Thoughts on the new Sonos Arc Ultra soundbar after a few weeks, plus verdicts on LEGO Horizon Adventures and Mario & Luigi: Brothership.
Compiling the perfect home entertainment/gaming setup is a challenging task. Sure, you might have an incredible picture with a 4K resolution and OLED display, but how about audio? Surely you’re not going to stick with the woeful stock speakers, so a soundbar is the next logical choice. I know this pain because I’ve been there, but for anybody with a new or existing set looking to ramp up their audio game, the Sonos Arc Ultra has instantly become one of the easiest recommendations.
It has to be said that the Sonos Arc Ultra is an aesthetically pleasing bit of kit. If you’ve ever seen or used the original Arc soundbar, the design language hasn’t changed all that much. That means you still have the more rounded design that is almost entirely grille aside from the thin bezels that connect everything together, the Sonos logo at the front, a new ledge-like control unit at the rear and a tiny light to help show volume control and power. The grille-focused approach not only makes the Sonos Arc Ultra setup look impressively sleek no matter whether you place it on top of your entertainment unit or floating on a wall, it also allows for a true abundance of sound to emanate from it as well, which is pretty much want you want from a device of this calibre.
That said, the Sonos Arc Ultra is a reasonably beefy unit, and while similar in stature to the original Arc, is still 75mm x 1,178mm x 110.6 mm. If you have your TV mounted to the wall, that shouldn’t pose any issue, but in my testing it did block a portion of my LG OLED’s screen when resting on my entertainment unit. The blockage was only a minimal issue and only cut off a small portion of the screen, but I can imagine it’ll be a deal-breaker for some, especially considering it can block your remote receiver and make it slightly more painful to turn your set on and off.
Speaking of the rear ledge though, it actually houses a capacitive touch control panel that allows you to easily play, pause, skip and more. You can even slide your finger across to adjust volume, and doing so is incredibly easy. I never had an issue with it recognising my touch during testing, although I’ll admit that I used it maybe a handful of times – instead opting for using my TV remote instead most of the time.
When it came to actual performance, the Sonos Arc Ultra absolutely delivers. I spent a chunk of my time getting stuck into Dune: Prophecy, and it felt like the type of content the soundbar eats for breakfast. The rich operatic score soared through my living room when I tried pumping the volume and the deep rumble of a ship coming in for landing would consistently add dramatic emphasis. The good thing is that never came at the expense of dialogue either, and I was impressed with how clear everything managed to be despite the score and sound effects competing for your attention. Where I had to turn on subtitles for the last season of House of the Dragon with my previous soundbar, I never encountered a similar issue whenever Emily Watson’s Valya Harkonnon or Mark Strong’s Emperor engaged in political strategy. Boot up the Sonos app and you can even choose to increase that clarity further, but I can’t say I noticed a significant improvement whenever I did.
But it’s not just Dune: Prophecy that the Sonos Arc Ultra can handle. Star Wars: The Last Jedi, for example managed to expertly balance dialogue with the whirls of Tie-Fighters and low rumble of lightsabers, while the climatic finale of Avengers: Endgame meanwhile delivered a strong amount of bass for the constant explosions of the raging battlefield. Likewise, paired with my PS5 I was able to achieve a similarly weighty sound with Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 shining particularly brightly. The combo of gunshots ringing, explosions firing and the quiet movements of espionage-focused dialogue all felt expertly balanced.
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Helping achieve that weight and balance is the new Sub 4, and this thing is an absolute beast. It’s almost identical in shape and size to its predecessor, meaning you still have the elongated doughnut shape, but the new matte black finish makes it kinder with the fingerprints and should blend in a little better to a wider number of households. I even appreciated the fact that Sonos is smart enough to prop the power cable under the base of the unit, making it a much neater approach considering most people will likely sit the unit next to their couch or entertainment unit.
But while I certainly noticed a difference when having the Sub 4 connected, providing more depth to the bass, I’ll hazard a guess that more casual listeners may not, so there may be an argument as to whether or not you need to pony up the additional $1299 asking price. Similarly, pair two of the Sonos Era 300 units and you can truly immerse yourself in proper surround sound. I didn’t test this particular function, but given the fact that a single Era 300 will cost you $749 this type of setup isn’t going to be for the casual consumer and is certainly more of a hardcore solution. I don’t even want to think about that level of cable management.
If you’re in the Sonos ecosystem though, there’s even more benefits to enjoy. Own a pair of Sonos Ace headphones for example and you’ll be able to enjoy audio swap – allowing you to quickly swap between both the sound bar and headset (surround sound and head tracking included) with the press of a button. With a wife and child at home, this was an incredibly nifty feature that was especially helpful at night when volume can be a concern, and was incredibly seamless to utilize – once it actually worked. In my testing it took a bit of troubleshooting to actually get going, including some firmware updates and power cycling, but I’m hoping mine was an isolated experience.
At the end of the day, at $1799 the Sonos Arc Ultra is obviously not a cheap investment. But after using a basic LG offering for a number of years, the difference in clarity and soundscape is almost immediate. If you’ve got the disposable income at the ready, the Sonos Arc is easily one of the best soundbar setups you can buy right now.
The Sonos Arc Ultra is available now for $1799 from the Sonos website.
Also out now…
LEGO Horizon Adventures (PS5, Switch, PC)
Okay hands up, who had LEGO Horizon Adventures on their video game bingo card? Yes, this brick-filled retelling of one of PlayStation’s most popular new series was incredibly unexpected, but magically makes the transition to LEGO quite well.
It does this by presenting a largely simplified version of events that runs at a much faster clip and is prepared to poke fun of itself in many ways – even introducing zany character traits that aren’t actually in the original game. I appreciated the pivot to make Horizon more family friendly and many of the original voice actors returning certainly helps seal the deal.
Yet for its benefits, it has to be said that LEGO Horizon Adventures just lacks some of the inherent charm that the core LEGO series (which are instead largely developed by TT games) possess. The combat lacks any real depth, levels are a touch simple and there’s no real carrot at the end of the stick to see you obsessed with collecting.
Perfect for young families (especially if you nab the incredibly unexpected Switch version), but more hardcore series fans may not get as much out of it.
Mario & Luigi: Brothership (Switch)
The Mario and Luigi games have always allowed Nintendo to operate at its quirkiest and Mario & Luigi: Brothership certainly doesn’t buck that trend. That’s great news for fans of the long-running series, as this time our lovable duo find themselves in the oceanic world of Concordia and are tasked with putting the broken island back together again.
It sounds slightly more traditional for a Mario & Luigi game but rest assured the zany hallmark elements of the series are well accounted for with young pirates, all-important dance offs and a fun cast of characters thrust together into one chaotic pot that’ll likely elicit a number of chuckles.
Yet while I enjoyed much of my time with Mario & Luigi: Brothership it’s admittedly one of the weaker entries in the series – perhaps due to a new developer being behind the scenes. Combat is still fun, especially thanks to a new Plug system which deepens the strategy by offering a whole range of different effects but the whole experience just feels a little too talky. The constant chatter can often stop you dead in your tracks and that in turn impacts the overall pace. It’s also surprisingly long, so you may find your interest waning at the halfway point.
It’s by no means a bad game, but given the complete abundance of Mario RPGS later, I’d still recommend Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door for newcomers instead.
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