. The dimensions are 3.4 x 45 x 4.5 inches (87 x 1141.7 x 115.7 mm) H x W x D and Arc weighs 13.78 lbs (6.25 kg).
Pre-order today on Sonos.com in stunning black with matte finish or white with matte finish for $799 US (€899 EUR, €799).
We’ve announced details for the Sonos Five and new Sonos Sub. You can also check out our blog for some great stories.
Page 11 / 22
Thanks!
That’s interesting. Is that a fairly straightforward setup with no downsides? I come from full-on Amplifier setup, so the in/out always seemed natural to me.
In this case - I would have 5 devices into the HDMI switch, then into, say, input 1 in the TV, and eArc out to Sonos as you say. Meaning… I would leave the input on the TV on the same input 1 all the time (I wouldn’t ‘switch’ to the eArc HDMI - say, Input 3 - under this scenario ever?
I just want to avoid switching conflicts - the TV input should be a constant (and the output to Arc as well)…
Thanks again
Sonos needs to be connected to your TV’s Arc HDMI port. Then your switch can be connected to any other HDMI. Then it should work. I will be using this with Caavo on one TV… I don't think there will be any major issues, but I don’t think it’ll pass Atmos from anything connected to the Caavo (we’ll see).
Update - found a response from HDfury in avsforum that notes it will not do what we need:
So there is not one product, AVR or other that can solve this for us?
No. There is not. I said what HDfury said like 6 pages ago here. It won’t work because Sonos’ products have HDMI outputs, not inputs. If this doesn’t work with your TV, you will need a new TV. Or someone has to innovate a new product designed to solve for this, but I have major doubts that will happen. It would be pretty complicated given the way the Sonos Arc is designed and it would be a product that in some number of not so distant years would be completely obsolete as all the new TVs will have eArc/Atmos support.
I don’t think it’s quite that bad. There’s nothing on the market, but then there’s been little market driver until now. It won’t be obsolete as there is zero reason I can see for mid/high end projects to start supporting eARC and therefore any projector + eARC only soundbar/receiver will hit this. It doesn’t seem far fetched that soundbars/low end receivers may follow the same pattern of single eARC hdmi for cost reduction as TVs with eARC start to become common.
What we want is the module that already exists in various TVs to do this, wrapped in a board & box. Two ports, one audio->eARC embed module, and a PSU if the 5v from HDMI is insufficient. That’s plenty for me as the audio/video split is taken care of already.
I’m sure the Sonos engineers would be able to give a great estimate of what’s needed, but I’m also sure they’re insanely busy at this point. I’ve reached out to a friend of mine to see if he’ll take it as a commission. Will see.
When can we expect reviews? I figured, reviewers had received their units already but seems not.
Ignoring the fact that I would be compromising the sound somewhat by covering part of the upward firing speakers… I’m wondering if it is possible to mount the Arc to my TV stand using the Sanus TV mount and Arc mount? Currently I have a Beam mounted to my TV stand using the Sanus TV mount and Beam mount and I would like to replicate this if possible.
@Ryan S
Hi Ryan,
Thinking of ordering the Arc when it’s available.
I still have a pretty old Sony TV. I am going to change it out but not right now.
Will the Arc function properly with my old Sony KDL52EX700?
It has an ARC HDMI port but not an e-ARC.
How can I set the Arc up for the best possible sound until I change for an e-ARC TV?
I use a bluray player connected to the TV for movies I own, but also stream to the TV from my computer.
Any suggestions?
Regards:Kristoffer
I’m still studying ARC/eARC etc etc. I’ve ordered an Arc but I’m still very confused as to whether I will be able to benefit from any of the newer sound formats.
I’ve discovered my LG C6 will not pass through any DD+ compressed Atmos signals even if the devices inputting into the TV are Atmos compatible. It will output DD+ happily but no Atmos from any of the internal apps either.
I have an Oppo UDP-203 and I’m thinking of connecting the HDMI 1.4 Audio out from this directly to the Sonos Arc. I’ll put my Apple TV or Xbox One into the HDMI In of the Oppo. I’ll then use the Oppo HDMI input select to choose which input will pass through to the Sonos Arc. (Oppo has a new firmware which allows passthrough of Dolby Vision from the HDMI In)
Will this work?
Will my Oppo pass through the ARC TV Sound? Will it passthrough even if on standby?
At least this way I think I might get:
full bandwidth Atmos from discs (BluRay/UltraHD)
compressed Atmos from the Apple TV or Xbox One apps
though on the downside I might not get any sound from the TV :( unless the TV ARC routes through the Oppo.
Again - how hard would it have been to put just a HDMI through input and out on the Arc?
It feels like you need a PhD in HDMI technology to figure out how to get the best out if this device!
I’m still confused with the Dolby Atmos support.
At the moment I have a Beam, 2 One’s and a Sub. Most of the video content is coming from the Apple TV. In the settings of mine TV (Philips 55POS9002) the audio is set to multichannel (bypass) and I get a proper Dolby Digital 5.1 sound.
But now I want to trade the Beam for the Arc but I’m not sure if I really get an Atmos sound. Mine TV does not support eARC and in the documentation of the Apple TV you can find that the Apple TV 4K uses a high bandwidth form of Dolby Atmos that doesn’t work over ARC connections.
But it is also possible to get the Atmos signal within the Dolby Digital Plus signal which can be transmitted with ARC. But I’m not sure if the Apple TV support this?
If the Apple TV doesn’t support this then it seems to be impossible to get an Atmos signal from the Apple TV when your TV doesn’t support eARC, I’m a right?
I have an Oppo UDP-203 and I’m thinking of connecting the HDMI 1.4 Audio out from this directly to the Sonos Arc. I’ll put my Apple TV or Xbox One into the HDMI In of the Oppo. I’ll then use the Oppo HDMI input select to choose which input will pass through to the Sonos Arc. (Oppo has a new firmware which allows passthrough of Dolby Vision from the HDMI In)
Will this work?
Unfortunately, no.
It feels like you need a PhD in HDMI technology to figure out how to get the best out if this device!
To me anyway, the simplest way to look at it is remember that ARC stands for Audio Return Channel. Return means that the audio is flowing in the opposite direction of the way video will flow, from an HDMI Input to an HDMI output, both of which need to be ARC or eARC capable. The HDMI port on your TV is an Input, while the port on the Arc is an Output. You can’t connect your Bluray player’s HDMI output to the Arc’s HDMI output...it won’t work.
I thought I was getting it..obviously not.
So what signal is the Arc outputting to the TV? (I could understand handshaking to tell the TV what audio formats it can receive and how it wants them).
I thought the Audio Return Channel represented Video In (to the TV) and Audio Out (from the TV) going two ways bidirectionally in the same cable? Are they not both HDMI inputs at both the Arc and TV ends?
Hello,
I think this soundbar looks very good.
I have one question about it. Now I have a multimedia player (Nvidia Shield) connected directly to the soundbar (Yamaha YHT-S401) with HDMI and the soundbar connected with HDMI ARC to my TV (Panasonic VT60). I see in my soundbar all the different codecs (DTS, Dolby,...).
Can we do the same? Connect the Nvidia Shield to the Sonos Soundbar by HDMI and then the Sonos ARC to the TV with the HDMI ARC?
I think its the only possibility, because my tv its old.
Thanks
I thought I was getting it..obviously not.
So what signal is the Arc outputting to the TV? (I could understand handshaking to tell the TV what audio formats it can receive and how it wants them).
I thought the Audio Return Channel represented Video In (to the TV) and Audio Out (from the TV) going two ways bidirectionally in the same cable? Are they not both HDMI inputs at both the Arc and TV ends?
The Arc is outputting basic graphics. However, it doesn’t really matter because you aren’t going to be watching the input that the Arc is on. You will be watching other inputs, or the apps on the TV itself. However, the audio from those inputs or apps will be routed to the Arc via ARC.
I’m pretty much in the same situation as Guinans, except for an older Pioneer KURO TV and I was thinking about setting my Oppo player and my Apple TV the same way...
To me, it’s a real shame the lacking of another input HDMI port and the choice to limit to an eArc the opportunity to take advantage of Dolby Atmos.
Why Sonos, why???
I thought I was getting it..obviously not.
So what signal is the Arc outputting to the TV? (I could understand handshaking to tell the TV what audio formats it can receive and how it wants them).
I thought the Audio Return Channel represented Video In (to the TV) and Audio Out (from the TV) going two ways bidirectionally in the same cable? Are they not both HDMI inputs at both the Arc and TV ends?
Maybe think of it this way. There are several different pins, pathways inside an HDMI cable. Many of these are designed to carry video, from an HDMI output to an HDMI input. There are other pins for carrying audio, from HDMI output to an HDMI input. Then there are pins for ARC/eARC which also carry audio, but from HDMI input (TV) to HDMI output (Arc). ARC isn’t a bidirectional channel. There also are pin(s) for CEC, which are control commands, which actually is bidirectional.
The Arc is going to do the same thing the Beam does with it’s HDMI output port. It sends video to the TV in the form of a screen saver image. It doesn’t send any audio to the TV but it could. The TV sends audio back to the Arc through ARC/eARC channels. All happens along a single cable.
To me, it’s a real shame the lacking of another input HDMI port and the choice to limit to an eArc the opportunity to take advantage of Dolby Atmos.
Why Sonos, why???
Although I don’t think this will make anyone feel better about the situation. Sonos is actually using the technology the way it was supposed to be used. ARC and eARC were created to eliminate the need for audio equipment to receive HDMI inputs from sources and pass the video onto the TV. Your audio equiment would only be concerned with it’s primarily purpose, audio. The TV would take in the inputs, do the video and pass on the audio to the audio equipment.
No news to share today about bringing support for Dolby Atmos to Beam or Amp, but I’ll share your interest with the team. Atmos itself does require upward firing speakers, or ceiling mounted ones, which as Airgetlam and jgatie suggest, aren’t available today for Beam or the Amp.
Of course the Amp isn’t a speaker...but could connect to up firing speakers which is I’m sure why people are asking.
I wouldn’t expect much of an Atmos experience in two front small up firing speakers with no rears. Better than nothing I suppose.
When can we expect reviews? I figured, reviewers had received their units already but seems not.
Most tech reviews are about a week before a product is released at most.
I’d suggest there’s no advantage to having the Sonos Five as surrounds versus the Sonos Ones.
Unless you use the rears for music which plenty do.
I thought I was getting it..obviously not.
So what signal is the Arc outputting to the TV? (I could understand handshaking to tell the TV what audio formats it can receive and how it wants them).
I thought the Audio Return Channel represented Video In (to the TV) and Audio Out (from the TV) going two ways bidirectionally in the same cable? Are they not both HDMI inputs at both the Arc and TV ends?
Maybe think of it this way. There are several different pins, pathways inside an HDMI cable. Many of these are designed to carry video, from an HDMI output to an HDMI input. There are other pins for carrying audio, from HDMI output to an HDMI input. Then there are pins for ARC/eARC which also carry audio, but from HDMI input (TV) to HDMI output (Arc). ARC isn’t a bidirectional channel. There also are pin(s) for CEC, which are control commands, which actually is bidirectional.
The Arc is going to do the same thing the Beam does with it’s HDMI output port. It sends video to the TV in the form of a screen saver image. It doesn’t send any audio to the TV but it could. The TV sends audio back to the Arc through ARC/eARC channels. All happens along a single cable.
To me, it’s a real shame the lacking of another input HDMI port and the choice to limit to an eArc the opportunity to take advantage of Dolby Atmos.
Why Sonos, why???
Although I don’t think this will make anyone feel better about the situation. Sonos is actually using the technology the way it was supposed to be used. ARC and eARC were created to eliminate the need for audio equipment to receive HDMI inputs from sources and pass the video onto the TV. Your audio equiment would only be concerned with it’s primarily purpose, audio. The TV would take in the inputs, do the video and pass on the audio to the audio equipment.
Earlier in this thread I posted a photo of what the graphics look like from the Beam. Additionally, I plugged an Apple TV directly into the Beam and there was no audio because of what melvinbe explains above. Just wanted to prove to folks that it is not an input and won’t work that way. Unfortunately, many folks who want Atmos with this soundbar will need to get a new/newer TV. But I am sure it will sound great with Dolby Digital 5.1, which is what we’ve all been using the Playbar for previously. This should sound even better.
The eARC point is a bit of a sting -- I literally bought a new Samsung TV last year and understand no (or almost no) Samsung TVs currently support Atmos over HDMI Arc, which is a huge % of the market. But nothing we can do about that, other than get a new TV or use DD+. When I get the Sonos Arc, I’ll test it and we will see!
Hi everyone, I will be replacing my Beam with the Arc in our family room. I have the Beam power cord fished through the wall adjacent to the fire place and I am hoping the Arc uses the same power cord so I don’t have to run that through the wall again? Thanks!
@Ryan S
Hi Ryan,
Thinking of ordering the Arc when it’s available.
I still have a pretty old Sony TV. I am going to change it out but not right now.
Will the Arc function properly with my old Sony KDL52EX700?
It has an ARC HDMI port but not an e-ARC.
How can I set the Arc up for the best possible sound until I change for an e-ARC TV?
I use a bluray player connected to the TV for movies I own, but also stream to the TV from my computer.
Any suggestions?
Regards:Kristoffer
I’ll give this a shot and try to make it generic and short. Please correct where wrong.
If your TV has ARC, can do compressed Atmos via DD+.
If your TV has eARC, can do* “true” Atmos.
If your TV has neither, you can still do DD5.1 via optical or HDMI.
Assuming you have one of the first two above, connect the Sonos Arc to the ARC/eARC labeled HDMI port (HDMI #1 in the image above, on my tv it’s HDMI #2 on the side of the TV). Plug your other devices into any of the other HDMI ports as you normally would (in @Toffe example, connect the blue ray to HDMI #4 and computer to HDMI #2 assuming that’s on the side] or whatever port is used for the computer).
* In order for Atmos to work, the original source will need to be sending the audio in the Atmos format. Additionally, your TV must be able to pass through the Atmos signal.
The eARC point is a bit of a sting -- I literally bought a new Samsung TV last year and understand no (or almost no) Samsung TVs currently support Atmos over HDMI Arc, which is a huge % of the market. But nothing we can do about that, other than get a new TV or use DD+. When I get the Sonos Arc, I’ll test it and we will see!
Where did you hear that? Being that I have a Samsung TV, I’ll be rather disappointed. While true that you won’t be able to get TrueHD-Atmos with eARC, you should be able to get DD+-Atmos with ARC (the connection, not Arc the soundbar). Your new Samsung TV should have ARC, and therefore should work.
@Ryan S
Hi Ryan,
Thinking of ordering the Arc when it’s available.
I still have a pretty old Sony TV. I am going to change it out but not right now.
Will the Arc function properly with my old Sony KDL52EX700?
It has an ARC HDMI port but not an e-ARC.
How can I set the Arc up for the best possible sound until I change for an e-ARC TV?
I use a bluray player connected to the TV for movies I own, but also stream to the TV from my computer.
Any suggestions?
Regards:Kristoffer
I’ll give this a shot and try to make it generic and short. Please correct where wrong.
If your TV has ARC, can do compressed Atmos via DD+.
yes. It should anyway, if the TV followed standards correctly.
If your TV has eARC, can do* “true” Atmos.
It wouldn’t call it ‘true’ as that would imply atmos over DD+ is fake, like it was system generated noise rather than what the producer intended. Atmos over eARC, TrueHD, is uncompressed. Semantics I guess
If your TV has neither, you can still do DD5.1 via optical or HDMI.
You can vis optical, but not HDMI. The port on the Sonos Arc is not an HDMI input.
Assuming you have one of the first two above, connect the Sonos Arc to the ARC/eARC labeled HDMI port (HDMI #1 in the image above, on my tv it’s HDMI #2 on the side of the TV). Plug your other devices into any of the other HDMI ports as you normally would (in @Toffe example, connect the blue ray to HDMI #4 and computer to HDMI #2 tassuming that’s on the side] or whatever port is used for the computer).
* In order for Atmos to work, the original source will need to be sending the audio in the Atmos format. Additionally, your TV must be able to pass through the Atmos signal.
Yes.
I have a bit of a strange question. I have been thinking about all the issues associated with feeding direct audio signals into the Arc. There are currently HDMI switches on the market that can output video via one HDMI output and audio only via a second HDMI output. Obviously feeding this into the Arc will not work as the audio is not coming via an HDMI ARC / eARC port.
However, it must be possible to feed direct audio into the Arc as the optical to HDMI converter can also achieve this on the Beam. I am assuming that it delivers the audio data to the HDMI pins normally reserved for the ARK Audio ? Would it not just be a case then to have an HDMI cable that can transpose the audio to ARK audio pins and feed it from the audio only HDMI port on either a switch or a HD Blu-ray player directly into the Ark hdmi port ?
Great discussion going on here. I think I’ve got the lost is worked out, but it isn’t clear to me what one needs to have a Blu-ray with DTS play audio? Assuming the tv has eARC and hooked up correctly to Sonos ARC, what would one do to get the best (or any?) audio from a DTS only disc? I don’t think 5.1 PCM would work, correct?
I have a bit of a strange question. I have been thinking about all the issues associated with feeding direct audio signals into the Arc. There are currently HDMI switches on the market that can output video via one HDMI output and audio only via a second HDMI output. Obviously feeding this into the Arc will not work as the audio is not coming via an HDMI ARC / eARC port.
However, it must be possible to feed direct audio into the Arc as the optical to HDMI converter can also achieve this on the Beam. I am assuming that it delivers the audio data to the HDMI pins normally reserved for the ARK Audio ? Would it not just be a case then to have an HDMI cable that can transpose the audio to ARK audio pins and feed it from the audio only HDMI port on either a switch or a HD Blu-ray player directly into the Ark hdmi port ?
I think the general idea is sound. I don’t know how different coverting an optical signal to ARC is, compared to converting standard signals on the audio pins over to the ARC, but no doubt a conversion is possible. Heck, this is exactly what an ARC capable TV does. The problem is while the optical to HDMI-ARC adapter exists, there doesn’t seem to be an HDMI to HDMI-ARC adapter that exists.
