In my last comment I said it doesn’t just happen there, did you miss that part? It is possible that the parabolic mics they use on the show give off that feedback and the Arc exaggerates it.

I would agree…. there are several possibilities here.  One is that there are recording imperfections that better quality speakers and dynamic separation reveal.  This was a big complaint when CD’s originally came out and exposed limitations of records.  The ‘hiss’ was gone and suddenly you could hear these things.  Also, with the “brighter” sound on the Arc maybe you can hear things that you can’t hear on the beam.

Another possibility is that there are still some sound reproduction/translation issues in the Arc that need to be adjusted.  Obviously with more speakers and the directional abilities a lot had to be re-done on the Arc.

Testing the same soundtrack at low volumes and higher volumes to see whether the imperfections are still there is one way to see.  If the exact same sounds are reproduced at all volumes it’s clearly in the recording or in the way the sound is being translated, which means it probably isn’t an imperfection in the hardware.

Also, I have no way of hearing what you are hearing.  I can hear popping/crackling in that part of the office but it may not be exactly what you are hearing.

Drive - Netflix - 35:00 volume over 55% horrible bass popping sound. Under 30% sounds good.

on my B&W LCR8 / denon setuo it sounds superb all the way through the colum

Thank you for testing on other equipment!

Everyone should be testing on more than one piece of equipment before simply posting “this scene sounds terrible on the Arc” when half of these examples are probably issues with the source audio itself. All that does is muddy the waters and detract from the issue making it more difficult for Sonos to investigate.

There is an issue here that cannot be chalked up to preference or room size. Was the bass issue that was supposedly solved a result of a more revealing speaker or a less than ideal room? No. A major issue was found that got past all the intelligent folks at Sonos. 

Something isn’t right about the Arc. It sounds small & thin resulting in a harsh sound. It’s almost as if the polarity is off. I don’t want to exaggerate the issue either. It’s tolerable. It just doesn’t sound like a high end product. Sounds cheap. I’d like for Sonos to unbox a unit that they’re shipping out to see if something happened during manufacturing. 
 

@Scott - Sonos Hi there. I have submitted my feedback through the form. It does not really have any particular movie or time stamp information as I am facing the issue in all the DD5.1 content. Currently, dialogue sound hollow like they are coming from a laptop speaker. This happens only when playing DD5.1 files. Stereo 2.0 Youtube sounds good- dialogue sound fuller. 

Arc has been tuned with an older iPad pro which fixed the the harsh treble issue i was having before.

Another feature request: Please give us the control over center channel, at least the volume control if not EQ. Sometimes, dialogues become quite and I have to raise the volume to hear them. Then things get super loud when action scene comes up. I dont like the sound quality I get with the night mode.

I was going to return the ARC & SUB after watching Hamilton on Disney+(hollow sounding IMO), but surprised to find out that my order actually qualified for 100 day trial (order placed in May).  Given with the extended timeline I will hang on for another month and hope the sound is going to improve via updates.

What I am experiencing is a harsh sound, with very pronounced “SSSSS” sounds throughout any video that is playing. It’s not that the arc is creating sounds that are not there --- it is just amplifying the SSSSS part. (I listened to the same video via a different speaker, such as the beam, and I can pick out the SSSSS, but it is much smoother and pleasant on the beam). 

I get this problem over HDMI ARC from my TV and also when sound is pushed to Arc via airplay 2 directly via the Apple TV 4K.

I have tried trueplay tuning with various Apple devices: iPhone 11 Pro, iPad Air (latest generation), iPhone 6S. I’ve done various trueplay “dances”, neither  of which seems to alleviate the problem. My system is a full 5.1 system, including a sub and two one SLs. The TV has HDMI ARC but not HDMI eARC, so all sound coming to Sonos Arc is Dolby Digital 5.1 

I do hope that Sonos fixes this very soon! I love the Sonos brand, and until now I have been a fierce Sonos advocate. I am very hopeful that this is just a software issue and that very soon Sonos will be able to fix it!

My arc sounds harsh too, trueplay makes it sound like a laptop or a mobile phone lol so have to set the treble to -8 or -10 to make it sound at least good enough to bear it for a 2 hr movie. Trueplay off makes the dialogues sound very low as compared to other sounds but at least the treble is not that harsh.

i think I better return it and go for a full atmos system.

I’m convinced people that don’t hear the brightness on the ARC might have hearing loss in the higher frequencies (Which is usually the first to go). I have the ARC and Beam and recently had a Playbar and I can hear exactly what rtings.com speak about with the “Bright” sound, along with others on here. The Playbar and Beam had a nicer “warmer” sound, especially with music. The ARC sounds like it has too much treble.

None of this is to say the ARC doesn’t have a much bigger and more powerful sound stage, just it is a lot more harsh in the upper frequencies.

Rushed product or just not enough resources for proper, full R&D?  Can they actually fix these issues with simple software / firmware updates?

Will there be a recall?

Not enough people complaining so no chance of recall but yeah they could certainly improve it with software updates I guess. Reduce the tweeter volume  and it will be sorted. But it’s too expensive to wait for 6 months or so for that update lol

I have the arc since release date. From the beginning I find the voice (like watching news, talk shows) very tiny. Like the arc is only using the small tweeter and not the midrange drivers.

I was hoping to get used to it but I’m not. For comparison I bought a Denon DHT-S716H a 3.0 soundbar about the same size and price of the Arc. 

This confirmed my suspicion: while the Arc is much better than the Denon on soundstage, bass, clarity etc, the Denon is much, much better on voices, much richer and fuller.

This proves to me there is something wrong with the Arc. 

it’s a real shame I really really want to keep the Arc, but if this problem is not fixed In my return window , I have to send ik back. 
 

Sonos please fix this! It’s a pity that this is ruining a potential great product. 

 

Have you tried with trueplay off and loudness off? My experience is it is an improvement to tinnyness with certainly trueplay off … still not right but better

trueplay on or off makes a tiny tiny difference. Not noteworthy. 

RTINGS said in there review something the same:

Sonos Arc soundbar is just okay for dialogue and TV shows. It has a dedicated center channel for accurate reproduction of voices, which is great. It also has an overall bright sound signature which can help dialogue stand out, although some may feel like there's not enough bass. 

I bought the arc two days,and l have tried everything to get rid of this harshness and tinny sound in the audio.I am very disappointed at the 

moment with the product,and l hope Sonos will address this problem. I wonder does the soundbar need a “running in” 

Do we wait for a fix or send it back???
 

I m thinking about sending it back just can’t wait for 6 months for a fix lol

For now my “best” settings are 

treuplay off

bass +3

treble-2

I think this is some workaround to control te mid tones  But still it is not good at all. 

TLDR: something was off with the HDMI handshake between devices. This caused distorted audio from Apple TV to Arc. Resetting the TV fixed this. Arc sound much improved, still harsher than I would like. 

Intro and bottom line: Arc still sounds harsher than I like, but I discovered an odd problem that once fixed, improves the situation somewhat. Again - harshness is still there, and I am eagerly waiting for a fix, but I want to share this with you, should you also be affected.

Setup: Sony X850E, Apple TV 4K on HDMI2, Arc on HDMI3. The TV does not have eArc. I only stream data from Apple TV; I do not use any of the TV’s built in apps. Apple TV is audio setting is set on convert to Dolby Digital 5.1. 
 

The problem: I played this simulated Atmos demo from youtube, which supposedly compares stereo with Atmos sound. There’s this ball jumping from left to right, with sound following it. Well, whenver the ball was on the right side, there was no sound! This was clearly a problem. At first I figure my Arc was defective. However, when I airplayed sound to the Arc, the right channel was coming through loud and clear. I switched the Apple TV to HDMI4, and suddenly the right channel was working again! This is not a viable solution, as HDR is only possible on HDMI2. To solve this, I reset the TV to factory setting and now HDMI2 works perfectly. 
 

Technical note: throughout all of this, HDMI CEC was working perfectly: volume control was good, as was turning off and on all devices.
 

I tried that-marginal improvement only!!! I’m not sure if Sonos will fix this problem!!

I tried that-but marginal improvement only.l am not sure that Sonos will fix this issue.

This is an exact description of my findings. The Playbar is so much better in dialogue and the SSSSS issue was called out even by my wife (who normally does not hear that much difference between speakers)

This is a down to a “sharpness” in dialogue l guess. I am getting It too on my soundbar.Have you spoken to the technical team at Sonos?

I have to correct myself:
did some testing but it seems indeed that true play makes things even worse. True play with an iPad mini 2 makes it very bad. True play with an iPhone 7 is les bad.
 

But with true play of it is always less harsh/bright.  But still too harsh/bright.