Arcam Touts Solo as ‘One of Very Few’ Soundbars That’s 4K-Compatible

U.K. high-end audio company Arcam moved into the soundbar market with the Solo, touting it as "one of very few soundbars that is compatible with 4K video sources," such as a Netflix set-top, said the company’s website. "It’s not your usual soundbar," said Arcam Managing Director Charlie Brennan at a recent London briefing. "While convenient, most soundbars offer a fairly poor audio performance for TV and are dreadful on music." The 100-watt Solo, which costs about $1,300, mounts on a wall or sits on a shelf and has HD audio decoding for Dolby True-HD and DTS-HD, Arcam said. Six drivers are arrayed in a stereo pair, with the high-frequency drivers angled outward to better spread the image, it said. Apt-X Bluetooth takes in audio from mobile devices and transmits audio to Bluetooth-enabled headphones, it said. Arcam offers free control apps for Android and iOS devices. Solo has five HDMI connectors (four input and one output) with 4K passthrough. Solo also typifies a new trend in soundbar convenience, letting a user control both the TV and soundbar with the TV’s remote. Control through a single remote was first offered with the Canton DM 50 TV soundbase from Germany. The Canton unit connects to the TV by optical cable and incorporates chips that learn the remote codes for key audio functions, such as volume control and mute, from the TV’s remote. The Canton’s volume and muting is thereafter controlled by the TV remote. Arcam’s Solo achieves the same result without the need to build a learn function into the soundbar. It does this by exploiting the Audio Return Channel (ARC) option provided by HDMI standards since Version. 1.4 in 2009. When Solo is connected by HDMI cable to an HDMI socket on a TV that’s ARC-enabled, the single remote control for the TV controls the audio functions of the soundbar, such as volume and mute. For this to work, the TV must have at least one ARC-enabled HDMI socket. As for the Solo’s 4K passthrough capability, all its HDMI connectors are HDMI 1.4, rather than the new HDMI 2.0. Arcam uses a similar approach to that adopted by Sony to upgrade Ultra HD TVs with HDMI 1.4 connectors to handle 4K video at the higher frames of HDMI 2.0. Solo handles 4K signals at frame rates up to 30 Hz with professional 4:4:4 color space, while 4K signals at 60 Hz are handled with the consumer 4:2:0 color space. "All the bars we know of with HDMI that pass 4K only pass 4K video at 30 Hz at 4:4:4 color space," said an Arcam spokesman. "We also handle 4K up to 60 Hz at 4:2:0 color space. We are unaware of any other product that does this." Solo also can accommodate digital audio via digital optical cable or analog stereo cable, where an HDMI connection is not available, Arcam said.