Tested both the Sonos ARC and Beam @ bestbuy and decided to go with the Sonos Beam + 2 Sonos One SL’s. The Sonos ARC gives much more sound but gets distorted at higher volume. In a bigger room you get the advantage of having the Dolby Atmos with the upward firing speakers of the ARC. If you use it in a smaller room like a 250 sqft bedroom you don’t get the advantage of the ARC at all. The Beam + 2 Sonos One SL sounds much better and cost only $800 with the current pricing while the ARC will cost you $900. If you have a small room with a ceiling height of less than 9 ft get the Beam + 2 Sonos One SL’s. If you have more open space like the living room with more than 9 ft of ceiling height get the ARC.
i agree. i’m going with the beam with ones and subwoof for basement movie room simply because of size. 8ft ceilings and the chairs are only 9ft away from tv.
i have the Sonos ARC soundbar connected with 2 of the Sonos Subs and the ONE SL's for rears......sounds great for my man cave.....very happy...cheers from Canada...be safe
Those of you that are Costco members and really don't care about the voice assistance in the Arc. Costco has the Sonos Arc SL for $50 cheaper. So far it is not online but they do have them in store. It's the same Arc as the original Arc just without voice assistance. I have Alexa and Google Home throughout my home so having the voice assistant inside the Arc is not a deal breaker for me.
had my Sonos ARC, sub and ones for about 5 months.. its looks great, Sonos app controls are great, sub is great but if you have ever heard a Samsung Q90r soundbar or SN11 ATMOS bars compared to how this does it you will be disappointed it. You can really feel the wrap around sound and overhead effects with those bars, but with the Sonos just makes the sound a bit better.. Sonos also needs to release rear upfiring speakers also.
I have 2 Sonos One SL and Sub, but i will listen to much music and also watch action movies. My TV is at the and of my bed and i will only watch from there, what do you say, would the beam do the job? i think yes, or not?
The beam + 2 One’s sounds great all together. The sub is a plus. If you like playing loud music its better to go with the beam since it don’t distort much at higher volume when compared to the arc.
Great review! My PlayBar will likely go into the kids TV room in 2021 and I've been considering the Arc as our replacement. I'd be interested in your thoughts on the privacy of having smart speakers that always listen.
My parents have the playbar and I have the arc. I'd much rather have the playbar all day long! If your buying the arc you will almost certainly need the sub as the bass is terrible, it makes the arc sound tinny. where as the playbar on the other hand has good bass which makes a huge difference. Don't be fooled by the atmos on the arc either it isn't anything special.
It’s 5.0.2 without a sub and 5.1.2 with a sub. Doesn’t matter if you have surrounds. It’s still 5.0.2 with the surround speakers because they’re just being combined already to the rear channel. 5. means 5 channels, which are 2 side channels, 2 rear channels, and a center channel, .0 or .1 means no sub or a sub, and .2 means the upward firing atmos channels. The side channels are one woofer on each side, the rear channels are angled tweeters and front facing woofers on the front, and the center channel is 2 woofers and a tweeter facing front. Then there are 2 upward firing atmos speakers, which means each Atmos channel is only one speaker, just like the side firing speakers. 2 more channels have 2 speakers each, and the center channel has 3 speakers. With the surrounds, they would just be incorporated into the rear channel as well, just adding two more speakers to it. It’s only slightly true that there is a “side” channel and a “rear” channel in that layout (here’s the layout imgur.com/1TrgYWB) but the side woofers and the angled tweeters and front woofers sort of make up the digital 3d front AND rear channels, working together. But that’s the gist of it. So 11 speakers total stock on the Arc, which is 8 woofers and 3 tweeters. 2 side facing woofers are on each end-side of the arc, 2 are on top, then there is one forward firing woofer on each front end of of the arc, an angled tweeter on each side paired with those woofers, then a forward firing tweeter and 2 forward firing woofers in the center. That’s the gist of it.
@@SuperD00D totally confused now lol haha. So basically arc is still better than beam no matter how many surrounds I’ll put it still wouldn’t match the Dolby atmos 7.1 experience? I still can’t recreate 7.1 with beam and ones ?
I’ve compared both, the Arc is way better. I returned my 700 and will probably not go back to Bose for TV audio anymore. Too many issues with the software, the sound was very flat unless you connected through Apple airplay 2 and then for some reason it sounded way better but then I would lose the eArc features, and it’s also stuck at Dolby Digital stereo not Atmos. You can hear the difference immediately once the Arc was set up in our living room, I had to go rewatch the Mandalorian S2 finale over again because the first play through was on the Bose 700 and it did it no justice.
@@cilonen we don't have sonos arc in our country and shipping is very expensive not to mention the import tax. Does the bose 700 for 500usd is better compared to the sonos beam?
The Bose 700 has a great sound comparable to the Sonos. I love the Sonos ecosystem on how expandable they are plus the automatic room sound optimization features. If you are just looking for great sounds both are great but as I said Sonos has much better ecosystem and is easily expandable. I do recommend the Beam + 2 One SL if you want both great TV soundbar and for music playing while saving some $.
The Arc does sound good even without the surrounds like Sonos Ones: amzn.to/3trTBAs . However adding the surrounds does enhance the 3D effect of the the sound especially when listening in Dolby Digital.
@@OneHourSmartHome I have the Sonos Beam with the Sonos Ones. So, I was wondering if I could supplement the Arc for the Beam and two Ones. Thanks for clarifying this for me.
