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?

Hello everyone.I’m a product manager at Sonos.Thank you forsharing 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 usethis form. It is helpful if you can submit a diagnostic when you’re listening to the content. Instructions for doing so can be foundhere.

Sonos Arc - Metallic Sound | Sonos Community

I found that Trueplay makes a huge difference. I highly recommend running Trueplay again if you are unhappy with the sound. I still think that the sibilance can be improved, but overall the sound is much better now.

I did try this as well and although it may have done something, the metallic sound is most definitely still there. Also this should not be an issue weather the arc is trueplayed or not as all trueplay does is tune the arc to the room to sound better for your set-up not remove an issue like this.

No improvement obvious with new update for me.

Given the disparity between owners about the sound quality was racking my brain for other variables and wondered about the wall mount. We know that the arc adjusts it's output/eq based on being wall mounted. Out of curiosity are any of the people struggling with this using their device freestanding?

Probably a non-starter but for what it's worth mine is wall mounted, but will struggle to expiriment as hdmi is only just long enough and buried in wall.

Given the disparity between owners about the sound quality was racking my brain for other variables and wondered about the wall mount. We know that the arc adjusts it's output/eq based on being wall mounted. Out of curiosity are any of the people struggling with this using their device freestanding?

Yes, plenty of people reporting this issue are not using the wall mount, including myself. I think the disparity is more about personal taste, expectations, experience/knowledge, and environment. Trueplay is primarily meant for room correction, and it very well may be working better in some environments vs. others. It definitely does not seem to be striking a good balance.

I continue to think the Arc has a naturally ‘bright’ sound signature, which can allow it to be more detailed and precise, but it should not need to come at the cost of midrange. Many people, especially as they age, are less sensitive to the higher frequency ranges that this thread is most concerned with, so that can account for some of the difference in opinions. That said, I think it’s less about overemphasised highs, and more about a lack of midrange that the eq isn’t helping with at all. And some people just don’t know what they’re missing, imo.

I am 43 years old, so my problem is not my youth ... sadly. Also, I do not hear the loudest sounds through my right ear, it is not serious but it is not perfect like a child's hearing, that is, that is not my problem and I continue to hear the highly emphasized treble and the lack of medium, lack of warmth . Comparing ... the play bar has more warmth for music and television. Watch out ... with HBO movies, nexflix, etc ... the arc is much better, but not for everything else. Sorry ... I can't say any more. And I have been with sonos for many years. I imagine that many of you who are doing well arc, you will not believe those of us who have problems, I would like you to listen to it. I repeat ... I am deaf in the treble and I have the arc set to -6 and it is still annoying.

For music you should buy the Five and for movies the Arc. It just all clear it’s made for movies (hence the Atmos) only.

You're wrong ... Sonos has sold their product praising its sound in music and movies, come on man ... I can't settle for what you tell me, so on normal TV and music, a 7 u playback bar? 8 years is better than a bow? Should I settle for that? Just good at the movies? Isn't it even better to watch a newscast? Well, you know they don't advertise it that way.

For music you should buy the Five and for movies the Arc. It just all clear it’s made for movies (hence the Atmos) only.

You're wrong ... Sonos has sold their product praising its sound in music and movies, come on man ... I can't settle for what you tell me, so on normal TV and music, a 7 u playback bar? 8 years is better than a bow? Should I settle for that? Just good at the movies? Isn't it even better to watch a newscast? Well, you know they don't advertise it that way.

I don’t say I’m happy with it as I listen music alot! The Beam was a lot better with this. It’s just the way I see it right now. Glad to have the complete set with sub etc, otherwise it was returned already.

For music you should buy the Five and for movies the Arc. It just all clear it’s made for movies (hence the Atmos) only.

You're wrong ... Sonos has sold their product praising its sound in music and movies, come on man ... I can't settle for what you tell me, so on normal TV and music, a 7 u playback bar? 8 years is better than a bow? Should I settle for that? Just good at the movies? Isn't it even better to watch a newscast? Well, you know they don't advertise it that way.

I don’t say I’m happy with it as I listen music alot! The Beam was a lot better with this. It’s just the way I see it right now. Glad to have the complete set with sub etc, otherwise it was returned already.

I have bow, sub and two butts, 2100 euros in my country and I repeat the above, it only beats playbar in movies, not even on normal television. I also have more sonos products in my house. On day 2 the replacement arrives. I will report if there are changes to the sound.

Just got my arc and sub to replace my beam (also have two one sls for surrounds) and this thing just sounds awful compared to the beam to me.

playing music from my phone over AirPlay is just is so thin. No punch at all. Take the song hysteria by muse and when the kick drum comes in there is just no thud at all. Interestingly though if I play the exact same track through my tv via iTunes Apple TV app it sounds much better. Much fuller and more rounded however in my opinion still slightly lacking.

free to air tv is sounds average and has a lot sibilance issues.

im wondering if it has something to do with when the arc is sent a 5.1 Dolby signal it performs as intended but anything else it’s just trash.

multiple tunings tried and eq configurations and some sound better but just not right. I’m a sound engineer so I know what a good system sounds like.

in my opinion it is the fault Truplay. I have 2x sonos play 1 and sub and after truplay on my iPhone xs the sound in Music is thin too.

I think there are a few issues going on here;

There appears to be an issue with trueplay. Lacking low end and sharp highs and also the balance of the surrounds seems way out. Ive had to drop mine to -9. On my beam i had to drop them to -6.
There appears to be an issue with frequency response when air playing music from an iOS device. proven by playing a song through apple music from an apple tv there is a wide frequency response and then when playing straight from the phone its all thin (this could be because the apple tv is encoding to DD5.1)
There also seems to be some issues with non DD5.1 or Atmos content through the TV also having a strange frequency response.

So based on this i would say there’s an issue with how the ARC divides frequencies with 2.0 source material and also how it performs its true play tuning.

I think there are a few issues going on here;

There appears to be an issue with trueplay. Lacking low end and sharp highs and also the balance of the surrounds seems way out. Ive had to drop mine to -9. On my beam i had to drop them to -6.
There appears to be an issue with frequency response when air playing music from an iOS device. proven by playing a song through apple music from an apple tv there is a wide frequency response and then when playing straight from the phone its all thin (this could be because the apple tv is encoding to DD5.1)
There also seems to be some issues with non DD5.1 or Atmos content through the TV also having a strange frequency response.

So based on this i would say there’s an issue with how the ARC divides frequencies with 2.0 source material and also how it performs its true play tuning.

Well put!

It makes sense that music will sound different when played back via AirPlay (stereo) vs an Apple TV (Dolby Digital) as you have implied - for one thing, DD has separate channels which will be sent to different drivers, most notably LFE. A more accurate comparison would be to set the Apple TV to output digital stereo and then compare with AirPlay.

Regarding the users in this thread with issues of frequency response - I think it’d be worthwhile toggling TruePlay tuning to “off” to see if the same issues are just as present. (Someone previously said something along the lines of it not making sense that TruePlay could introduce the issue which is not all that logical IMO; given that it’s essentially creating a custom EQ response curve of course it could introduce EQ response issues!)

I think there are a few issues going on here;

There appears to be an issue with trueplay. Lacking low end and sharp highs and also the balance of the surrounds seems way out. Ive had to drop mine to -9. On my beam i had to drop them to -6.
There appears to be an issue with frequency response when air playing music from an iOS device. proven by playing a song through apple music from an apple tv there is a wide frequency response and then when playing straight from the phone its all thin (this could be because the apple tv is encoding to DD5.1)
There also seems to be some issues with non DD5.1 or Atmos content through the TV also having a strange frequency response.

So based on this i would say there’s an issue with how the ARC divides frequencies with 2.0 source material and also how it performs its true play tuning.

Well put!

It makes sense that music will sound different when played back via AirPlay (stereo) vs an Apple TV (Dolby Digital) as you have implied - for one thing, DD has separate channels which will be sent to different drivers, most notably LFE. A more accurate comparison would be to set the Apple TV to output digital stereo and then compare with AirPlay.

Regarding the users in this thread with issues of frequency response - I think it’d be worthwhile toggling TruePlay tuning to “off” to see if the same issues are just as present. (Someone previously said something along the lines of it not making sense that TruePlay could introduce the issue which is not all that logical IMO; given that it’s essentially creating a custom EQ response curve of course it could introduce EQ response issues!)

In my opinion the music should sound exactly the same if it’s played via air play or through the Apple TV being encoded to DD5.1 because it’s still the same 2.0 source material. There may be a slight degradation in bitrate but not frequency response. If the Apple TV can take the 2.0 source and divide it up correctly then there is no reason why the arc can’t do The exact same thing.

trueplay could 100% be an issue especially ina. Situation like mine where you have the arc, 2 one sls and a sub all having to be received by the mic at once and then have that signal applied to the system as a whole. If it’s hearing bass from the one SLs and thinking it’s from the ARC and that it’s too high it’s going to lower the bass on the ARC (that’s just an example I don’t believe that’s what’s happening)

In my opinion the music should sound exactly the same if it’s played via air play or through the Apple TV being encoded to DD5.1 because it’s still the same 2.0 source material. There may be a slight degradation in bitrate but not frequency response. If the Apple TV can take the 2.0 source and divide it up correctly then there is no reason why the arc can’t do The exact same thing.

I see where you’re coming from but that isn’t how it works per se; it differs per source device, but broadly speaking if a source device (e.g. Apple TV) is set to output Dolby Digital in 5.1, if it is playing a stereo signal it’ll still output it in 5.1 - it’ll either fill the FL and FR channels and leave the other 3 channels empty or upmix the stereo input to the configured output codec (DD 5.1 in this case) - which would impact bass frequencies below a certain cut-off as the LFE channel for example.

This is not the same thing as outputting stereo natively. If you think about it - if you had a full 5.1 setup with 5 speakers and a sub - how would you expect it to output stereo fed via a DD5.1? Dual-stereo? FL/FR only with no sub? FL/FR+Sub? Centre speaker?

Some Home Theater devices actually then do their own post-processing (or have various options) where they can take a stereo signal and upmix it to 5.1 (or other configs) but that’s another story.

As I say - the only “true” comparison between an Apple TV and AirPlay would be to have them matched as closesly as possible (as with any other test - eliminate variables) - which in this case would mean simply setting the Apple TV to output digital stereo for the duration of the testing.

I think there are a few issues going on here;

There appears to be an issue with trueplay. Lacking low end and sharp highs and also the balance of the surrounds seems way out. Ive had to drop mine to -9. On my beam i had to drop them to -6.
There appears to be an issue with frequency response when air playing music from an iOS device. proven by playing a song through apple music from an apple tv there is a wide frequency response and then when playing straight from the phone its all thin (this could be because the apple tv is encoding to DD5.1)
There also seems to be some issues with non DD5.1 or Atmos content through the TV also having a strange frequency response.

So based on this i would say there’s an issue with how the ARC divides frequencies with 2.0 source material and also how it performs its true play tuning.

Well put!

It makes sense that music will sound different when played back via AirPlay (stereo) vs an Apple TV (Dolby Digital) as you have implied - for one thing, DD has separate channels which will be sent to different drivers, most notably LFE. A more accurate comparison would be to set the Apple TV to output digital stereo and then compare with AirPlay.

Regarding the users in this thread with issues of frequency response - I think it’d be worthwhile toggling TruePlay tuning to “off” to see if the same issues are just as present. (Someone previously said something along the lines of it not making sense that TruePlay could introduce the issue which is not all that logical IMO; given that it’s essentially creating a custom EQ response curve of course it could introduce EQ response issues!)

Surely if the issue is happening with trueplay on or off it is not an issue with trueplay? This thing sounds mostly horrible no matter what i do or change.

I think there are a few issues going on here;

There appears to be an issue with trueplay. Lacking low end and sharp highs and also the balance of the surrounds seems way out. Ive had to drop mine to -9. On my beam i had to drop them to -6.
There appears to be an issue with frequency response when air playing music from an iOS device. proven by playing a song through apple music from an apple tv there is a wide frequency response and then when playing straight from the phone its all thin (this could be because the apple tv is encoding to DD5.1)
There also seems to be some issues with non DD5.1 or Atmos content through the TV also having a strange frequency response.

So based on this i would say there’s an issue with how the ARC divides frequencies with 2.0 source material and also how it performs its true play tuning.

Well put!

It makes sense that music will sound different when played back via AirPlay (stereo) vs an Apple TV (Dolby Digital) as you have implied - for one thing, DD has separate channels which will be sent to different drivers, most notably LFE. A more accurate comparison would be to set the Apple TV to output digital stereo and then compare with AirPlay.

Regarding the users in this thread with issues of frequency response - I think it’d be worthwhile toggling TruePlay tuning to “off” to see if the same issues are just as present. (Someone previously said something along the lines of it not making sense that TruePlay could introduce the issue which is not all that logical IMO; given that it’s essentially creating a custom EQ response curve of course it could introduce EQ response issues!)

Surely if the issue is happening with trueplay on or off it is not an issue with trueplay? This thing sounds mostly horrible no matter what i do or change.

That was my point, yes - I hadn’t seen people confirm whether their devices still sounded bad with TruePlay disabled.

free to air tv is sounds average and has a lot sibilance issues.

Not sure what free to air you refer to? I’m in UK, Freeview SD (Stereo) sounds ‘average’ vs Freeview HD (DD 2.0) sounds way better.

In my opinion the music should sound exactly the same if it’s played via air play or through the Apple TV being encoded to DD5.1 because it’s still the same 2.0 source material. There may be a slight degradation in bitrate but not frequency response. If the Apple TV can take the 2.0 source and divide it up correctly then there is no reason why the arc can’t do The exact same thing.

I see where you’re coming from but that isn’t how it works per se; it differs per source device, but broadly speaking if a source device (e.g. Apple TV) is set to output Dolby Digital in 5.1, if it is playing a stereo signal it’ll still output it in 5.1 - it’ll either fill the FL and FR channels and leave the other 3 channels empty or upmix the stereo input to the configured output codec (DD 5.1 in this case) - which would impact bass frequencies below a certain cut-off as the LFE channel for example.

This is not the same thing as outputting stereo natively. If you think about it - if you had a full 5.1 setup with 5 speakers and a sub - how would you expect it to output stereo fed via a DD5.1? Dual-stereo? FL/FR only with no sub? FL/FR+Sub? Centre speaker?

Some Home Theater devices actually then do their own post-processing (or have various options) where they can take a stereo signal and upmix it to 5.1 (or other configs) but that’s another story.

As I say - the only “true” comparison between an Apple TV and AirPlay would be to have them matched as closesly as possible (as with any other test - eliminate variables) - which in this case would mean simply setting the Apple TV to output digital stereo for the duration of the testing.

I just try it, the same song shallow of bradley cooper with lady gaga don´t sound the same.

If you play from apple tv with the app music of apple rears don´t play the voices until mid single with the ambient sound and the sound have better quality that with airplay with the iphone, is like it was a movie and sound like DD5.1.

If you airplay the same song from music app in the iphone to the sonos arc all the speakers sounds together from the beginnig of the sound, less quality but more enjoyable like inmersive sound to hear all the voices sourroning you.