The Breaker Times

The next flagship soundbar from Sonos will be called the Arc Ultra, and marketing images of the product have been posted on X today. They line up with the photos I published back in July and offer yet more confirmation that the Arc Ultra will support Bluetooth audio playback.

Sonos itself has managed to leak details about the Arc Ultra in recent days; the company’s online store briefly featured a few tidbits about the Arc Ultra and mentioned the inclusion of “Sound Motion technology.” This is presumably the branding that Sonos has chosen for the technology that it obtained through an acquisition of Mayht in 2022.

Since then, the company has been working to incorporate Mayht’s “new, revolutionary approach to audio transducers” in its own products — and the Arc Ultra will be the first showcase of that tech. In short, you can expect very big sound from relatively small components. The post on X puts the price at $999, but there have been other indications that it could cost as much as $1,199.

In this top-down view of the soundbar, you can see that Sonos has reworked the device’s physical controls. A power button is to the far left, with playback controls in the center and an indented volume slider bar on the right side.

It seems to be a certainty that Sonos will announce a new high-end subwoofer, the Sub 4, alongside the Arc Ultra. Images of the Sub 4 show a design that follows its predecessors, only this time, it has a matte finish.

Another leaked marketing image offers a preview of how big the Arc Ultra is, pictured here with two Sub 4 subwoofers on the floor beneath it. The overall look remains similar to the original, but this looks like a longer, slightly more hulking unit. As usual, both the soundbar and Sub 4 will be offered in either black or white.

Last month, CEO Patrick Spence said Sonos was delaying the release of two products to ensure that all of the company’s focus would go toward fixing its redesigned mobile app, which has been besieged by bugs, iffy performance, and a rash of customer complaints since its debut in May.

Spence has since conceded that Sonos should have released the rebuilt app as an opt-in beta instead of thrusting all customers into an experience that lagged behind the previous software — both in feature set and overall reliability. The app is steadily making progress, but the controversy, which was followed by layoffs at Sonos, has torpedoed morale among employees.

Internally, some of the dissatisfaction among the rank and file at Sonos has been directed at executives including chief product officer Maxime Bouvat-Merlin, The Verge has learned. There’s a belief that the higher-ups have made a string of bad decisions that prioritize deadlines and hitting targets over product quality, despite warnings from engineers and others at the company that they’re rushing things.

The decision to punt the Arc Ultra and Sub 4 into the company’s Q1 2025 fiscal quarter means we could still see their introduction before the end of this calendar year. And considering the premature appearance on the website (and now these images), that might happen sooner than later as Sonos looks to get back on track after a colossal screwup. The ordeal has overshadowed and essentially ruined the launch of Sonos’ first headphones, the Sonos Ace, which have badly underperformed the company’s sales estimates, according to a recent newsletter from Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman.