Arc (SL) Ambient Setting Affects Sub Too?

  • 22 December 2020
  • 2 replies
  • 114 views
P

I just recently got my Arc SL from Costco and a set of One SLs for surrounds.  I (temporarily) relocated my Sub from another room and connected them all together.  Everything sounds great and I’m very happy so far.  Last night we were listening to some music and the bass seemed a bit underwhelming, which is not the norm for the powerhouse that is the Sub.  I hadn’t changed any of my settings since I added the surrounds this past weekend, so I was wondering what was up.  I went into the settings and started trying to increase the bass and sub levels to see if that helped, but it didn’t really.  Just made it “louder” without making it as “present” as I felt it should.  The One’s were sounding a bit too loud for music, so I went to turn them down and while I was in there I flipped them from Ambient to Full and then my bass was back!  The sub came alive again.

 

So my question - is this normal?  When I had the Sub upstairs with my Playbar and a set of Play:1s, I never experienced this lack of bass with the surrounds set to Ambient mode - just a reduction in how much comes out of the surrounds.  Can anyone else with a similar setup comment on what they experience?  Can someone from Sonos chime in and say whether or not this is by design?

 

Thank you!!

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2 replies

Rowena B.
Userlevel 5
Badge +16

Hi @patchrick84,

Welcome to the Sonos community. Thanks for letting us know about your concern. Let me share some information to help you out.

When you move a Sonos speaker to another room, it shouldn’t be a problem, so long the device is connected to your network and you’re able to stream music. Also, other configurations may affect the Sonos performance. For a stereo pair, they should be in the same room for them to work. If you performed Trueplay and you move your Sonos speaker to a new location you should go through the Trueplay tuning process again to update its settings and performed adjustments by changing your EQ settings.

You may also need to adjust the audio settings for your Sonos home theater’s surround speakers. On music playback, you can select the type of audio you want to hear from the surround speakers when listening to music.

  • Ambient: Subtle, low volume audio with a limited frequency range. This is the default setting for surround speakers during music playback.
  • Full: Full range audio at the same volume as the home theater speaker.

If there are no changes or movements with your speakers, it should perform the way you set it up. Hope this helps. We can also wait for suggestions and feedback from our Sonos community members, they might provide their opinion about this.

Please let me know if you have any further questions or concerns, I'll be glad to assist you. 

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P

Thanks Rowena, but I already know all of that.  I guess I wasn’t clear in my original post that when I moved the Sub, it actually paired it with the Arc.  It works fine, and as expected, with TV/movies and when the surround setting for music is set to Full and not Ambient.  When it is set to Ambient, it seems to trim some of the sound (especially the bass) from the surrounds AND the Sub, which to me didn’t seem right.  That’s what I was wondering if anyone else had experienced.

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