![]() ![]() Won't somebody please think of the children? Turn the TV on and the Arc comes on with it. This may seem a rather minor irritation but it became less and less minor as time wore on - and I’m extremely happy to be rid of it.Īnd the volume is controlled by the Sky Q handset, now I’ve told it to be, so the Arc sits there waiting to be of service without fuss. The sound from the Samsung is fed to the Sonos via the the TV's ARC-enabled HDMI output, and it all comes out of the soundbar at the same volume. The Arc has removed this irritation for the most part. One of the issues I have had with the Samsung is that the volume would vary with the input - so the Sky Q box, for example, would be playing at a comfortable level, but then if the PS4 was booted up, it was always much louder, and the remote control had to be scrabbled for. What it’s not, of course, and nor could it ever really be, is a proper AV amplifier driving seven speakers - but as I’ve already explained, I have now written that off as an option, so I’m not in any way disappointed. Voices are precisely placed, and extremely clear, the spread of sound is in a completely different league, and there is texture and depth to the bass. Not a massively surprising statement perhaps, given that it was competing with the TV’s speakers still, instant gratification nevertheless. It’s safe to say that the Arc was instantly impressive. That reasonably fast set up process gone through, we were good to go. It’s an interesting process, involving, among other things, moving around the room wafting your phone about while the soundbar beeps at you, gauging the dimensions and sonic characteristics of the space it has to work in. The phone app found the Arc quickly, and then set me on the way to setting things up. (The Arc works only with the new S2 version of the Sonos app, so you’ll need to download that if you’ve got legacy Sonos kit and are still on 1.0). Then it was simply a case of downloading the Sonos app onto my iPhone and letting the pair do their set-up thing. The Samsung UE55KS9000 immediately shook hands with the Arc via the supplied HDMI plugged into its ARC (audio return channel), and all felt more reassuring with the world. So it was with some trepidation that I plugged the Arc in to the Samsung’s One Connect box, using the HDMI cable supplied with the soundbar. Set up was a fairly simple affair - which was a mighty relief to me, as I had made a half-hearted effort to use a Sonos Amp as my TV’s sound source last year, and that caused me a fair bit of trouble (due, I found out in the end, to an issue with the HDMI cables I was using). The unit itself is everything you would expect of a Sonos product - and, despite its undeniably beefy dimensions, looks quite at home and rather neat sitting under my television. It comes nestled in a reassuringly solid box, with heavy-duty locking tags that make the whole thing seem even more upmarket. It’s certainly premium in feel and build. This is a very impressive looking piece of kit. But you know how it is with these things: once you get an idea in your head, you just want to plough on regardless and hope that it all turns out okay in the end.Īnd, to be fair to the Sonos Arc, for the most part it really has.įirst things first, though. Having read the review and talked to the reviewers, I knew that there were likely to be issues with my set up at home. One five-star verdict later, and someone (ahem…) suggested that it might be a great idea for us to really put it through its paces in a real world, long-term test. So, sitting at the dining room table that has served as my work desk for most of the period of lockdown, I waited for the team to complete its review, with fingers crossed. I almost took the plunge with the Sonos Beam (and, as events later reveal, perhaps I may yet do so…), but didn’t really pull my finger out in time to get it sorted before the Arc was announced. ![]()
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