If you want a soundbar to enjoy movies and video games, then go with the Sonos Arc soundbar because of its surround-sound feature.
The Sonos Arc and the Bose 700 are the two most premiere soundbars out in the market. A soundbar is an audio gadget used in the living room or the theater space. The soundbar is especially useful for individuals or families who love watching movies or playing video games as it gives a near-cinematic audio experience.
In summary, if you want a soundbar to enjoy movies and video games, then go with the Sonos Arc because of its surround-sound feature. However, if you're an audiophile and are quite particular about the technical aspects, such as the bass sounds and the audio performance, then you're probably better off with the Bose 700 with its attention to detail in terms of these aspects.
Now let’s take a closer look at them.
Features and Specifications
One of the most important parts of a soundbar is its audio features, such as surround sound capabilities. The Sonos Arc is the clear winner because certain features in the Sonos Arc are not even available with the Bose 700 soundbar. This gives Sonos Arc a huge advantage over the Bose 700 in terms of available audio features.
The Sonos Arc has a total power of over 540W and weighs around 25 pounds. The main feature that Sonos Arc boasts of is its surround sound capabilities. This is perfect for individuals or families who love watching on Netflix as it offers an audio experience akin to watching a movie in the cinema.
The Bose 700 soundbar has 770W power and is slightly lighter at a little over 10 pounds. It falls short in the audio features because it only comes with a stereo system.
Check out the User Guide for Sonos Arc on sonos.com.
Sound Quality and Performance
Let me tell you something right off the bat.
The sound quality performance you'll end up getting from a speaker will always depend on your room acoustics - particularly room dimensions and speaker positions.
The impact of the combination of these two is actually so strong that in most cases, it doesn't even make sense to utter a single word on sound quality without speaking of them.
This is also why it's not unusual to see completely different reviews of the same speaker.
In one case the speaker might be placed in a sweet spot inside the room and hence the user might be satisfied. In other cases the same speaker might be ill placed and hence user might even have returned it.
The point most people miss here is that it mostly isn't even about the engineering behind the speaker itself. It's about where you place the speaker inside which room.
So, in order to solve this problem, I've partnered with Acoustics and Audio Engineering PhD Andrea Cicero from AC Acustica and created Soundton - a simple, 2D, browser accessible online speaker placement calculator.
With Soundton, now there's a way to figure the sound quality of most speakers before you buy them.
Read more about its working principles at soundton.com/documentation/.
The end colormap provides you the locations with the best (green) and worst (red) acoustics.