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arpatil1
Enthusiast II
June 17, 2020
Answered

Sonos Arc - Metallic Sound

Hi All.

It’s a relief that Sonos has identified the bug that’s causing the bass distortion in Sonos Arc. Thank you @Ryan S for working with the Sonos Communty to identify the problem quickly.

Having said this, I believe that Sonos still needs more work to make the Arc sound as it was advertised. Currently, multiple people on Reddit including myself are reporting the highs being too high which sort of feels “harsh”. This improve the speech clarity and brings out details in the movies, but the warmth in speech is lost because the voices sound thin and metallic (for eg. actors I know having heavy voices don’t sound heavy). I was expecting the mid-range to be a lot better considering the Arc has 8 woofers. 

I have tried TruPlaying twice without success (Turning TruPlay off produces muffled sound). Adjusting the treble also did not help much. Loudness turned on and off does not make a big difference either. May be, this is how the Arc is tuned?!

 Anyone else feels that Arc is over-emphasizing the highs with compromised mids?

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    Scott - SonosAnswer
    Sonos Product Management
    July 2, 2020

    Hello everyone. I’m a product manager at Sonos. Thank you for sharing your experiences with Arc. The development team is monitoring this community and listening to your feedback. 

    As we do with all Sonos products, we’ll continue to improve the experience for Arc through numerous software updates into the future. Last week we issued our first update (12.0.1) to fix a bug some customers were experiencing with low-frequency distortion at higher volumes. 

    If you have specific music tracks or timestamps for TV shows and movies that you want to bring to our attention, please use this form. It is helpful if you can submit a diagnostic when you’re listening to the content. Instructions for doing so can be found here.

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    1017 replies

    Profoundsoup
    Lyricist III
    June 17, 2020

    For some reason my ARC sounds EXTREMELY thin and tinny sounding. Very metallic sounding. Vocals are really awful right now and really hurt my ears. I really have no idea what is going on. It’s like the sound bar has 0 mid bass and has maxed out treble. I have the Sonos Sub as well and it is very good but the sound bar really sounds awful right now with music. I have tuned my room and kept settings at flat. Has anyone else ran into this?

      Redraider3403
      Enthusiast I
      June 17, 2020

      I am also hearing this.

        Profoundsoup
        Lyricist III
        June 17, 2020

        Same issue here. I will copy what I posted on Reddit. 

        My ARC sounds EXTREMELY thin and tinny sounding. Very metallic sounding. Vocals are really awful right now and really hurt my ears. I really have no idea what is going on. It’s like the soundbar has 0 mid-bass and has maxed out the treble. I have the Sonos Sub as well and it is very good but the soundbar really sounds awful right now with music. I have tuned my room and kept settings at flat.

          SmoothMcGee
          Contributor I
          June 17, 2020

          Recently set up a brand new Arc and Sub 3.0 and something is not sounding right.  Coming from a Playbase, Play 5, and several Play 1s around the house, the sound is metallic, tinny, unbalanced, lacking any midrange or full sound that I’ve come to love from Sonos.

          I’m aware of the current issue with standalone Arc bass response but there is an issue with Arc + Sub as well that needs to be resolved.  Hoping the Arc bug fix will remedy how Arc performs with the Sub paired next week.

          Is anyone else experiencing this same issue with Arc + Sub set up??

            antm22
            Enthusiast I
            June 17, 2020

            I agree. Mine just sounds off and not what I expected at all - especially after listening to so many other Sonos products over the years. Being that Sonos is reluctant to help with with an RMA at the moment I still have mine. I’m going to wait to see what happens with next week’s update for the bass issue and then make a final decision on a return. 

              arpatil1Author
              Enthusiast II
              June 17, 2020

              I agree. Mine just sounds off and not what I expected at all - especially after listening to so many other Sonos products over the years. Being that Sonos is reluctant to help with with an RMA at the moment I still have mine. I’m going to wait to see what happens with next week’s update for the bass issue and then make a final decision on a return. 

              Oops. I accidentally tagged your answer as the best. don't know how to fix it. @Ryan S

                lzy1987
                Enthusiast I
                June 17, 2020

                I can confirmed this is the same case for me.

                I spend most of the times using the Arc for watching films and TV shows. Dialogues are harsh/sharp and metallic sounding. At times it sounds like it’s coming from a laptop speaker. Music fares better, but still poses the same problem. 

                Generally, the sound is uncomfortable to listen at mid to high volume, even causing discomfort to my ears sometimes. Hopefully the Sonos team can look into this.

                  Pawl
                  Lyricist III
                  June 17, 2020

                  I haven’t had a chance to test this in my ARC, until they fix the bass issue. Until the software update, it’s staying turned off.

                    antm22
                    Enthusiast I
                    June 17, 2020

                    I agree. Mine just sounds off and not what I expected at all - especially after listening to so many other Sonos products over the years. Being that Sonos is reluctant to help with with an RMA at the moment I still have mine. I’m going to wait to see what happens with next week’s update for the bass issue and then make a final decision on a return. 

                    Oops. I accidentally tagged your answer as the best. don't know how to fix it. @Ryan S

                    Ohhh. I dunno either! 

                      BMF
                      BMF
                      Prodigy III
                      June 17, 2020

                      This is the same issue I have, it sounds like a badly EQ’d speakers.

                       

                      the bass is overpowering (via Sub) with TruePlay off and nasally with TruePlay on.

                       

                      i have retuned the Arc, assuming that I might have messed up TruePlay setup.

                       

                      I replaced Beam with this Arc and used Playbar in this same location before that.

                       

                      it does not sound like anything is broken in the speaker, more like something in the EQ has become messed up.

                       

                      sounds way “thinner”.

                       

                      like moving from a larger speaker to smaller speakers.

                       

                      if this was moving From Arc to Beam I might have put it down to size of the unit… but seems odd to go the other way.

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