Are you looking for a top-tier Dolby Atmos surround sound system that gets as close as possible to a full-on receiver and speakers? I have two favorites. Let’s pit them against each other.
First, on the Sonos side, there is the Arc Ultra with its enhanced bass performance, the new Sonos Sub 4, and two Dolby Atmos-capable Era 300 speakers. On the Sony side it’s the Bravia Theater Quad system matched up to Sony’s best subwoofer, the SW5.
When breaking down the system costs, it’s a little tricky. Because you can still buy a system bundle with the original Sonos Arc and the Sonos Sub 3 — and, in the context of this full system setup, get similar results to a system that includes the more expensive Arc Ultra and Sub 4 — the Sonos system has a price range of about $2,200 to $2,500.
The Sony Bravia Theater Quad with the SW5 subwoofer — which is not only the better setup from Sony, but also the more competitive setup for this comparison — comes in at between $2,400 and $2,800, depending on who you buy it from, and whether it is on sale (Walmart is currently selling it for $2,400 while Amazon has it for $2,800). Depending on the deal, there’s an average of $200 difference between the two.
Sound production differences
When it comes to how these systems make sound, you can tell just by looking that they have different approaches. The Sonos system uses a soundbar as its anchor and in the Arc Ultra Soundbar, there are 14 drivers — that’s seven tweeters, six midrange drivers, and a dedicated woofer for what Sonos calls a 9.1.4 audio experience from the soundbar alone. On its own, the Arc Ultra is a formidable soundbar — arguably the best stand-alone soundbar you can buy without going into crazy expensive, high-end territory like the Sennheiser Ambeo.
However, we aren’t judging the Arc Ultra on its own. While its standalone bass performance is impressive, most of the bass in this system is handled by the Sub 4, which uses two 5 x 8-inch elliptical drivers in a sealed cabinet designed to cancel out distortion and resonance. The Era 300 speakers have four tweeters: one firing out the front, one firing out each side, and one firing out the top — the woofers are side-firing. Sonos doesn’t disclose the driver sizes, but you could estimate by taking a peek.
The Sony system takes a different approach. There are four low-profile square speakers that are easy to mount on the wall — either flush or on a conventional articulating mount. In each of these square speakers there is a three-way forward-firing speaker array with a 0.75-inch tweeter, a 2.38-inch midbass driver, and a 3.38-inch woofer. Out of the top fires a 3.13-inch sizable Atmos driver.
Aesthetics side note: the Sonos gear is available in black or white, while the Quad system comes only in grey.
Calibration and connections
Both systems have fairly advanced auto calibration systems. Sonos calls its process Tru-Play, while Sony, which doesn’t name the calibration process itself, uses what it calls 360 Spatial Sound Mapping technology. The objective in both cases: Once you run the app-based calibration processes, not only do you get a custom EQ for the speakers unique to your room, you also get optimized channel levels and spatial audio sound processing. Both systems claim to allow some flexibility around where you place your speakers, but the Sony Bravia Theater Quad delivers a more convincing Atmos presentation across an array of potential speaker placement options.
When it comes to how sound is delivered from these systems, some significant differences and noteworthy limitations emerge. Both the Sonos system and the Theater Quad have HDMI eARC inputs, which means you can send audio from the TV’s eARC port out to either one. One major difference is that the Theater Quad has an extra HDMI input, so you can connect a device directly to the Quad system without running it through your TV.
For wireless audio, however, we start to see some differences. The Bravia Theater Quad supports Bluetooth 5.2, Apple AirPlay, and Spotify Connect. It also supports Sony’s own LDAC codec. If you have a mobile device that also supports LDAC, you can send hi-res audio to the Theater Quad that way: If you’re an Apple user, use AirPlay, and if you’re on Android, use Bluetooth unless you’re using Spotify — you can stream directly from Spotify via Wi-Fi. The Sonos system supports all the same wireless options, but doesn’t support Sony’s LDAC. For movie soundtracks, the Bravia Theater Quad has a slight advantage in that it supports advanced DTS formats like DTS:X, DTS-Master Audio, and DTS-HD high-resolution audio. The Sonos system does not.
Where things get really interesting: How Sonos decides to handle music depending on whether it comes in through the HDMI port or wirelessly. Sonos assumes that anything coming through the HDMI port is “video” related, and presuming that it’s all video content, it doesn’t allow you to do much with the surround speakers if you are feeding it a stereo audio signal via HDMI. That’s fine if it is a stereo TV signal. For stereo music I’d like to be able to use the surround speakers however I want. Wireless music lets you get a full surround speaker effect, whereas with video, they are locked into “ambient.” (This is frustrating, because I do a lot of music listening with my Apple TV, and sometimes even with YouTube or YouTube Music, and I dislike having my hands tied in this way.)
The Sony Bravia Theater Quad, however, takes just one approach to using the surround speakers for stereo music and that is to enhance the overall soundstage. You can turn them up and down in volume, but what comes out of the speakers is not adjustable. (Sony has its way and that’s what it does. I like what it does with stereo signals, but if I’m going to come down on Sonos for restricting options, I should point that out with Sony as well.)
As for surround audio — Atmos music or TV or movie soundtracks — both systems do what they are told to by the content, so there are no issues except for the lack of more advanced DTS support on the Sonos system.
But how do they sound?
Now the fun part: comparing the sound experience.
Given the Sonos’ weird treatment of stereo audio via HDMI, I did most of my music playback via AirPlay 2 using my iPhone 16 Pro Max on both systems. Because I could, I also used an Apple TV through various TVs on my test bench for both stereo and Atmos music playback. I also primarily used Apple Music, along with some Tidal content. For the most part, I did not use Sonos’ app for streaming music because it just wasn’t necessary and it was super easy to bounce back and forth between the systems using AirPlay from the Apple Music app.
My process had a lot to do with the experience I ended up having. Some background: I spent months listening to the Bravia Theater Quad before getting the Sonos system — I built up a lot of experience with the Quad. When it was time to install the Sonos system and get it up and running, I spent a significant amount of time playing around with placement of the Era 300s and figuring out that weird music playback issue. Then I spent a lot of time just listening to the Sonos system, much of it associated with a TV evaluation I was working on. By the time I had really broken in the Sonos system and had some solid experience with it, it had been almost two months since I had listened to the Quad.
What I noticed while listening to music with the Sonos system: How well the Sub 4 integrated with the Arc Ultra and Era 300s — it was near seamless. The best subwoofer experiences happen when you don’t know where the sub is and it never calls attention to itself — you just get the experience of full, deep, punchy bass — and that’s exactly what I got with the Sonos system. Sonos seems to be keeping the crossover point between the soundbar and satellites low enough that the subwoofer doesn’t have to play too high up into the frequency range such that it’s putting out directional sound and giving away its location.
Something else noteworthy about the Sonos system: Regardless of whether the Era 300s were playing “full” or “ambient,” they didn’t just fill out the back of the room with sound, they also enhanced the width of the front soundstage. (For example, when I listened to a Sonny Stitt record, Stitt’s sax is positioned toward the left side of the room and I heard it well outside of the edge of the soundbar. On the Arc Ultra alone, the stereo separation isn’t anything to get excited about, but with the Era 300s playing in concert with the Arc Ultra, you can get some really amazing instrumental placement around the room — and this is from a stereo source. There was even an impressive amount of height to the soundstage upfront. It was really enjoyable, even for a hardcore two-channel purist like myself.)
The Bravia Theater Quad, however, shifted my entire perspective. By comparison, the Sonos system sounded pretty thin. The Quad brought a sense of warmth and richness that was sorely missing from the Sonos system. Also, the two separate Quad front speakers had much better center imaging than the Sonos system, even with the Arc Ultra actually positioned dead center in the room. The Theater Quad’s ability to put out a phantom center channel is unmatched, even by soundbars with an actual center speaker.
It turns out that some of the disparity between the two systems was due to Sonos Trueplay which, for the first time since I’ve been testing Sonos products, did more harm to the audio fidelity than good. (I’m still baffled by that.) Even with Trueplay disabled, the Theater Quad sounds more realistic, tactile, and full-bodied — much closer to what I want from an audio system than what the Sonos ever put out.
The Sony subwoofer doesn’t integrate quite as seamlessly with the Quad speakers as the Sub 4 does with its Sonos counterparts — it’s not as if the Theater Quad was better at absolutely every notable aspect of the music performance. However, on balance, if I’m forced to choose between the two systems, I’ll pick the Quad every time because music playback is super important to me — even more important than surround soundtrack performance.
Versatility vs. playback
From an Atmos surround effect perspective, the differences between the two was negligible. The Sonos jumped up in overall fidelity since the surround speakers were being used closer to their full potential, but in the end, even with Atmos music, the Quad won out for me.
It’s important to point out that the Sonos system is designed to offer a much more comprehensive, whole home music listening solution. You can add Sonos speakers to multiple rooms, tie them all together, and use some of them or all of them. There’s no doubt the Sonos products are more versatile from that perspective. However, if we’re talking about serving one room — providing home entertainment for a single space — from a music playback perspective, the Quad wins.
When it comes to movie and TV watching, the differences in fidelity are less stark. Some of the processing tricks Sonos pulls off make it a compelling choice. If I wanted to use the system almost exclusively for movies and TV and have speakers elsewhere in my home, Sonos would be the way to go. It’s awesome at all kinds of surround formats from all kinds of sources: streaming, DVD, blu-ray, 4K Blu-ray, etc.
Also, the Sonos system allows for dual subwoofers. The bass went from excellent to awesome when I added the Sub 3 in the mix. It was more effortless and even throughout the room, which is a benefit of having subwoofers in multiple locations. Even with just the one Sub 4, the Sonos system had superior bass output for movies and TV. Sony’s SW5 is not a slouchy sub, but Sonos’ subs are just next level. In my room, they were tighter, faster, and just more pleasant to listen to. With that said, I know that some folks will like the beefier or woofier approach Sony’s sub takes. If you are listening in anything other than a cavernous, open space, the SW 5 will do just fine.
The Bravia Theater Quad is also much more forgiving with speaker placement. If you have to put your surround speakers at varying heights or at different distances from your seating position, or if you need to put one front speaker closer to the TV than the other, Sony’s Spatial Sound Mapping tech is the truth, and will provide a more consistently excellent stereo or surround sound experience than the Sonos.
With the Theater Quad speakers, I sometimes needed to place the surrounds under objects — like a shelf or stairs — and still received a sense of Atmos effect. (FYI: My space is challenging for Atmos because very little sound can be reflected off the high, sound-treated ceilings. Perhaps that’s why the Atmos dome effect I got from the Theater Quad tended to be superior more often than not — it seems to rely a little less on ceiling-reflected sound.)
The Sonos system was consistently more contiguous with its front-to-back motion on the horizontal axis, which I owe to side-firing drivers in the Era 300 speakers. As for dialog clarity and intelligibility, they are both great: I’m still marveling over the Theater Quad’s ability to pull off a phantom center.
If home theater is your priority and you‘re able to put the speakers in their ideal position and you don’t care about Sonos’ multi-room audio options, it will be a tough choice between the two systems. They are both excellent, and it comes down to individual taste. If you do have multi-room audio ambitions, Sonos is the clear winner.
However, if you are a big-time music listener and a little snobby about audio fidelity, or if you need to put your speakers in unconventional spaces, the Bravia Theater Quad is the clear choice. In the end, it’s the system I’m going to use in my studio when I’m not using conventional speakers like the GoldenEar T66 or the SVS Ultra Evolution Pinnacle, which I need for any of my vinyl listening.
