More than you need, exactly what you want

The Sonos Arc is the home audio giant’s biggest and best soundbar, but it’s also the company’s most expensive. If you’re a Sonos devotee or considering a conversion, you may be wondering if the Arc does enough to justify its steep price tag, especially when the company’s own Beam bar comes in at half the price. The short answer is that the Arc is the Sonos soundbar for audiophiles and those trying to fill especially large rooms. But if that’s you, then the Arc really is excellent, whether on its own or paired with other Sonos speakers as surrounds or subs.

Price aside, the best reason not to buy an Arc right now is the rumors of an improved Arc (Gen 2) coming soon. I don’t know what upgrades may be on the way in the near future, but even four years after launch, this remains the best premium soundbar you can buy right now.

Price and availability

As expensive as Sonos gets

The Sonos Arc will set you back $899 at MSRP. That’s still below the most expensive soundbars on the market, but it’s certainly not a budget buy. Within Sonos’s own range, the Beam (Gen 2) — which is more recent and shares the Arc’s Dolby Atmos support — is almost half the price at $499.

The Arc is available in black or white. You can buy it directly from Sonos or from the usual retailers, including Amazon, Best Buy, and most A/V stores.

What’s good about the Sonos Arc?

Honestly? A lot

The biggest reason to pick one of these up, of course, is how it sounds. Sonos knows its audio, and the Arc is its all-singing, all-dancing flagship, so you know it’s going to sound good. The Arc packs a whopping 11 speakers across its length, with three tweeters and eight mids.

These don’t all simply face forwards: the Arc’s speakers are angled in various directions to create virtual surround sound, including two dedicated height channels. There’s support for Dolby Atmos too, so compatible music and movies take the experience one step further.

Its size and spread of speakers mean that Arc can go both loud and deep, making it the obvious Sonos soundbar if you’re trying to fill a big room. This is overkill in most bedrooms but can drive action movie explosions or deep house basslines even in large or open-plan living rooms. Sonics are still crisp and clear, though, with a nice open sound stage and enough detail to individuate instruments or pick out dialogue from background noise.

Its impression of surround sound isn’t bad, but honestly, I wouldn’t buy it for that. At the end of the day, this is still a speaker that sits below your TV, and it sounds like it. The good news is that as it’s a Sonos speaker, you can pair it with other Sonos speakers.

I’ve spent some of my testing time with it hooked up to a pair of Era 100 surrounds and a Sub Mini, and it’s truly seamless. The wireless connection is rock-solid, pairing is simple, and you can adjust the levels of each speaker individually in the Sonos app to tune it to your taste. However, adding that setup costs about the same as the Arc itself, and if you want true Atmos surround, you’d need to spend even more on the larger Era 300 speakers.

Still, it makes more sense if you’re already all-in on Sonos. The Sonos system makes it painless to share audio around different speakers in multiple rooms, and you can create custom groupings on the fly using either the Sonos app or the Arc’s voice controls. It supports Sonos’s own Voice Control Assistant, Amazon Alexa, and Google Assistant — which itself might be a reason to grab the Arc now, as it’s likely that any upcoming Gen 2 will drop Google support.

Last, and probably least if I’m being honest, it’s worth acknowledging that the Arc looks great. Most soundbars are blocky cuboids, but Sonos’s sleek cylinder has a little more character to it without distracting from whatever you’re watching. And with the option of a white model, it will often suit wall-mounting without sticking out.

What’s bad about the Sonos Arc?

A few familiar complaints

Did I mention it costs almost a grand? This isn’t a cheap soundbar, and the simple truth is that it’ll be overkill for most people and most living rooms. That’s especially true given how good the $499 Sonos Beam (Gen 2) is. Unless your TV is in a large room or you have an especially well-tuned ear, you’ll likely find the cheaper Beam just as good — and it shares Atmos support, and the ability to pair with Sonos surrounds and subs.

The other headaches to the Arc are really more gripes about Sonos as a whole. Like most Sonos speakers before the recent Era line, the Arc doesn’t support Bluetooth, using Wi-Fi for its wireless. That’s great for quality, but it’s a pain when a friend comes around and just wants to connect to your speaker from their phone.

There’s also no support for an Aux input, only HDMI eARC or Optical. For most use cases, that won’t be a problem, but it will prevent you from connecting up the likes of a record player. The newish Era 100 and Era 300 both support Bluetooth and Aux (via an adapter), so you may want to hold out hope that an updated Arc will share that support soon.

Sonos also runs a tight ship and a closed system. Remember I said it costs another $900 minimum to build a system with surrounds and a sub? You can’t circumvent that by adding in cheaper third-party speakers to work alongside the Arc — once you go Sonos, you can’t go back. Even the speaker stands for Era surrounds use a proprietary base, so you’re limited to few (and expensive) options.

Finally, we wouldn’t be an Android site if we didn’t flag Trueplay. This is Sonos’s tech to adapt its speakers’ audio to the room they’re in, fine-tuning the sound accordingly. As an older model, the Arc uses a version of Trueplay that’s iOS-exclusive, meaning you’ll have to own — or borrow — an iPhone to set the soundbar up at its best. More recent Sonos gear has an updated take on Trueplay that doesn’t require an iPhone (albeit with slightly reduced effect) and this may be another reason to hope for a Gen 2 soon.

Should you buy it?

Depends on the size of your room — and budget

This depends on a couple of things. Is your living room pretty big, and are you happy to invest a lot in the best possible sound? If the answer to both is ‘yes,’ then the Arc makes a lot of sense. It’s pricey for Sonos but delivers better sound and smoother software than most comparably priced premium soundbars, especially if you’re already all-in on the ecosystem.

For smaller rooms or for anyone happy with their audio being great but not perfect, the Beam is likely to suffice.

The final question is how long you’re willing to wait in case the Arc (Gen 2) turns up this year. If you’re in no rush or know you need Aux-in, then holding off a little longer makes sense. Otherwise, the Arc sounds great, and it’s likely any upgrade will be a refinement, not a reinvention, so you probably won’t miss out on much by taking the plunge now.