Sonos Arc Soundbar (Pre-order)| $800 | Sonos, Best Buy
So you’re watching Guy’s Grocery Games, and as your favorite local chef starts listing off his wacky scheme to win over the judges with a tasty dish, you realize the dialogue’s muffled so you missed a few ingredients. Sure, you could turn on subtitles, but they won’t do you much good when you’re in the kitchen cooking and passively listening, and they won’t give you more immersive sound when you’re watching a good action flick.
A soundbar, on the other hand, like the Sonos Arc, can give you all of that, and it’s available for pre-order now from the Sonos site and at Best Buy.
At $800, it’s a pretty hefty investment, but its performance backs up the price tag. While it doesn’t exactly deliver fully-immersive 3D surround sound, it gets pretty close and still provides a better sense of space than, say, a couple of stereo speakers plopped on either side of your TV. It’s an especially apt solution for tiny apartments without the space for a more rigorous surround sound setup.
Another nice thing about the Sonos ecosystem is that you can start plugging more speakers into your home and linking them together as time goes on. So, maybe your budget only allows one speaker right now, but if you’re able to grab something six months down the road, it’ll still fit right in, no rush to gather everything right away.