Sonos unveils new Beam Ultra soundbar with 'true 7.1.2 Dolby Atmos'

The refreshed model with better surround sound will cost $699.

After a rough couple of years and some shakeups in strategy, Sonos is back with some new products. Today, the company announced the Sonos Beam Ultra, a premium take on its mid-size soundbar. Pre-orders begin today, and the soundbar will be available beginning September 29 for a suggested retail price of $699.

The second generation of the Sonos Beam soundbar came out several years ago, so the time was ripe for a new model. This version boosts the driver count from five to nine, with five tweeters (one center, two side-firing, two upward-firing) and four low-profile woofers. The addition of those upward-facing drivers means the Beam Ultra isn't just mimicking Dolby Atmos' spatial surround sound in software like the Beam; now it's more capable of delivering it. Of course, bouncing audio off the ceiling is unlikely to match the precision of standalone ceiling-mounted speakers, but it should offer an improvement on the standard Beam, which doesn't have any upward-facing drivers. Considering how much we appreciated the added boost of even the imitation spatial sound tech in our review of the last model, that's great news.

It can provide the core of a home theater system thanks to easy connections with other Sonos products, including using the company's portable speakers to act as rear surrounds. The Beam Ultra is capable of Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and HDMI eARC connectivity.

We already knew that today's announcements would involve some AI, but it isn't a central feature for the Beam Ultra. The soundbar will be equipped with AI Speech Enhancement that can detect human voices and ensure that dialogue always comes through clearly in playback. There are four different levels of enhancement that can be set in the Sonos app.

The company also introduced a new model of its over-ear headphones in the Sonos Ace Ultra. It's also got a big software update in the works for adding more control over your audio setup.