Sonos Arc Ultra review

Sonos Arc Ultra: Introduction

It’s fair to say Sonos hasn’t had the best time recently.

There was a time when the company could do no wrong and despite a range of other – and cheaper – multi-room solutions appearing on the market, the Sonos customers remained loyal to the company that had done them so well over the last two decades.

Some of that loyalty waned when the redesigned Sonos app appeared in May, and at the time of writing – in November – and the app still isn’t completely fixed, though it is getting there.

But, onwards and upwards as they say. The Sonos Arc Ultra was revealed in October 2024 and with breakthrough sound technology and a refreshed design, does it do enough to be the multi-room company’s knight in shining armor? Here’s what I thought. 

Setup and wireless options

• Simple setup with Sonos app
• Requires HDMI eARC for best experience

I mentioned the Sonos app having had some issues over the last few months, with setup of speakers being one of them for some users. But I have to say, the setup of the Sonos Arc Ultra really was an entirely seamless experience for me.

I even timed it because I was interested in seeing how long it was going to take if I stumbled upon any issues. Three minutes is what it took me. That’s not including taking my TV off the wall, which I did before I started the setup and plugged in the HDMI cable into the HDMI eARC port ready to then be plugged into the Arc Ultra, but it is including Trueplay tuning the Arc Ultra. 

Plug in the Arc Ultra’s power cable and it will appear as a pop up in the Sonos app. It first uses Bluetooth to establish a connection, after which you can set it up as a new system or you can add it to an existing Sonos system.

If you’re doing the latter, it will piggyback off any current Sonos speakers you have to access your home network. You’re taken through the setup up process with simple steps, including connecting it to your TV and it was all very straightforward.

I set up the Sonos Sub 4 to use at the same time as the Arc Ultra too, though I had a couple of issues with that setup. Nothing major, and we’re still only talking about four minutes to set that up, but it had a couple of hiccups updating the software initially. For the Sub 4, Sonos uses NFC on the side to obtain the PIN code for setup – the Arc Ultra uses a series of chimes for the PIN but the Sub can’t do that. 

Once paired, you will then need to add it to a room in the Sonos app. Oddly, you aren’t prompted to do this when you initially set it up like you are with other Sonos speakers, including the Arc Ultra.

Still, once you have added it to a room, you can pair it up with whatever Sonos speaker you want to use it with. 

Design and hardware

• Capacitive controls on ledge
• Black and white colour options

The Sonos Arc Ultra most definitely takes its design cues from its predecessor, the Sonos Arc, but there are some refinements of note.

It’s a little slimmer in terms of depth, with the idea being it can fit underneath your TV easier than the Arc. I had the Arc Ultra below my TV on the media unit and the TV is on the wall above, which is where I had the Sonos Arc too so the depth isn’t really something that ever bothered me.

It might be your wish come true though and if it is, then I’m thrilled for you. We have an in-depth feature on how the Arc Ultra compares to the Arc.

Depth aside, the Sonos Arc Ultra also repositions its controls and this is probably the biggest design differentiation between the new soundbar and the Sonos Arc.

There’s a ledge for the controls on the Arc Ultra, with the volume trough you will find on the likes of the Sonos Era 100, Era 300 and Sonos Move 2 on the far right side of the ledge.

This allows for quick and simple sound adjustment, while a microphone mute button is situated on the far left side of the ledge. In the middle of that ledge, you’ll find play/pause, as well as the skip and rewind controls.

As with the Sonos Arc, there a cut out at the back of the Arc Ultra for the ports and a couple of other hardware switches. You’ll find the power port – which is the same as the Arc, Ethernet port and one HDMI port.

Ideally, the Arc Ultra connects to your TV via HDMI eARC from that single HDMI port, though you can buy an adapter to connect via optical and HDMI ARC is also supported. There is no HDMI passthrough however, so keep in mind that you can’t connect anything to the soundbar itself and instead, everything you want to connect to your TV, like a Sky box, Apple TV or Fire Stick for example, all needs to be plugged into the TVs separate HDMI ports directly.

If you use HDMI eARC, sound is handled effortlessly so if you don’t have a TV that supports it, you may consider upgrading.

Within the back of the Sonos Arc Ultra, you will also find a microphone hardware switch – like what you will find on the Era 100 and Era 300, and you will also find a Bluetooth button should you wish to connect to the Sonos Arc Ultra via Bluetooth – more on that and the Arc Ultra features in a second.

I have to say, I really don’t understand why the Bluetooth button is on the back rather than on the control ledge, but I suppose that’s a decision someone somewhere made and thought it was a good one.

I’m also going to mention the Sonos Sub 4 design here as I tested it alongside the Arc Ultra. The Sonos Sub 4 looks very similar to the older generations of Sub but it has a matte finish now, like the Sonos Sub Mini.

I didn’t think that was a huge deal, but in the flesh it looks a lot better than the previous glossy finish and it picks up a lot less dust and fingerprints too, which is an absolute win. The feet are also sturdier than the previous Sub models. Elsewhere, everything else is the same.

Features

The Sonos Arc Ultra packs a punch when it comes to its feature set, adding a couple of extras over the Sonos Beam 2 and Sonos Ray, as well as the older Sonos Arc. There’s Bluetooth for starters, as I mentioned above, but that’s not really new for Sonos speakers now, with all the more recent models offering it.

What is new is the Sound Motion tech which I’ll talk about in a second, as well as more advanced Speech Enhancement settings.

With other Sonos soundbars, you can turn the Speech Enhancement on or off, but there is nothing more granular than that.

For the Arc Ultra, you can change the Speech Enhancement between Low, Medium and High, with Medium being the default.

It makes for crystal clear audio which I very much appreciated, though I think it would be better to be able to access those Speech Enhancement settings directly from the Now Playing card rather than having to go into system settings.

You can turn Speech Enhancement on or off from Now Playing, but you can’t switch between Low, Medium or High, even if you long press.

From the system settings however, you can adjust the Arc Ultra’s EQ settings, as well as the height audio when you’re playing Dolby Atmos content or immersive audio formats, and you can also toggle Spatial Music on or off.

The Night Sound feature can be found here too – great for when little ones are asleep upstairs and you don’t want the film you’re watching to make it feel like a plane has gone into your house, and there are also various other settings to make for a decent user experience.

The Sonos Arc Ultra plays nice with other Sonos speakers, as you might expect, allowing it to be grouped so TV audio can be transferred around the other Sonos speakers in your home, or music can be played through the Arc Ultra when you’re not using it for TV audio.

The soundbar can of course be used independently as speaker even if you don’t have any other Sonos speakers, but if you do and it’s grouped up, there’s a setting in the Sonos app that lets you automatically ungroup it when you turn your TV on.

The Arc Ultra supports Amazon Alexa too so you can link up your Amazon and Sonos account and use your Arc Ultra to help the kids with their homework, or ask what the weather is like, and Sonos Voice Control is on board too, which allows for easy voice control of the Arc Ultra itself, like turning the volume up or down. T

here’s no Google Assistant support, as there used to be alongside Alexa in the past, but that’s been the case since the Era 100 and the Era 300 so it won’t come as a shock to Sonos fans.

One more thing to mention is Sonos Ace headphones. The Arc Ultra has the TV Audio Swap feature that launched on the Arc (though is now available on Ray and Beam soundbars), when you have Ace headphones, allowing you to transfer the audio between your Arc Ultra and Ace headphones. It works well and while it’s not a feature I personally use much, it’s there if you want it.

In terms of connectivity, there is Apple AirPlay 2 support on the Arc Ultra, and support for features like Spotify Connect too so plenty of ways to get your music playing on the Arc Ultra even when you aren’t using it for enhancing your TV audio. Sonos offers support for over 100 music streaming services, and there’s also radio. 

The Sub 4 meanwhile, has a few of its own settings, including the ability to adjust its level. When you pair up the Sub 4 with the Arc Ultra, you will be prompted to Trueplay tune it, which in itself helps deliver better performance.

I love that you can toggle the Sub on or off though. At night, you might want to tone down the lower frequencies to keep neighbors happy and a simple switch on or off in the Sonos app is a much easier way to do that than removing the Sub entirely or pulling the power cord out.

Sound quality and performance

What you’re paying for here though is the sound quality because it is truly fantastic on the Arc Ultra. The sound architecture has been completely redesigned from the Sonos Arc so despite the Arc also sounding excellent, the Arc Ultra takes it to the next level – I suppose living up to its name. 

It ushers in the new technology developed by Mayht – a company Sonos acquired back in 2022 with this technology being called Sound Motion.

The Arc Ultra is the first product from Sonos to debut Sound Motion and it comes in the form of one of the woofers making up the 14 speakers inside this soundbar. There are seven tweeters and six mid-woofers in that offering, which compares to a total of eight woofers and three tweeters in the Arc’s make up. 

When Sonos launched the Arc Ultra, it said the Sound Motion tech was one of the most “significant breakthroughs” in audio engineering this century, allowing for a drastic reduction in the size of the transducers while offering bigger sound from, the smaller components. It also said there was a new centre channel architecture for vocal clarity, which I already mentioned was excellent on the Arc Ultra. 

The overall sound performance is superb however, with the Arc Ultra offering an excellent representation of 3D sound output.

The Arc did a pretty good job here from its 5.0.2 output, but the Arc Ultra upgrades that to 9.1.4 across nine front and side channels, four up firing channels and one woofer. You can add a subwoofer, like the Sub 4 (which is fabulously bassy) to really enhance the low-end frequencies, and you can add rear channels, but the Arc Ultra does a great job as a single box solution. 

There is serious bass even without the Sub 4 on, so much so that I really hope your neighbors like you, and I mean like you a lot if you’re planning on cranking up the volume, but it’s not just bass that the Arc Ultra handles well.

Sonos speakers have always been bassy so that part isn’t a surprise. I watched plenty in testing this soundbar, from Mad Max and Top Gun: Maverick, to Lincoln Lawyer and The Gentleman on Netflix and the Arc Ultra delivers on all fronts. I also listened to a range of tracks, from classical to pop and I have yet to find something that doesn’t sound good. 

Virtual processing of Dolby Atmos isn’t going to be able to quite compete with a system of separate speakers – I’ve experienced it in an Atmos studio before and it really is exceptional, but this is as convincing as you’ll get from a speaker with no rear channels behind you.

The soundstage is vast and the Arc Ultra delivers decent balance and excellent detail whatever it’s playing.

Final thoughts

The Sonos Arc Ultra is an absolutely superb single-box soundbar solution and one that could very well be the knight in shining armor that Sonos has been waiting for over the last few months. It offers a very impressive delivery of Dolby Atmos with excellent height and width representation, whilst offering great bass and fantastically clear vocals.

There’s no HDMI passthrough, which might put some off, and there is some stiff competition at this price point, and that includes for multi-box solutions that don’t rely on virtual processing. The Bluetooth button being on the back of the Arc Ultra is also an odd positioning and there’s the cost to consider too if you’re even thinking about adding surrounds or the Sub. 

But, even with those qualms, the Sonos Arc Ultra is an absolutely fantastic soundbar that I will genuinely miss when my review unit goes back. The design is slick, the sound is superb and the Sonos features and quick and simple setup make it an excellent pick.

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