The story behind how Sonos created its flagship Arc Ultra soundbar

“The audio design is really about creating speakers that make content sound the way the artist intended. Whether it’s music or cinema, we want it to sound exactly as the creators intended, Lincoln told indianexpress.com in an interview on the sidelines of the launch of the Sonos Arc Ultra and Sub 4. “We put a lot of energy into that because when it sounds as the artist intended, it can create a truly connected, emotional experience. We love the ‘goosebumps effect’—and that’s what we’re hoping to deliver.”

The original Arc soundbar was well-received, but its weak bass response was flagged by critics. So, the biggest improvement the Arc Ultra offers over its predecessor is its ability to produce full, rich bass, thanks to the new Sound Motion woofers. Sonos has engineered these woofers to be super flat and compact, yet capable of deep excursion for maximum air displacement. The Arc Ultra features a total of 14 drivers (compared to the Arc’s 11), which is enough to deliver a 9.1.4 surround sound experience.

“We actually have something that we call the Soundboard,” Lincoln explains, highlighting how complex the concept of sound can be—even though we are constantly surrounded by it and consume different types of content on our phones, laptops, TVs, big screens, or even in theaters. “The Soundboard is a group of creators we work with. The first member is Giles Martin—he’s the son of George Martin, the ‘fifth Beatle.’ He works at Abbey Road Studios, and we collaborate with him directly. He listens to his own music and video content on our speakers and tells us if it sounds right or not. Of course, we know what a voice or a guitar should sound like, but when it comes to a spaceship or some other unnatural sound, we want the artist to tell us how it should sound.”

The Soundboard not only helps audio engineers better understand how artists want a Sonos product to sound during the design process, but Lincoln says the company has also invested in developing new technology to improve the audio quality. She was referring to Sonos’ $100 million acquisition of a company called Mayht Holding in 2022, which had developed a “revolutionary approach to audio transducers” that allows them to be smaller and lighter without compromising on sound.

“A transducer is the device that has a motor and a magnet, and it moves a membrane up and down to produce sound,” she explains. The Arc Ultra is one of the first Sonos products to use this technology in an actual product. “We have created a product with two membranes and four motors, allowing us to produce the same amount of bass in one-third of the space. So we are really challenging the physics equation,” Lincoln said, adding, “the Sound Motion technology we have created takes up less space, which allows us to add more transducers. This enables us to steer the sound around your room and create the experience of being in a cinema, with speakers everywhere.”

Lincoln explained that Sonos’ approach to designing a home theater system is very different from traditional methods that have been used for years. “We not only use Sound Motion and transducers in the product itself, but also wave guides. If you take the transducer and add something like a horn to it, it sends sound out, and we bounce sound off the walls. We’re also using what we call psychoacoustic effects which are ways to trick the brain into thinking sounds are coming from different places than they actually are, and we are really focused on creating that feeling of being immersed in sound.

The Arc Ultra’s new design allows for better bass output in less space, challenging traditional physics. (Image credit: Anuj Bhatia/Indian Express)

“We are trying to create the experience of being in the movie theater at home, but you don’t have nine speakers around you,” she continued.

For Lincoln, the Arc Ultra is good enough to be a standalone soundbar in a room, eliminating the need for a separate subwoofer. However, if you have a larger space, there’s always the option to add a subwoofer and build a complete setup. For the uninitiated, Sonos is a company that makes only wireless speakers.

The Santa Barbara company has a cult following, and the audio industry looks up to it for its high-quality wireless speakers. It was Sonos that opened the door for others, such as Amazon, Apple, and Google, to enter the smart speaker market.

Sonos systems are wireless and easier to set up, with better aesthetics. (Image credit: Anuj Bhatia/Indian Express)

As Lincoln explains, Sonos looks at different markets to understand local listening habits and preferences for music and movies, but ultimately, the company designs products for a global audience—not tailored to any specific market. “We look at how to approach different markets, because music here in India is different from what it is in the US. What we aim to do is learn from these markets and better understand what people are listening to, so we can use that insight to inform our design moving forward,” she added.

Before Sonos brings its home audio products to market, each one goes through a series of tests. “We have listening rooms at our headquarters and around the world that are set up more like living room spaces, because no customer has a recording studio at home. We are not trying to replicate that environment. Instead, we invite producers—who record in studios—to come and sit in these living room-like spaces and tell us if it sounds right there. If it sounds right in those listening rooms, then we know it’s also going to sound right in your home,” Lincoln says.

Sarah explains the use of wave guides, psychoacoustic effects, and sound motion technology to create an immersive sound experience. (Image credit: Anuj Bhatia/Indian Express)

A lot of consumers still rely on their TV speakers to watch Bollywood, Hollywood, and South Indian blockbusters. But as Lincoln explains, as screens get thinner, the speakers inside them also become smaller, making it increasingly difficult to achieve good sound quality from a TV alone. That’s where a soundbar comes in—it not only adds more bass and clearer vocals, enhancing dialogue clarity, but also doesn’t take up much space, making it ideal for small to medium-sized living rooms or compact apartments.

Lincoln adds that the Arc Ultra soundbar is designed in such a way that it brings voices forward, so when you watch movies, you can clearly hear what the characters are saying. “We are introducing what’s called speech enhancement—it’s a three-tiered leveling system that takes voice content and elevates it above background noise,” she said, noting that around 50 per cent of Americans watch television with subtitles because they often can’t understand the dialogue.

Alongside the flagship Arc Ultra soundbar, Sonos is also bringing the Sub 4 subwoofer to India, which delivers powerful bass. It’s smaller than the previous version, so it doesn’t take up as much room. Both the Arc Ultra and Sub 4 serve as building blocks for a home theater setup within the larger, home audio system that Sonos is trying to create and is taking on old guardians, more established, in home theater systems.