Enthusiast II

Answered

Sonos Arc - Metallic Sound

1017 replies
128946 views

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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S

Scott - SonosAnswer

Sonos Product Management

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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knafets

Lyricist III

Not sure why this problem is still not acknowledged by Sonos. That harsh treble is just present across all contents I played.

Feels like I'm still using TV speaker but with better bass. I had occasions I was using TV speaker and I thought I was using the Arc.. that is how bad the sound is to me..

Izy1987: you're description of the problem is very recognisable. Could you describe you're room? Large open space, hard floor, etc…?

Fairly large living room. Square layout. Flooring not sure (feels like marble or granite). No curtain or carpet.

My room setup is not really optimal, but I do expect decent audio quality.

My desktop speaker costing 1/3 of the Arc's price performs better in the same environment.

Interresting, I also have a large livingroom (L-shaped) with hard flooring, getting a carpet in the living area this week..

I might try the Arc in my bedroom (small, carpet, curtains) to see if there is a difference. Of course this is no solution. The Arc is designed for large livingrooms, the Beam for small/medium. But it might lead to some explenation/insight. With a possible solution: better truplay tuning in large rooms?

K

knafets

Lyricist III

Fairly large living room. Square layout. Flooring not sure (feels like marble or granite). No curtain or carpet.

My room setup is not really optimal, but I do expect decent audio quality.

Can you try another Trueplay? I got best results just waving up and down along the sofa, rather than waving around whole room, make sure you remove iPhone cover and check mic for dust/fluff:

https://en.community.sonos.com/home-theater-228993/optimum-trueplay-6842990

So you did not move at all? You did all the tuning on 1 spot?

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craigski

Local Superstar

So you did not move at all? You did all the tuning on 1 spot?

There are 2 steps, the first you hold the phone where you sit watching the TV, stationary, I think this is for the surround calculation.

The second step, I think for EQ, Sonos App asks you to walk around the room waving the phone. I didn’t do this to get best results for me. I just waved the phone a foot above and below ear height along the sofa, back again, and repeat. I was keeping the phone moving slowly, but in a concentrated space, ie where your ears are most of the time. The iPhone speaker needs to hear the high frequencies, if it has a cover and/or there is dust/pocket fluff in Mic, it will affect Trueplay.

Carpet will help :)

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neo06

Lyricist III

I just want to add that my initial true play attempts with iPhone Xs resulted in the harsh metallic unbearable sound signature. Even reducing treble didn’t help. When the Bass fix update arrived, I added sub and did Trueplay with iPhone 7. I am happy to report that the metallic sounds have all gone and my treble is back to 0. There is definitely something going on with the mic filters and how sonos is processing the Trueplay with different gains. Its been about 10 days and countless listening sessions and I am satisfied with the way its sounding for music and movies. It think its a Software issue and Sonos really need to test it with multiple iOS devices to see how the sound signature differs and compensate for the differences in Trueplay tuning.

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GReeeeN

Trending Lyricist I

I just want to add that my initial true play attempts with iPhone Xs resulted in the harsh metallic unbearable sound signature. Even reducing treble didn’t help. When the Bass fix update arrived, I added sub and did Trueplay with iPhone 7. I am happy to report that the metallic sounds have all gone and my treble is back to 0. There is definitely something going on with the mic filters and how sonos is processing the Trueplay with different gains. Its been about 10 days and countless listening sessions and I am satisfied with the way its sounding for music and movies. It think its a Software issue and Sonos really need to test it with multiple iOS devices to see how the sound signature differs and compensate for the differences in Trueplay tuning.

I also turned with iPhone 7 and feel vocal’s are still way too harsh, definitely better than iPhone X tuning which is unbearable, but still very high pitched. This needs to be fixed ASAP.

it feels like dialogue completely takes over the overall sound and just way too “in your face”, even with dialoge enhancement and loudness turned off.

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arpatil1Author

Enthusiast II

Hey Sonos! Can we get something more than a generic response? It’s your flagship product we are talking about. If you have forgotten- we are end consumers, not beta testers. So, fix your issues as soon as possible.