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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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    arpatil1Author
    Enthusiast II
    July 3, 2020

    @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.

      kenwk123
      Lyricist III
      July 4, 2020

      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.

      oriboaz
      Prodigy I
      July 4, 2020

      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!

        mewantsonos
        Trending Lyricist I
        July 4, 2020

        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.

        billiejoe87
        Chromatic Producer I
        July 4, 2020

        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.

        1 x Arc, 1 x Beam Gen 2, 1 x Amp, 2 x Sonos In Ceiling Speakers, 2 x Sub, 4 x Sonos Ones, 2 x Sonos Era 100, 5 x Symfonisk Lamp (Gen 2)
        Synomenon
        Lyricist III
        July 4, 2020

        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?

        mewantsonos
        Trending Lyricist I
        July 4, 2020

        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

          knafets
          Lyricist III
          July 4, 2020

          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. 

           

           

          pyro225
          Enthusiast II
          July 4, 2020

          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

          knafets
          Lyricist III
          July 4, 2020

          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. 

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