Sonos' new Beam Ultra closes the sound gap with its full-size flagship, at a smaller footprint and a $699 price tag.
Engadget's review of the Beam Ultra puts the soundbar's audio quality close to that of the considerably larger Sonos Arc, despite the Beam Ultra's compact size. At $699, the reviewer notes it isn't quite a mid-range product, but it also doesn't ask buyers to commit to the Arc's bulk to get comparable sound. The review frames it as a genuine upgrade for anyone weighing size against performance in a living room setup.
The interesting part is what this does to the calculus around soundbar size. Sound quality has typically scaled with a soundbar's physical dimensions, since bigger cabinets fit more drivers, so closing that gap in a smaller unit is a real engineering result, not just a marketing claim. It also puts pressure on Sonos' own flagship: if the compact option sounds nearly as good, the case for buying the bigger Arc narrows to people who specifically want its size and power headroom.
A $699 soundbar being called a bargain is still a strange sentence, but next to Sonos' own flagship, it apparently earns it.