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wilwong829
Enthusiast II
June 11, 2020
Question

Arc vs. Beam in terms of output power/volume

Just would like to ask those who has upgraded from Beam to Arc or those who own both items, if playing the same track from the same source, how they compare in terms of loudness? For example if I play a track on the Beam from Spotify and set the volume as 50%, then at about what percentage for the Arc to give the same loudness?

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      2 replies

      Just_Westy
      Trending Lyricist I
      June 29, 2020

      I'd like to read people's replies to this as well. TTT

      buzz
      buzz
      Grand Maestro
      June 29, 2020

      Don’t try to correlate 50% Volume between units of any brand. Each unit has its own characteristics and this setting has no relevance with respect to the overall quality of a unit.

      In my opinion Arc can play louder than BEAM, but Arc might not seem as loud because it is cleaner sounding than BEAM. Humans are conditioned to equate ‘loud’ with ‘distortion’. In my (pre SONOS) college apartment I could run levels that would make verbal communication very difficult, yet I would still receive (hoarse, yelled) requests to “turn it up” because the system was clean sounding. The same audience of listeners in another venue using cheap, struggling equipment, the system was officially ‘loud’, conversation was easy, and there were no requests to “turn it up”.

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