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Sonos reveals Arc Ultra & Sub 4

Sonos Reveals Arc Ultra, The New Soundbar Featuring Sound Motion™

Today we are announcing the introduction of Sonos Arc Ultra, a new premium soundbar that also debuts the brand’s revolutionary transducer technology called Sound Motion™. A significant breakthrough in audio engineering, Sound Motion™ drastically reduces the size of the transducer while supercharging the bass, opening a new chapter in sound innovation where bigger, better sound can be delivered from smaller products. Arc Ultra delivers up to double the bass of its predecessor, with an unprecedented 9.1.4 spatial audio experience in a sleek, sophisticated design.

We are also introducing Sonos Sub 4, the next generation of our iconic subwoofer with a refreshed design and internals that elevate your favorite movies, hit shows and more with rumbling bass.

Arc Ultra: Breakthrough Sound for Your Home Theater

Built with first-of-its-kind technology and deep industry collaborations, Arc Ultra provides boosted bass, spine-tingling spatial audio with support for Dolby Atmos, and advanced Speech Enhancement for even more levels of control — all in a sleek package that blends into your space and complements large TVs.

Theater Sound in Your Living Room: Arc Ultra delivers a massive sound stage that precisely places every detail of sound in your room to envelop you in content. The all-new architecture features 14 Sonos-engineered drivers, including a Sound Motion™ woofer and a cluster of tweeters with waveguides on both ends to deliver a 9.1.4 spatial audio experience. Tune with Trueplay™ to pinpoint the best sound for your space, now available for both iOS and Android.
Never Miss a Word or Whisper: With a new center channel architecture, Arc Ultra maximizes vocal clarity so it’s easier to follow dialogue. An all-new advanced Speech Enhancement feature lets you choose your preferred level of dialogue clarity in the Sonos app.
Cinematic Collaborations: Arc Ultra is the product of deepened Sonos Soundboard relationships. We worked with veteran movie producers and creators like Chris Jenkins and Onnalee Blank to fine-tune Dolby Atmos content and assemble a studio-worthy experience that rivals professional sound systems.
Design Worthy of Your Home: Arc Ultra is thoughtfully crafted with a distinctive curved profile, matte finish, and a slimmer appearance that looks elegant when mounted and doesn’t obstruct TV bezels when placed on a credenza. Its wrap-around grille extends around the back of the speaker so sound can travel in every direction to completely surround you.
Seamless Setup and Control: Unlock theater-quality sound in a matter of minutes with a simple HDMI eARC connection and effortlessly control with your TV remote, the Sonos app, Sonos Voice Control, or Amazon Alexa. Touch controls are cleverly housed in a dedicated ledge behind the soundbar to prevent visual distraction. With Bluetooth line-in, Arc Ultra also gives you more ways to stream - whether binging a podcast or setting a playlist before guests arrive.
Committed to Sustainability: Arc Ultra was designed responsibly with improved serviceability by using more screws and fewer adhesives, halogen-free PCB materials, less silicon material, and a reduced idle power consumption by as much as 20% as a standalone player compared to Arc. Its packaging is 100% recyclable and also 18% smaller in volume, making it more efficient to ship.

Sub 4: Our Most Immersive Subwoofer, Revamped

Sub 4 is the next generation subwoofer producing bass you can feel, transforming your home theater experience to draw you closer to the content you love.

🕯 = R

Pulse-Pounding Sound: Feel every beat, roar or rumble in your chest with dual custom woofers that generate deep, dynamic low frequencies to enhance your entertainment. No buzz or rattle either — both Sub 4 woofers face inward to create a force-canceling effect that neutralizes distortion.
Rebuilt, Inside and Out: Sonos’ most advanced subwoofer to date, Sub 4 includes increased processing power and memory, as well as new WiFi radios for better connectivity so you never miss a beat.
Same Iconic Design: Sub 4 sports an elegant sculptural shape maintaining much of its predecessor’s aesthetic, with an updated matte finish in Black and White and a profile that’s easy to stand upright, lay on its side, or tuck under the couch. Sub 4 also comes in a more sustainable form through dematerialization efforts and a nearly 50% reduction in idle power consumption.
Breathtaking Home Theater: Add more drama to your movies and shows when you pair Sub 4 with Arc Ultra, Arc or Beam for deeper lows. Pair two subwoofers together for maximum bass that supercharges every scene and song — Sub 4 is compatible with previous generations of Sub.

Arc Ultra and Sub 4 will be available beginning October 29, 2024 for USD 999 (EUR 999, GBP 999) and USD 799 (EUR 899, GBP 799). For more information, visit sonos.com, and follow along on @sonos.

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S

Silverthorn

Prodigy II

Although I really love the Atmos experience and the easy setup with a TV and it‘s streaming apps, I really have an issue with the lack of decent dts support. I get that it plays no role in streaming but am I really the only one who has a lot of the 11cm shiny silver discs left or still buys them?

some 4K releases have a dts x oder dts HD Master Audio track
Some good movies from the past just never made it to any of the streaming services. At least not here in Germany. Remember „A life less ordinary“ or „Feeling Minnesota“? Or is my taste just weird?

And dts is stil big on discs. So what can I expect from the new Arc ultra? The same „small“ solution with somewhat dts compatibility if my TV supports the passthrough? I mean it’s way better than a PCM 2 channel downmix, but real HD master 7.1 or x support would be nice. How much are these licences? Any chance we get them with a firmware update?

People have been asking for this for years and years.

Noticed all the new sony Atmos soundbars offer DTS-X

Guess Sonos thinks it doesn’t cost any sales, and if anything soon only streaming will be left sadly…..

Disney offers Imax enhanced for some stuff on streaming so full DTS support would be nice. Some TVs support it. I’m getting a G4 and it supports DTS along with Atmos. Eventually I will upgrade from my Playbase I think. Not anytime soon but I’ll want DTS support.

https://help.disneyplus.com/en-GB/article/disneyplus-imax-enhanced

"I saw the Stooges and the MC5"

A

Andrew_B

Lyricist I

Just checked the Pre-Order listing online and a little disappointed at the price in Australia. From the local sites, Arc Ultra in US is USD 999… in Australia AUD 1,799. At the current exchange rate USD 999 equates to about AUD 1,500. So why are we being charged so much more here for the same product? 🤨

G

GuitarSuperstar

Lead Maestro

Just checked the Pre-Order listing online and a little disappointed at the price in Australia. From the local sites, Arc Ultra in US is USD 999… in Australia AUD 1,799. At the current exchange rate USD 999 equates to about AUD 1,500. So why are we being charged so much more here for the same product? 🤨

Doesn’t the AUD price include the GST (sales tax)? The $999 price in the US doesn’t include sales tax.

I’m not Australian so I could be wrong.

"Receive with simplicity everything that happens to you." - Rashi

S

Silverthorn

Prodigy II

Just checked the Pre-Order listing online and a little disappointed at the price in Australia. From the local sites, Arc Ultra in US is USD 999… in Australia AUD 1,799. At the current exchange rate USD 999 equates to about AUD 1,500. So why are we being charged so much more here for the same product? 🤨

Doesn’t the AUD price include the GST (sales tax)? The $999 price in the US doesn’t include sales tax.

I’m not Australian so I could be wrong.

Yes, ten percent.

"I saw the Stooges and the MC5"

A

Andrew_B

Lyricist I

Actually you might be right there but even if I take out the GST it still works out to about AUD 1,635 before tax.

Generalzod

Trending Lyricist II

If I’m running 2 sub woofers would buying the arc ultra make any difference to the sound.

G

Gaham

Headliner I

A new product is coming but I still can’t get the Android app update that was released earlier in the week.

At least I know what Sonos’ priorities are.

P

paulrw

Prodigy II

If I’m running 2 sub woofers would buying the arc ultra make any difference to the sound.

got to be gen3 subs and above for 2subs on ac ultra

J

JakeSteed

Lyricist III

Hi @JakeSteed

My TV is set to „HDMI passthrough“ which is pretty much the only available setting there is. After a lot of google research I read that the TV also needs the dts license, even for passthrough. Which my Samsung hasn’t. Of course.

I don’t disbelieve you, but this is strange to me - the very concept of Passthrough is that the device performing it simply does not do anything at all with the audio - it just passes it along. This is why volume control (sometimes) and audio settings (always) on the TV have no effect when Passthrough is set.

This is not the first time that I have heard of TV manufacturers playing a little with the definition of Passthrough, but I really don’t know if it’s legal requirement that they have licenses to Passthrough certain formats or not - if pressed, I would have guessed they’d only need a license to decode the stream. If you’ve done research, however, then that is more than I have done - I’ll take your word for it!

I have heard of some TVs having both Passthrough and Bitstream options (even though they sound like they should be the same) - is Bitstream available on your TV? If so, please try it out.

I hope this helps.

You gave me quite some homework yesterday in your post previous to this one. I did the whole process (again as I believe I have tried this before) but to no avail. I am not a 100% sure what exactly I am getting from a dts disc. I encountered something stereo from only the Arc while the other speakers were silent and I also had dts discs where the Era 300s played something as well. Not sure about the Subs. My knowledge of different dts formats and their upward or downward compatibility is quite limited so I have no idea what that means.

Sonos app always shows „Stereo PCM“ in the TV tab. Unfortunately the new (iOS) app from earlier this year doesn’t show anything at all anymore in the settings section „about my system“ where every speaker is listed individually with serial, hardware version, IP address etc. The Arc has a „Audio in“ entry that used to specify the detailed audio signal received. Atmos TrueHD or Atmos DD+ for example. Now this entry is just blank.

When I said that passthrough is the only option the TV offers when linear PCM is selected I meant that everything else is greyed out. Also when I set the PS5 to linear PCM the audio volume drops significantly and I really have to pump up the volume so that when you switch back to tv you feel like McFly testing Docs guitar amp.

This just doesn’t seem to work. At least not with my current setup. But thank you so much for your time and effort to troubleshoot my stuff. I really appreciate that.

Corry P

Sonos Staff

Hi @JakeSteed

It did occur to me last night that McLPCM cannot possibly be licensed - it is the format that all digital audio is in (well, PCM is) when it’s not compressed for transmission to another device. Every digital audio device on the planet uses it.

You gave me quite some homework yesterday in your post previous to this one. I did the whole process (again as I believe I have tried this before) but to no avail. I am not a 100% sure what exactly I am getting from a dts disc. I encountered something stereo from only the Arc while the other speakers were silent and I also had dts discs where the Era 300s played something as well. Not sure about the Subs. My knowledge of different dts formats and their upward or downward compatibility is quite limited so I have no idea what that means.

It’s important that the content you are watching in order to determine if things are working or not actually has plenty of audio coming from the surrounds. RomComs and Dramas would not be good for this - stick a superhero or action movie on, and make sure you are at an “active” part of the movie.

Assuming that’s all good, and if your TV won’t pass DTS, then which version of DTS is in play should be irrelevant - your BluRay player should know that the TV won’t take DTS and provide a different format.

Sonos app always shows „Stereo PCM“ in the TV tab. Unfortunately the new (iOS) app from earlier this year doesn’t show anything at all anymore in the settings section „about my system“ where every speaker is listed individually with serial, hardware version, IP address etc. The Arc has a „Audio in“ entry that used to specify the detailed audio signal received. Atmos TrueHD or Atmos DD+ for example. Now this entry is just blank.

If the Now Playing screen for your Arc shows Stereo PCM, then that is the format that the TV is sending it. About My System is a work in progress, as far as I am aware.

When I said that passthrough is the only option the TV offers when linear PCM is selected I meant that everything else is greyed out. Also when I set the PS5 to linear PCM the audio volume drops significantly and I really have to pump up the volume so that when you switch back to tv you feel like McFly testing Docs guitar amp.

I can’t speak for the PS5 behaviour, but commonly, a TV will only offer more audio output formats when one of them is currently playing - ensure a surround sound track of some kind is playing when you open this setting on the TV.

This just doesn’t seem to work. At least not with my current setup. But thank you so much for your time and effort to troubleshoot my stuff. I really appreciate that.

You’re very welcome! We are straying somewhat from the topic of this thread, however - if you continue to struggle with this issue, I recommend starting a new thread for it.

I hope this helps.

"Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen." - Albert Einstein

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Sonos Reveals Arc Ultra, The New Soundbar Featuring Sound Motion™

Arc Ultra: Breakthrough Sound for Your Home Theater

Sub 4: Our Most Immersive Subwoofer, Revamped

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