With us all in lockdown right now, the importance of decent home audio has really come to the fore. If we are going to have to spend more time at home, then we better damn well have decent speakers in the house to compensate.
Like some sort of prophet, Sonos has heard all of our tinny speakers and announced the Sonos Arc, a soundbar that ushers in the next generation of Sonos goodies and comes packing the audio flavour of the moment, Dolby Atmos.
The Sonos Arc is a premium soundbar - think of it as the bigger, ballsier version of the Sonos Beam.
It's been designed to be more like a piece of furniture than a fugly tech thing. And it does look pretty lovely. There's a 270-degree curved grill on the Arc that has 76,000 holes drilled into the casing (according to Sonos, we haven't counted) and there's 11 drivers packed inside.
It is long, so is built more for those big screens. If you are looking for something a little smaller then we do recommend the Dolby Atmos-less but still fine looking Sonos Beam.
This is a big, punchy soundbar that plays the likes of PCM stereo, Dolby Digital 5.1, Dolby Digital Plus and, of course, Dolby Atmos.
Another big change here is that the Sonos Arc uses new Sonos software. The new S2 app and operating system will be available on June 8 and it enables new support for higher resolution audio, updated interface, and more personalisation.
The Sonos Arc, alongside an updated Play:5 (just called Five), and new 3rd Gen Sub will run exclusively on the new S2 app.
This software change has been a bone of contention for some Sonos users with older bits of kit, so we'll have to see how this new app will play out.
The Sonos Arc (£799), Sonos Sub (£699) and Sonos Five (£499) are available to pre-order now.
- These are the best Sonos speakers the new speakers will have to contend with.
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