I never get to comment on these Sonos posts since I had never owned one, but I bought the Arc Ultra to go with the 77" LG C3 OLED that I got on sale for $1499 the other week for starting my home theater build in the basement, and it is amazing. I'm not really an audiophile but my ear is good enough that I can tell that it's a top quality soundbar. I can hear things in songs that I never even noticed before. It's wild. And in movies it does a really good job of bouncing around the sound to make it seem more like surround sound. I like that it is modular so I can add a couple rears someday if I want to.
I was kind of hesitant to get it since I've heard people here complaining about the app, but for its use as a soundbar, I haven't really had much use for the app beyond the initial setup and tweaking a few settings for voice dialog and such. But in the reviews of the Ultra that I read, they said that since it's new, it was built from the ground up to work with the new app so that might be it? None of the reviews I saw mentioned it having issues with the app. So for that reason I might wait for them to come out with new rear surround speakers. Didn't get a woofer because those irritate my wife, and the Ultra already has a pretty good one built in with that brand new speaker tech from Europe or whatever that makes it a lot bigger.
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Pair that thing with twin 300s for true "surround" sound (the real thing, where audio meant to come from "back there" actually comes from back there). Then, you'll have left front, right and center in that ARC and surround left & right in those 300s. That system "fakes" ATMOS with up-firing speakers and it is a good illusion vs. actually putting speakers overhead... much better than having only 2 speakers up front faking "center, surround and overhead speakers" by claiming ATMOS. Our ears can definitely hear the difference from where sound originates.
And tip: instead of overpaying for stands if you need them, well-rated clones sold on Amazon for much less seem just as good. Since the new app hit, I've helped 2 friends add 300s like this and they LOVE the overall sound of it all. I'm an AV stickler and would always argue for Receiver + quality "dumb" speakers over any of the "smart" options but even I was impressed with how well Arc + twin 300s sound as a system.
Later still, they added the bass module too as both liked even deeper bass, though I didn't really believe they needed it as Arc does quite well with bass on its own. But they had no problem adding it with the new app and now they enjoy the low rumbles, explosions, thunder, etc that come from a dedicated sub... another option not available to any of the HPs-or-bust fans.
Don't let this crowd's biases fool you. Start a thread with a picture of
any Apple competitor's "anything" and 'we' tear into it like it's toxic poison. Yes, when the completely-overhauled app was first released, some people were having issues. Others were not. Since then- which has been months now- the app has had many updates but 'we' hate on it anyway. I believe people when they say they are still having problems with it... through I'm not myself. I just don't believe that
everyone is having problems as I'm not myself... nor are those friends. Once I adapted to the new app, I found I like it much better as it let me bring the stuff most important to me right to the front page vs. digging up and down through sometimes 3 or 4 clicks to accomplish the same in the old app. But to each his own.
Those genuinely affected that are Mac people can still use the old Sonos App on Mac (as an easy workaround) as well as never bother using the Sonos App at all because they can "throw" Apple Music to Sonos directly from
Apple's app and stuff like your Arc setup are controlled by your TV or the AppleTV remote via ARC instead of needing the Sonos App (old or new).
This crowd sees Sonos as an Apple competitor, so 'we' would rather push heavily walled garden, stereo sound in 2 HPs vs. all of the many "open" home theater setup options from a company focused only on speakers. So 'we' rip away at it... like Spotify is junk (too)... and Google Maps... and all things Epic Games, the entire EU and lately whole other countries who dare to cross Apple, etc.
You have what may be the very best soundbar available. Enjoy it.
