Last month, Sonos debuted its latest premium soundbar in the midst of a difficult year. The company initially delayed launching the $999 Arc Ultra, devoting more time to fixing the major issues that plagued its app since a botched update in the spring. Now that the soundbar is here, Sonos has rolled out its first product to feature its Sound Motion technology that offers increased bass performance from smaller components. This new transducer allowed the company to make other improvements to the Arc Ultra versus the original Arc, so it’s not just a matter of more low-end tone. So, what is Sound Motion exactly, and will it be available in other Sonos products?
What is Mayht?
The Sound Motion story starts with a company called Mayht. In April 2022, Sonos bought Mayht Holding BV, an audio company based in the Netherlands, for approximately $100 million. At the time, Sonos said Mayht “invented a new, revolutionary approach to audio transducers.” More specifically, the company re-engineered that foundational component of speakers to be smaller and lighter with no sacrifices to overall audio quality.
In a January 2022 interview with TechCrunch, Mayht CEO Mattias Scheek said the company began working on its speaker technology in 2016. He explained that the company would “defend” and license the tech rather than manufacture the drivers itself. Early potential use cases ranged from soundbars to compact subwoofers and smaller smart speakers. The company’s new approach would become the foundation for Sonos’ Sound Motion.
What is Sound Motion?
The first implementation of Mayht’s technology in a Sonos product via Sound Motion is inside the Arc Ultra soundbar. Sound Motion is a flat, brick-like driver where the motors are positioned at the sides and the membrane in the middle, allowing a greater range of movement for twice as much bass as the first Arc, by Sonos’ calculations. The four lightweight motors can displace more air inside the soundbar, which leads to increased low-end tone.
By replacing one large motor with four compact units, the Sound Motion transducer is up to three times smaller than a comparable “conventional” driver. But again, it still produces the same amount of bass. Those four motors power four voice coils, two moving in one direction and two in the opposite direction, enabling dual opposing diaphragms that cancel force and minimize vibrations. Sonos replaced cloth components with injection molded plastics for stable, linear travel. It also designed aluminum ribs to connect the motors to solidify the structure.
The motors themselves have a unique design. Sonos opted for dual magnets inside of each one to create increased force that gives the company more options when it comes to product design.
“Particularly when we’re talking about soundbars, we are always constrained by the size of the products,” Sonos’ vice president of audio Chris Davies explained to Engadget. “Being able to squeeze the profile down to this opens up opportunities for us to create something that’s new and different.”
Even with twice the bass output of the Arc, the Arc Ultra is nearly the same size as its predecessor. Not only is that due to the fact that the Sound Motion transducer is smaller than a conventional woofer, but also because the performance is so improved that Sonos only needed one to double the bass output. That difference is immediately apparent when you play some thumping, chaotic rock tunes from Better Lovers or Kaytranada’s electronic hip-hip, as I experienced first-hand during my review of the Arc Ultra.
The Sound Motion tech sits on the right side of the soundbar while the amplification electronics occupy the same space on the left. Due to this location, I could hear the bass coming from one side of the Arc Ultra if I stood up close, but at a comfortable sitting distance from my TV, the low-end blends seamlessly.
“We’re able to get more bass out of a small package,” Davies explained. “We’re also able to do that in a way that gives us other flexibility around the design of the product, the architecture of the product and so on.”
That flexibility is what led to improved overall audio performance on the Arc Ultra that’s a lot more than just adding bass. Since Sound Motion is designed to create a lot of bass from a compact component, Sonos then had the freedom to redesign the mid-range and high-frequency architecture as well. The company used multiple sizes of both mid-range drivers and tweeters for more positioning options, which allowed it to enhance the sound beamed out across a room.
“This is an evolution of what we've done,” he continued. “For Atmos content we’re doing a 9.1.4 rendering. This really is an augmentation of what we've done in the past, but it's adding a higher channel count by having all of these different elements now that we can play with.”
Sonos was able to employ two wide front channels to keep the sound stage immersive and use four separate height channels so that front and rear spatial sound wasn’t crammed together. The reconfiguration inside the Arc Ultra, again thanks to Sound Motion, also enabled the company to expand its speech enhancement feature with three levels of augmentation based on your needs.
“We've put a lot of energy into really trying to do a better job in terms of dialog clarity,” he said. As a result, Davies said, the company was able to deliver clearer dialog than in any of its soundbars ever.
Will Sound Motion be in future Sonos products?
The short answer: absolutely. You don’t spend $100 million on something to only put it inside one product. I’m willing to bet Sonos won’t just use it inside soundbars either. The company has already confirmed in its press materials that it anticipates “introducing more innovative products with Sound Motion in the future.” Sonos further explained that the use of the technology will depend on “the sound profile, design needs and price point” of any future speakers, and noted that each of its “acoustic architectures” are designed for the intended customer experience.
It’s easy to see how a small component capable of producing enormous amounts of bass would benefit Sonos’ more compact speakers. The company has consistently lacked deep low-end tone in products like the Era 100 and Move 2, despite the excellent clarity and detail these speakers exhibit. It would massively improve overall fidelity if Sonos could somehow cram a Sound Motion driver in future versions of these products. Additionally, the company’s most compact soundbar, the Ray, would be a much more compelling product for small spaces if it didn’t immediately require a separate subwoofer for adequate bass performance. With the Arc Ultra, for example, you can just use the soundbar for music since it has ample thump when a track demands it.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/audio/speakers/what-is-sonos-sound-motion-technology-183313680.html?src=rss
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