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Soundbar
The Arc is is still one of the very best performance-per-pound soundbars you can buy, despite contenders frequently vying for its crown.
The Sonos Arc launched at a price of £799 but, along with many of Sonos’s other products, underwent a price increase in 2021 and now retails for £899. It tops Sonos’s recently expanded soundbar family, with the virtual Dolby Atmos Beam Gen 2 priced at £449 and the non-Atmos Sonos Ray costing £279.
Specifically designed to partner bigger TVs than the more compact Beam Gen 2, at 114cm it is proportionally best partnered with a 55in model or above. Once in position, most of what you can see of the Arc is a 273-degree grille that hides the array of front-mounted and up-firing speakers. Each end also features a grille-covered driver. The curvy design helps mask the Arc’s dimensions, but its 8.5cm height is not inconsiderable.
An optical adapter issignals from TVs that can output them. eARC isn’t essential for Dolby Atmos transmission – Atmos can be carried using either the Dolby Digital+ format or the higher quality Dolby True HD. A standard ARC connection can handle the former but not the latter. Currently, all streaming services use Dolby Digital+ for their Atmos soundtracks anyway, but eARC does enable higher bit rate Atmos sound to be passed from an external source, such as a 4K Blu-ray player or Xbox, through the TV and on to the Arc.
