Modern TVs keep getting thinner and more impressive visually, but this sleek design comes at a cost since there's simply no room for decent speakers in those slim panels. The Sonos Arc Ultra soundbar solves this audio compromise with premium technology that matches your display's visual quality and it's currently available for $879 on Amazon, down from its $1,099 list price.
This is the same Black Friday record low price that Amazon is bringing back one final time before year-end and it gives you a last chance to upgrade your home theater or treat yourself before the new year begins. This isn't your standard soundbar that marginally improves TV audio, but rather a luxury flagship model that delivers a true cinema experience with its groundbreaking 9.1.4 channel Dolby Atmos configuration.
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Sonos made Sound Motion technology just for the Arc Ultra and it uses new transducers that move air better than regular speaker drivers. This new technology lets the soundbar make deeper bass and fuller mid-range frequencies without making it bigger or needing big external parts. The acoustic architecture spreads 14 drivers throughout the sleek cabinet which makes a sound field that truly immerses you and fills the whole room instead of just sending sound straight at you. From a single bar mounted below your TV, you can hear helicopters flying overhead, rain falling around you, and sounds from the environment behind your seat.
The 9.1.4 spatial audio setup is one of the most advanced channel setups you can get in a consumer soundbar today: There are nine main channels, one subwoofer channel for low-frequency effects, and four height channels that bounce sound off the ceiling to make sounds that seem to come from above. Dolby Atmos content makes the most of these channels by putting each sound object in three-dimensional space with perfect accuracy: Explosions moving around the room make action movies feel real, and bird calls and wind rustling coming from certain places in your environment make nature documentaries feel even more real.
AI-powered Speech Enhancement listens to audio in real time, finds the frequencies of human speech, and then intelligently boosts these vocal ranges without changing the music or sound effects. This feature is very useful when there is a lot of background noise or when actors are speaking softly because you won't have to keep changing the volume or turning on subtitles to hear every word.
The Arc Ultra's advanced technology is hidden by how easy it is to set up: You only need to connect one HDMI eARC cable from the soundbar to your TV. The Sonos app gives you clear instructions on how to set up your system, and it automatically finds your TV model so that it can set the best settings. Trueplay tuning uses your phone's microphone to figure out how sound behaves in your room by measuring how it bounces off of walls and furniture. This helps you get the best sound possible. This room correction makes sure the soundbar sounds great no matter what kind of floors you have (carpet or hardwood), how high or low the ceilings are, or how open or closed the space is.
You can control the soundbar in a number of ways, such as with a traditional TV remote or voice commands through Sonos Voice Control or Amazon Alexa. You can also use the soundbar for music playback when you're not watching TV because it works perfectly with streaming services over WiFi, Bluetooth, Apple AirPlay 2, and Spotify Connect.
This great soundbar is now $220 less than its regular price, which makes it a good competitor with mid-range models that don't have its Sound Motion technology or 9.1.4 channel configuration.