Sonos Arc Ultra soundbar review: A powerful all-in-one Dolby Atmos home theater system

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The Sonos Arc Ultra is a stand-alone Dolby Atmos soundbar that delivers on its promise of being an immersive all-in-one home theater system. It simulates a room full of speakers with punchy bass and convincing overheard audio effects, all from a single soundbar unit you place right by your TV.

The Arc Ultra is also a solid upgrade over its predecessor, the Sonos Arc, with improved clarity and deeper low-frequency performance. To do this, it incorporates Sonos' new Sound Motion technology, which enables beefier bass output while still maintaining a compact form factor.

My experience with Sonos soundbars goes back to the beginning, with the release of the company's Playbar in 2013. Along the way, Sonos has dramatically improved its lineup, but the Arc Ultra is far and away the brand's most impressive offering to date. I've also spent lots of time with the best soundbars from other companies and Sonos' latest flagship holds its own extremely well.

Though pricey at $999, the Sonos Arc Ultra is a near-perfect solution for movie lovers with limited space. It's easily one of the best Dolby Atmos soundbars you can buy.

Sonos' new Sound Motion driver delivers impressive performance

Sonos' new Sound Motion woofer is the heartbeat of the Arc Ultra, and it's what helps give this model a clear edge over the original Arc soundbar released in 2020. This internal component is uniquely designed to squeeze a large four-motor woofer into a compact space on the right side of the device, enabling more bass without needing to build a larger soundbar.

This approach has also given Sonos more freedom to rework the soundbar's surrounding array of speaker drivers. Since so much bass is now being handled by the Sound Motion woofer, the brand can implement additional tweeters and fewer midrange woofers elsewhere, which allows it to fit in more total drivers. There are 14 drivers tucked inside the Arc Ultra, compared to the original Arc's 11.

While this reworked design accomplishes its goal of deeper bass, it also enables something even more critical: improved clarity with a wider soundstage and more presence. If you're coming from the previous Arc soundbar, you'll immediately notice a difference, but even if you're not, it's easy to appreciate the Arc Ultra's exceptional channel separation.

I spent a lot of my initial time with the Arc Ultra testing it as a stand-alone soundbar without pairing it to a separate subwoofer or rear satellite speakers. After all, at this price, the Arc Ultra should be a capable home theater solution without users needing to add more components to it.

On its own, the Arc Ultra is capable of 9.1.4-channel playback and uses the Dolby Atmos spatial audio format. This means that the soundbar can output nine ear-level channels of audio directed toward the front, sides, and rear, along with one low-frequency channel and four overhead channels that bounce sound off your ceiling. The resulting effect is an encompassing blanket of sound.

There are a lot of good movies to test Dolby Atmos audio, but "Top Gun: Maverick" has to be among the best. The final mission scene is packed with speeding jets and rockets buzzing from all sides. Multiple times I looked at the Arc Ultra and had a hard time believing the wide range of sound effects and rich orchestral music spread throughout my room were all coming from a single device in front of me.

But as much as I could gush about the soundbar's surround sound performance, it's not quite perfect. I don't think there was a movie that ever tricked my brain into thinking I was actually hearing sounds from directly behind me. Simulating convincing rear sound effects remains a challenge for even the best single-unit soundbars, and the Arc Ultra can't quite pull it off. Dolby Atmos spatial effects were as wide and tall as I've heard from a soundbar, but no sounds managed to sneak up on me.

Dialogue clarity, however, was exceptional, even with the bar in its default settings — so much so that I never felt compelled to turn on the Ultra's Advanced Speech Enhancement feature. This is a notable improvement over the original Arc, with which I constantly felt the need to boost speech.

Beyond movies, I was also impressed by how well various genres of music sounded on the Arc Ultra. The mids were exceptionally clear, while the bar's low-end resonance nearly always caught me off guard with how much bass it dispersed. Billie Eilish's "Chihiro" is a stand-out track in this regard. Although a bit dramatic, Elton John's "Rocket Man" is also a great demonstration of Dolby Atmos' height channels in music form.

No matter what you listen to, the device's Sound Motion woofer boosts the bass enough that people with limited space or cash can be fully engulfed in movies and music without needing to add on any extra components. I didn't initially feel like I was missing anything without rear speakers and a separate subwoofer. However, those willing to pay for add-on speakers can get an even more immersive experience.

You can pair the Arc Ultra with other Sonos speakers to build a bigger home theater setup

After I spent dozens of hours with the Arc Ultra on its own, I subsequently connected a Sonos Sub 4 and two Sonos Era 300 speakers as rears to sample how the soundbar works as part of a larger home theater configuration. Simply put, it's incredible.

With the four components working in tandem, every inch of my moderate-sized living room felt like it was covered with speakers spreading aircraft and explosions all around. But the system isn't just great for action movies, even family films like "Frozen" benefited from the extra components.

Again, the Arc Ultra sounds phenomenal on its own, but it's cool that Sonos offers add-ons that allow you to gradually piece together an even beefier system over time. If you're thinking about purchasing another component, most people should probably go with the Sub 4 first. It sounds deep and can resonate without rattling. The Arc Ultra's Sound Motion woofer can hit as low as 35Hz, but the Sub 4 can extend the system down to 25Hz for even deeper low frequencies.

Meanwhile, the Era 300 speakers are a great addition to get after you've added a subwoofer. These speakers help fill the gap that the Arc Ultra has in simulating surround sound, by providing genuine rear audio along with their own up-firing drivers for Dolby Atmos effects.

The Arc Ultra has a few design tweaks but some of the original Arc's limitations remain

Beyond the new Sound Motion woofer, the Arc Ultra offers a few other upgrades compared to the original Arc. Like the previous model, it supports WiFi streaming, but this time around, the soundbar also has Bluetooth capabilities.

Though both soundbars look very similar, there are also a few visual differences. My favorite change is the repositioning of the bar's touch controls from directly on top to slightly behind the bar on its own dedicated strip. This makes dusting the speaker without accidentally triggering a command much easier.

The Arc Ultra is also about half an inch shorter than the Arc, which is a welcome change since the new model is less likely to block your TV screen. However, the shape of both soundbars is largely the same. The company's VP of Audio told me that the product team was happy with this general design, which met its needs for sustainability and repairability and was a shape that they knew worked well under people's TV sets.

When it comes to other features, the Arc Ultra has a new Advanced Speech Enhancement mode that the regular Arc lacks. This feature is configurable to three different levels in the settings. Though I never found the need to use this mode, it can offer a nice boost to voices without sounding artificial or overpowering other audio effects.

However, there are a few areas where the Arc Ultra fails to improve upon the Arc. The Ultra is still limited to just one HDMI eARC connection meant to plug into your TV, so there are no video pass-through ports for other devices like a gaming console or streaming player. And while an optical connection is supported, you need to buy an adapter to use it.

The Arc Ultra can play regular DTS audio tracks, but like its predecessor, it doesn't support DTS:X, DTS' spatial audio format. DTS:X is primarily used on a few Blu-ray discs, so this isn't a huge deal, but it's still a nice feature to have. Though the Arc Ultra supports Alexa and Sonos Voice Control for built-in digital assistant capabilities, it cuts Google Assistant, which was available on the original Arc.

Sonos's app still has some issues but it's improving

A year ago, the Sonos app was hardly worth mentioning in a review of a new soundbar, but it's hard to ignore now. Since the company revamped its software, a seemingly significant number of customers have had problems with sluggish and buggy performance. I haven't encountered many of these frustrations, but have still run into enough issues to know it's been a headache. Still, the company is making progress toward correcting these problems.

I didn't run into any issues while setting up the Arc Ultra using the Sonos app, but I did run into some problems shortly after with delayed speaker switching. The Arc Ultra also appeared to be confused about what audio formats to use from my Apple TV 4K. Sometimes, it would take minutes for the audio to play in certain apps, and some content would display as coming through in a lower-quality format than it should. This wasn't an issue with the original Arc.

A reluctant restore of my Apple TV 4K box seemed to mostly resolve these issues, so it's possible this was an Apple problem. But regardless, the Sonos app doesn't feel completely stable. I held my breath each time I opened it or tried to do things too quickly.

That said, Sonos' imperfect app shouldn't stop you from getting an Arc Ultra. The software situation is getting better and I have seen it improve over time. Just be prepared for some bumps in the road.

Should you buy the Sonos Arc Ultra?

The Sonos Arc Ultra is an excellent soundbar for people who want a powerful all-in-one Dolby Atmos speaker. Its Sound Motion technology offers more boom for your buck compared to the original Arc. I was also surprised to hear improved spatial effects and clearer dialogue despite this model remaining roughly the same size as its predecessor.

There are a few drawbacks, namely the bar's high price and lack of DTS:X support, but if you have the funds and want a space-saving home theater setup, few soundbars are as immersive and convenient as the Arc Ultra.