New Arc Ultra user. Got some thoughts and questions.

Hi ​@Mutiny 

Thanks for your post!

Honestly, I am not sure - although I have an Arc Ultra of my own, I never actually heard an Arc in person (we have been working from home since COVID). I don’t recall mention of it, however.

I moved from an Amp to Arc Ultra, and while I have definitely noticed more treble, and, importantly, more detail in the treble, I was using some pretty old speakers with my Amp and I don’t consider my Arc Ultra to have too much treble - apart from bass being at -1, my EQ is flat right now.

Adding more speakers will certainly change the sound, but I would not expect you to hear a reduction in treble, no. Please note that it may simply be a case of what you are used to - please give yourself more time to adjust, but I am not dismissing your feedback - if you still feel it is not right after, say, a week, I recommend you get in touch with our technical support team who have tools at their disposal that will allow them to give you advice specific to your Sonos system and what it reports.

I don’t have any iOS devices, so I cannot compare, but you may find you get different results with further attempts, or with using an alternative iOS device to perform the tuning.

The Sound-Motion driver that performs as Arc Ultra’s subwoofer is off-centre:

This may well account for the imbalance you hear when extremely close to the unit, but bass is hard to locate, so it should not be obvious from a normal listening position. There are other woofers, however, so some bass should be heard from the whole bar.

The tweeters are symmetrical, however, so assuming the source is equal, you should not hear more treble from one side as compared to the other.

Given what you report, I think it might be worth you calling our technical support team to investigate for you. I do not recommend a chat session - a call would definitely be better.

I hope they can assist.

Dear ​@Corry P thank you very much! Always appreciated you help.

Regarding the treble - i actually went back to default EQ and it sounds very very nice. I guess i just needed a little more time to adjust to a new sound profile.

I am not the first who thinks Ultra is on a brighter side of a spectrum though. I created a thread on Reddit some time ago and a few people chimed in:

https://www.reddit.com/r/sonos/comments/1hdiqlq/do_you_find_arc_ultra_a_bit_trebly/

Also there is a recent post here:

https://www.reddit.com/r/sonos/comments/1hfezu4/returned_my_arc_ultra_for_a_beam_gen_2_and_i/

This person describes the issue better and i think i agree - it’s not treble on the Ultra but sound processing of it. Some content sounds especially bad (e.g compressed YouTube videos, which is understandable). This never happened with Beam 2 though and this is where i am surprised. Maybe you can do your own personal investigation if time allows of course.

Regarding the drivers - thank you! I am sorry if my question was a bit confusing in the first place. This is not excessive treble i hear on the left side, but more bass on the right due to Sound Motion woofer location. Sitting at MLP is absolutely fine, no issues here.

In all fairness i must say that i do love Ultra. This is the best soundbar i had an opportunity to hear, no questions asked. I had a Naim Muso 2 before and Ultra absolutely destroys it :) I am waiting for my 300s to arrive too.

Thank you for taking your time and all the best!

Hi ​@Mutiny 

With Arc Ultra, specific focus was placed on speech and making it more audible. This started in the hardware design, with the centre channel enclosure shaped and tuned to emphasize human speech frequencies and we now have 3 levels of Speech Enhancement in software - I think it’s fair to say that the result of this might make Arc Ultra sound different to ears new to it, but I also think it largely depends on what you had before. As you mentioned, a little adjustment period is not uncommon.

Arc did get a audio profile change or two after launch - it is entirely possible that Arc Ultra will receive the same.

Although I have no Polks, I do have a couple of Tannoy M2 speakers from way back that I had connected to an Amp - that’s what I was using before the Arc Ultra, and personally, I am impressed with the soundbar. And, to be clear, I did have qualms about moving to such a small speaker profile in comparison.

Personally, I seem to notice more of the directional aspects of Atmos with the higher frequencies - again because bass is harder to locate, I guess - and personally find what sibilance I hear to be more enveloping. I do need to watch a few more movies, however - that kind of research I don’t mind 😁

Regarding YouTube, I do actually watch quite a bit, and all on the TV too. I have a setting on my nVidia Shield that converts all PCM to Dolby so that the volume tends to stay more constant, however - I’ll try disabling it for a while to see if it sounds different (more/less processed).

I am glad to hear that you are enjoying your Arc Ultra as much as I am enjoying mine!

I hope this helps.

Hi ​@Mutiny 

Did you ever find a way to deal with the treble issue ? I just bought an Arc Ultra + Sub 4 and find the voices are giving me hearing fatigue - the sound is harsh, bright and metallic. I noted this issue has been reported in the past with the original Arc too. I’ve tried playing with the EQ, Voice Enhancement etc. but can’t seem to improve the metallic sound. Going to try TruePlay again but would appreciate any feedback.

Thanks.

Hey!

Unfortunately no, i wasn’t able to deal with treble. What i also noticed is that center channel on the Ultra is much louder than the rest which pronounces trebly voices even more.

I did get used to sound signature a bit, so it is not that bad now.

I do also noticed that Advanced TruePlay completely changes Ultra sound signature in my room - ups the midrange and kills the treble which makes it less harsh but sounds “dead”. Using Quick now and it is fine.