Is the Sonos Arc fit for purpose

Hi @GaryGorilla.

Welcome, thank you for reaching out to Sonos Community, We appreciate your time and effort in posting your concern here in our community.

At this point, I would recommend Tunning your Sonos speakers with Trueplay it will calibrate the room where the speakers are set up and make your speaker much smarter.

I’d also be tempted to do a network refresh, by unplugging all Sonos devices, then rebooting the router. When the router comes back up, plug back in the Sonos devices.

Let us know if it works. If you need help with any other information, please be sure to let us know.

Hi @Mark P I have done this already.

I re-tuned trueplay with a different iPhone and have reset everything, including the router.

It is still not balanced, as an example i watched Ava on Netflix last night and I had to alter the volume on at least 10 occasions throughout the film.  The voices and just not clear, so you turn it up but then on a fight scene or shooting scene it overpowers everything so then turn it down, then cant hear voices again and repeat.

In the end I settled for night mode and turned it up as this balances things a bit better but that is not a sound I want all the time as that does not justify the cost of an arc and sub.  I can probably get the same sound, or better from the TV speaker.

@Mark P also tried Umbrella Company tonight and exactly same issue.  When its a gun shoot out its ridiculously loud, so turn it down and then cant hear a word anyone is saying.

I am sure there must be some settings between the TV, the arc and the sub that can get the balance right.

All im asking is to be able to watch something with consistency.

Gary, somehow I think it’s consistency of the Netflix content. I don’t have an Arc but have a Denon AVR surround setup with Definitive speakers and the sound management was horrible even with that, and that’s a high end system. I had to do the same thing and theoretically mine is tuned perfectly with “Odyssey”. My center channel was tuned at -4 and I manually adjusted it to +12. 

I am actually switching that out for an Arc/Sub/One SL setup because I was having a bunch of issues with the receiver. I use the Speech Enhancement on both my Playbar/Play 1 setup and Beam/Play 1 setups on my other TVs and they work really well. Look to see if there are settings on your tv as well. 

Thanks, it is not just Netflix, also happened with Jack Ryan on Prime which is dolby atmos.  Im still playing with settings.

Just found a video on YouTube which I am trying.

Sub at -5 (feels very low but will try)

Bass -4

Treble -6

Trueplay on

Nightmode and speech off

Still not very balanced with speech and action, it is better though.

So far best I have found is Nightmode and turn up the volume.  This seems to balance voice and action but does limit the oomph.  

Nope, still no good.  My daughter trying to watch a film and to quote her, "this sound is awful"...…

Exactly the same problem, having to turn up for voices but then other sections of film, music/action etc are stupidly loud.  So back to turning it up and down, up and down.  Im wondering if we have a faulty arc?  The sub is fine

I wonder if Sonos staff actually ever monitor this?

I have seen a few people with a similar issue to me.

Hi, I am having the same issue as well with my 1 week old Arc and Sub. I am using Netflix and Apple TV playing 5.1 and Dolby Atmos built in with LG 2019 TV.

The dialogue are just inconsistent and mismatch with the sound effect. Kept turning up and down the volume through the whole movie. Very irritating!

Can Sonos fix this problem or my Arc is DOA???

@Synergic I am still discussing with Sonos.  I can't believe this is the outcome they want.  The gear should be able to cope with balancing dialogue and action.

Hopefully it is something in settings either on the arc or audio output on the TV.

There is no way it would get such good reviews if this was 'the norm'.  At the moment it's all very disappointing :(

The majority of users love the way the Arc sounds and aren’t experiencing what you are describing, including myself. Every now and then there will be a scene in a film where the dialogue isn’t quite loud enough or the sound effects will drown out some dialogue. But this is rare and very normal when watching movies with a surround setup. I would suggest either trying a new Arc to see if the sound changes or test a soundbar from another brand. It may just be a matter of personal preference where your ears don’t like the sound profile of the Sonos Arc.