Sonos Arc - Metallic Sound

No. Dialing back the treble does not only turn down the higher frequencies but also the mids. Which result in a bad sounding speaker. 
 

if we had control over a full equalizer than we could do something. 

I find that trueplay makes a HUGE difference. Today, after the 100th or so trueplay attempt, the Arc sounds much fuller and rounder to me. There still is a bit of a bright, sharp, edge I would be happy to get rid of. But, overall, this latest trueplay is a huge improvement.  

Having said the above, so far Arc hasn’t been a great experience. With the beam, everything worked perfectly off the bat, yet here, with Arc, I am struggling. I wanted Arc to be an immediate and obvious improvement over beam. Instead, I keep trying to convince myself that Arc is better. 

I am really starting to feel that this is a trueplay bug with S2. I wish Sonos would just acknowledge this, and tell us that they are actively working on improving this. 

Reposting what i posted on the Muddy bass thread:

Here is a snippet of the Compression graph from RTINGS.com in red it shows the Arc at high volume and on green it shows the Beam at high volume. There is a noticeable dip there for red, this is not what is expected at that range. Note this only happens at high volume. The other green (mostly flat line) is the Arc at 80dB SPL level (not as loud) which is flat as it is ideal. It is normal for speakers to struggle at higher volumes but theres a clear issue for the bass response for the Arc at high volume.

 

Here is the summary with the score, pretty poor score even lower than Beam and Playbar.

 

 

Here is another score that is lower than expected, and it points to the metallic sound/ tinny sound some are experiencing 

 

Find it hard to believe SONOS didnt test these type of things before pushing the Arc out of the door. So it makes me wonder what is going on….

Of course they tested it. This is the sound signature they want (or the best they could come up with), and this is why they aren’t acknowledging any problem. If you do not like this sound, you are going to have to return it.

I agree with oriboaz.  After countless retuning attempts the past 2 weeks I got it sounding pretty good a couple of days ago. I am not sure where I read this suggestion when running trueplay but it seemed to help. Rather than walk around the room during the second part of the retune, I just remained in the same spot. I waved the iPad in the same general vertical motion but only in my main sitting location. Still not perfect but it is the best it has sounded. 

https://en.community.sonos.com/home-theater-228993/optimum-trueplay-6842990?postid=16447432#post16447432

After reading all the info in this topic I think we can come to this conclusion:

1. the high frequencies are indeed “boosted up” (we are not crazy)
2. this can be corrected by updating the trueplay software

Two questions remain:

1. is this the way Sonos want's it te be?
2. will there be a software fix (treuplay-fix)?

Again; @sonos please respond to this subject!!

If you don’t respond we have to assume there will never be a fix (and have to send our Arc's back) and possible never buy a Sonos product again or advise Sonos to others.

(I'm getting frustated; not because of the Arc’s problems, but of the lack of communication from Sonos)

While I’ve been waiting for something like the Arc for quite a while (product with earc, ability to use sonos sub and my existing ones as rears) the issues, lack of lpcm and non-communication regarding the issues is starting to push me in other directions.
 

Too bad the beam isn’t an option, but happily I’m not too deeply bought into the sonos ecosystem yet.

They committed to adding multi channel LPCM. In their defense sonos is usually much better at this but IDK what is going on with their restructuring and covid.. 

gswanso2 .. Look at the beam curve dude theres no way they get to design their own speakers pick components and they say YES this is what we want for the Flagship product to perform worse than the Beam! Yes this is our sound signature….. come on. I do not know if theres a hardware issue, but I think this is most likely a DSP issue. The weird thing is if a random small company can test this, and a youtuber can test this I cannot believe that SONOS wouldn't. So something weird went on.

Regarding the “metallic sound” that could be a different topic where they are purposedly emphasizing the highs for atmos and directional wider sound-stage presence. 

Regardless I dont really experience any of these issues anymore or at least cant tell since I dont push the volume too high.

Disagree.  We cannot logically come to the conclusion that anything can be corrected by simply updating the Trueplay software.  The problem goes beyond fixing/tweaking the Trueplay software.  Yes, there MAY be some issues with Trueplay with the Arc and/or the Sonos v2 iOS app which would explain why people have gotten very different results when re-tuning using older iOS devices vs. newer iOS devices.  But that does not explain the terrible sound quality many are experiencing WITHOUT using Trueplay.  Rtings.com addresses the Arc’s issues in their review and they go beyond Trueplay.

Trueplay is Sonos’s version of room-correction equalization.  It is not mandatory, nor should it be.  This is conceptually the same as using something like Audyssey in an AVR (i.e. Denon) to tweak the EQ of your speakers for your specific room (which I have used many times over the years).  This tuning should result in minor improvements to account for the unique acoustics of one’s room - not be a requirement for a speaker to sound good.  In fact, many high-end speaker designers recommend NOT using room-correction EQ for various reasons.

Packing everything- getting ready to return the Arc and 2 ones even after paying 30% off the price. Dealing with the quiet and thin dialogue by increasing the volume did not help much as the action scenes were getting too loud. Sonos is also silent about this issue and have not provided any assurances. I can’t just bet my money on HOPES that they will fix it. Lack of 4K pass-through ports, LPCM and DTS support were aleady a bummer, but I still accepted those flaws because of the price I paid, but I can not accept sound quality issues. Not everybody was privilged to get 30% off and at $799, Arc is just not worth it as it depends too much on the pricey sub and surrounds for good experience. 

 Overall, the experience is sub-par for a supposedly premium system. I will be going back to the HomePod and Airpods combination which are much more cost-effective with a fuller sound (I never thought I would be saying this after using the Arc).