Sonos just made the Arc Ultra even better for hearing dialogue
Sonos has delivered a free update to the Arc Ultra soundbar to deliver a new AI-powered Speech Enhancement feature, making a fantastic product even better.
Last year when I reviewed the Sonos Arc Ultra, I told my wife that when I got a proper job or started making enough money at BTTR to pay a decent salary, I was going to buy us one of these soundbars.
Sadly neither has happened yet, so I still have to use my old first generation Beam (which still does a pretty decent job).
This week Sonos made the Arc Ultra even better by rolling out a free update that adds an improvement to the speech enhancement features, including a new mode designed specifically for people with hearing loss.
Back when reviewed the Arc Ultra, I called out the speech enhancement features:
"Part of the reason everything is so balances is Sonos’ TruePlay calibration tool, and this has had a nice upgrade too since the last time I used it. Rather than having to walk around the room waving my phone up and down like a madman, for the Arc Ultra I just sat in my spot in front of the TV and let the app do all the work.
It makes a big difference to the sound quality, particularly when using the other connected speakers.
The other reason is that Sonos has improved its night mode and its speech enhancement, so that now you can adjust the speech enhancement across three different levels to find the right one for you."
With the update, there are now four levels of control that let you adjust dialogue clarity to match your needs. The fourth was developed with input from the RNID (Royal National Institute for Deaf People), collaborating with 37 participants of various ages and hearing abilities to gather detailed listening experiences and test the feature for nearly a year.
While there were three levels on the Arc Ultra at launch, the use of machine learning (or, ugh, "AI") let Sonos really enhance the performance of the speech enhancement.
“By implementing machine learning into our speech extraction technology, we figured out how to separate dialogue from other sounds in the center channel and clarify speech in real time. This lets us draw out just the dialogue at the most needed times, without overly impacting volume or taking away from the holistic cinematic experience.”
– Harry Jones, Sound Experience Engineer at Sonos.
Sonos breaks down. the different levels as follows:
Medium - A medium enhancement that provides better dialogue clarity and a tasteful balance of the surrounding mix elements.
High - A higher setting that makes dialogue obviously prominent while reducing other mix elements.
Max - The most pronounced setting where dialogue clarity takes full priority, designed for those with hearing loss. Unlike the more balanced approach of Low, Medium and High levels, Max level further controls the dynamic range of non-speech elements, placing dialogue firmly at the forefront of the experience.
The danger of using machine learning (or AI) to do these things is that it can take out the human intention of a movie or TV show. So Sonos worked with award-winning film sound mixer Chris Jenkins to make sure that its new speech enhancement did its job without compromising the original filmmakers intent.
Considering I have to constantly adjust the volume when watching TV with the family, I love features like this.
If you have a Sonos Arc Ultra and have tested this out, tell me what you think? Is it a notable difference?
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Nick Broughall
Nick Broughall
