Since its launch in 2020, I’ve been hearing deranged audiophiles sing the high praises of Sonos’ premium Arc soundbar, and the review positivity has been relatively unanimous.Currently sitting at a standalone MSRP of around $900, this high-end piece of kit is what you might call an, because that grand-adjacent price only nets you the soundbar itself. If you also want a subwoofer or rear surround speakers, well, that investment is going to balloon considerably.
The Arc looks like a futuristic wedge of space aluminum and blends in well underneath my LG G3. Oddly, it doesn’t come with its own remote, instead relying on your TV’s remote control to adjust sound through eARC. The bar is also not too tall, so it doesn’t block my TV’s IR receiver, an issue I’ve run into with other soundbars. The Era 100s are like little space capsules, but the Era 300s and the Sub take the cake in terms of aesthetics.
The only thing I didn’t like about the app was lack of Trueplay tuning support for Android devices. I had to boot up my dusty iPad to calibrate the system to my room, and if I didn’t have an iPad, then I would have been out of luck.Also, once I got everything hooked up, I noticed that my LG TV doesn’t display any kind of volume gauge with numbers. And since the Arc doesn’t have any kind of on-board LED display to show volume levels, I was just guessing at where I should keep the sound.