When Sonos unveiled the Sonos Arc Ultra soundbar earlier this week, we had a few questions. And now we have the answers.
In particular, we’ve confirmation about the Arc Ultra’s Dolby Atmos channels, its current stance on DTS, and its HDMI ports – and we’ve had an update on the status of the app.
The first questions was around its channel count, which is officially given as 9.1.4. The last number there is the relevant part – it means four height channels for Dolby Atmos. However, the Arc Ultra’s specs say it has two upfiring drivers, so we wanted to get Sonos’ official line on how two turns into four.
Sonos confirmed that are indeed two up-firing drivers, but the way they work with the rest of the soundbar makes them act like there are actually four upwards firing speakers – at least in theory. “The rear height arrays utilize a very strategic combination of the upfiring, outward firing and forward firing transducers to position it deeper in the room than the front height channels,” the company said – so basically, it’ll offer virtual rear height channels. However effective this is remains to be seen.
Checking the disappointments
There were two potential disappointments about the Sonos Arc Ultra, but that weren’t explicit from Sonos’ information and specs, so we also asked to confirm that a) it only has one HDMI eARC port, and no passthrough, and b) that there is still no DTS support.
In both cases, what we expect was confirmed. Sonos’ long-standing line on DTS hasn’t changed – it will consider adding new formats in the future, but nothing is planned – and there is just a single HDMI port.
That’s very unusual among the best soundbars now: all the major premium competition considers at least one HDMI passthrough as the bare minimum. A lot of people today need more flexibility in their connection, because they have a high number of boxes to connect to their TV. The Samsung HW-Q990D soundbar actually adds to the number of ports you have available. The Sonos Arc Ultra leaves you with one fewer.
How’s the app going?
According to CEO Patrick Spence, the app is 90% back to normal since its troubled update. “We’ve worked tirelessly to address the most critical app issues and reintroduce the most requested legacy features. We’ve now reached a level of quality that gives us the confidence to release our exciting new products,” he said in a statement. “As outlined in our commitments, we will continue to improve the software regularly and are determined to make the Sonos experience better than ever.”
Sonos continues to provide app update timescales on its support page; the to-do list for late October includes:
- Improving system setup and reliability of adding new products
- Improved volume control & responsiveness (iOS)
- Music library performance improvements (iOS)
- Improving overall system stability and error handling
- Support for Arc Ultra and Sub 4
And the mid-November update will deliver:
- Playlist editing
- Support for Android users with multiple homes
- User Interface improvements (based on your feedback)
- Improved music playback error handling
Those plans are for both the iOS and Android versions of the Sonos app. The Android app will also get “improved volume control & responsiveness” in a December update.
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