Music

Sonos Arc to succeed the Playbar with upward-firing speakers

By Ewdison Then/

The Sonos Playbar is long overdue a successor but it might not get one at all, at least not in the strict sense of the word. The connected speaker manufacturer does have a new soundbar ready to debut but it won't be taking anything from the 2013 accessory, not even its name. It turns out, it will be a completely new soundbar inside and out and it will be called with the rather odd and slightly unrelated name of Sonos Arc.

The Playbar at least had "bar" in its name and easily calls to mind a long speaker. Admittedly, it was more like a thin and narrow rectangular box than a bar but it was at least more descriptive of its form and purpose than an Arc. Then again, a speaker by any other name would sound the same, except the Sonos Arc definitely won't sound similar either.

Based on leaks generously provided by WinFuture's Roland Quandt, we see no less than eight speakers inside the Sonos Arc. Two of those happen to be facing upwards, something completely missing from the Playbar. Whether there are other speakers or tweeters inside, neither the images nor Quandt tells.

The marketing material does confirm the Arc's more tubular design, one that's intended to stand on only one orientation or side. They, unfortunately, don't answer the big question of HDMI or Ethernet input. Based on the icons, it's unsurprising that there will be a heavy emphasis on cloud-based audio sources though those two feature sets aren't exactly mutually exclusive.

The Sonos Arc is actually just one of the new set of products that Sonos will be unveiling on May 6th. It will be joined by the Sonos Play:5 and the Sonos Sub, which do have more descriptive names. As for the price for this new soundbar, Quandt simply says "money, lots of it".

Recommended