Sonos unveiled three all-new higher-end audio system right now: The $799 Sonos Arc, a roundish soundbar with assist for Dolby Atmos object-based audio; the $699 Sonos Sub (Gen 3), a dual-driver, dual-amplifier subwoofer; and the $499 Play 5, a 14-pound speaker with six drivers and an equal variety of Class D amplifiers.
All three new audio system shall be obtainable in all-white or all-black (together with the Sonos emblem) on June 10, preceded by the discharge of the brand new Sonos S2 app on June 8. Pre-orders can be found now.
Sonos Arc
The Sonos Arc replaces each the Sonos Playbar, the corporate’s first soundbar that got here to market in 2013, and the Sonos Playbase that shipped in 2018. The less-expensive Sonos Beam ($399) will stay within the firm’s lineup. As with a number of newer Sonos audio system, the Arc helps your selection of Amazon Alexa or Google Assistant together with Apple AirPlay 2.
The roundish Sonos Arc can function on furnishings or be held on the wall utilizing an non-compulsory mounting equipment.
The 45-inch-wide Arc has eight elliptical woofers and three silk-dome tweeters behind a 270-degree plastic grill, every pushed by a discrete Class D amplifier. Two of the woofers are mounted on high of the bar to bounce peak cues off your room’s ceilings, and two are mounted ultimately caps to mirror {surround} cues off your partitions. When you’re not listening to Dolby Atmos-encoded content material, a DSP controlling the Arc’s up-firing drivers modifications their profile in order that they produce extra low-end frequencies.
Since the Arc can assist Dolby Atmos, it’s undoubtedly able to decoding different high-resolution audio codecs, corresponding to DTS:X; Dolby TrueHD; the Sony 360 Reality Audio format that Amazon has adopted for its premium streaming service; and, maybe MQA. It additionally would not be a stretch to imagine that the Arc and the brand new Sonos Five (extra on that in a minute) can assist sampling charges greater than the present restrict (24-bit/48kHz), however Sonos says they don’t have anything extra to announce on that entrance at the moment.
As with equally designed soundbars, you’ll need to arrange the Arc in entrance of your TV (on a credenza or different piece of furnishings), or mounted to the wall beneath your TV. Putting it in a hutch-style leisure middle will intrude with or totally defeat its capability to ship an immersive audio expertise. Sonos tells me it has developed particular mounts for the Arc that characteristic sensors designed to scale back bass resonance when the speaker is mounted to the wall, however this non-compulsory accent will price an extra $79.
The all-new Sonos Arc helps Dolby Atmos and options eight woofers and three tweeters, together with two up-firing drivers and to {surround} channels.
The Arc is outfitted with a single HDMI port that helps each ARC and eARC, plus a Toslink digital optical connector to assist older TVs. You can learn extra concerning the differences between the two types of Audio Return Channel in this story. Most folks will join the Arc to their house community over Wi-Fi, but it surely’s nice to see the corporate proceed to supply 10/100Mbps ethernet ports for purchasers who’ve the wiring infrastructure to reap the benefits of it.
A brand new model of Sonos’ Trueplay speaker-tuning software program will customise the Arc’s audio output to compensate for imperfectly formed listening rooms, introducing small delays in its audio output to make sure that surround-sound alerts arrive on the listeners’ ears on the proper instances. You can mix any newer-generation (i.e., S2-compatible) Sonos audio system for {surround} sound (aside from the battery-powered Sonos Move). And in case you pair Arc with a Sonos Sub (all three fashions are suitable), the Arc’s amplifiers will produce extra mid- and high-end frequencies.
Sonos Five
Touch-capacitive controls on the highest of the Sonos Five’s cupboard present quantity management, play/pause, and monitor ahead/again.
Sonos in all probability didn’t want to interchange its wonderful second-generation Play:5, however the Sonos Play Five has extra reminiscence, a quicker processor, and a brand new wi-fi radio. It’s not a wise speaker, surprisingly sufficient, however it may be managed with voice instructions spoken to a suitable Amazon Echo or Google Home gadget. Like its predecessor, the speaker is designed to function horizontally or vertically when paired with a second Sonos Five.
The 14-pound speaker incorporates three tweeters—one angled left, one middle, and one angled proper—and three midwoofers, every pushed by a discrete Class D amplifier. This phased array permits the Five to ship a stereo sound stage from a single enclosure. Capacitive contact surfaces on high of the speaker management play/pause, monitor ahead/monitor again, and quantity. A 3.5mm analog audio enter is supplied so you possibly can join sources corresponding to a turntable. As with all different fashionable Sonos audio system, the Sonos Five helps AirPlay 2 on iOS units.
Sonos Sub (Gen 3)
The Sonos Sub (Gen 3) options two force-cancelling drivers pushed by discrete Class D amplifiers.
The third era of the Sonos Sub doesn’t look appreciably totally different from the primary two iterations: It’s a squarish and comparatively slender design with a pair of force-cancelling drivers dealing with one another in a gap in the midst of the 36.3-pound enclosure. Each driver will get its personal Class D amplifier, and the Sub delivers frequency response all the way down to 25Hz. Sonos makes probably the greatest subwoofers I’ve ever listened to, so I’m trying ahead to listening to what this new mannequin’s elevated reminiscence, processing energy, and wi-fi radio deliver to the occasion.
As acknowledged earlier, all three audio system shall be obtainable on June 10, and Sonos is accepting pre-orders now. We’ll conduct in-depth critiques as quickly as we will get our palms on the brand new merchandise.