Enthusiast II

Answered

Sonos Arc - Metallic Sound

1017 replies
128970 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?

This topic has been closed for further comments. You can use the search bar to find a similar topic, or create a new one by clicking Create Topic at the top of the page.

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.

Show previous replies

L

lzy1987

Enthusiast I

@Paul A @Kyle A @Krishma M

Hello could one of you give us an update on this thread, we need to know if this issue is being worked on? When we could see an update etc etc ?

thanks

Hi folks! Just to let you know that we have received the reports and working on resolving this. We’ll surely let you know once the fix has been done. Appreciate all your patience. If you any other concerns, please let us know. Thanks!

Thanks for the update. It's assuring to know that this issue is acknowledged and the team is already working on it.

magony

Contributor I

I for one am quite satisfied with my Arc, the only thing that I would like to highlight are the settings in the S2 app under Surround Audio.

Theres TV level & Music level, for some reason music sounds A LOT better when the Music level setting is set to -5 rather than on 0. Is it supposed to act like this?

For some reason, symfonisk products aren't listed on the forum as a Sonos product that you own.

M

Mitchellsx

Renowned Enthusiast II

@Paul A @Kyle A @Krishma M

Hello could one of you give us an update on this thread, we need to know if this issue is being worked on? When we could see an update etc etc ?

thanks

Hi folks! Just to let you know that we have received the reports and working on resolving this. We’ll surely let you know once the fix has been done. Appreciate all your patience. If you any other concerns, please let us know. Thanks!

Thanks for the update, fingers crossed on what the Sonos technical team working on can put this issue to bed.

K

King Colin

Avid Contributor I

I for one am quite satisfied with my Arc, the only thing that I would like to highlight are the settings in the S2 app under Surround Audio.

Theres TV level & Music level, for some reason music sounds A LOT better when the Music level setting is set to -5 rather than on 0. Is it supposed to act like this?

Hello Magony, l have mine set at this too.What do you set it to watching tv/movies? I have mine plus 15.

magony

Contributor I

I for one am quite satisfied with my Arc, the only thing that I would like to highlight are the settings in the S2 app under Surround Audio.

Theres TV level & Music level, for some reason music sounds A LOT better when the Music level setting is set to -5 rather than on 0. Is it supposed to act like this?

Hello Magony, l have mine set at this too.What do you set it to watching tv/movies? I have mine plus 15.

I have my TV level set to 0, I find that if I set it higher, the volume becomes higher but that’s it. At least with the Music level I saw a difference in bass and mids.

For some reason, symfonisk products aren't listed on the forum as a Sonos product that you own.

S

sebas1509

Enthusiast II

I for one am quite satisfied with my Arc, the only thing that I would like to highlight are the settings in the S2 app under Surround Audio.

Theres TV level & Music level, for some reason music sounds A LOT better when the Music level setting is set to -5 rather than on 0. Is it supposed to act like this?

Hello Magony, l have mine set at this too.What do you set it to watching tv/movies? I have mine plus 15.

I have my TV level set to 0, I find that if I set it higher, the volume becomes higher but that’s it. At least with the Music level I saw a difference in bass and mids.

I tested this and I see no difference when set to -5

R

Roy Hobbs

Lyricist III

I for one am quite satisfied with my Arc, the only thing that I would like to highlight are the settings in the S2 app under Surround Audio.

Theres TV level & Music level, for some reason music sounds A LOT better when the Music level setting is set to -5 rather than on 0. Is it supposed to act like this?

Hello Magony, l have mine set at this too.What do you set it to watching tv/movies? I have mine plus 15.

Plus 15 for tv/movies? Whoa!

J

Jsgen182

Lyricist I

This is my first post and I apologize in advance if this isn’t helpful.

In my living room I have a Beam, Sub gen2 and two Ones connected to the S2 app. I replaced a Beam with an Arc yesterday and I experienced the same issues listed here. Muffled bass out of the box and sharp highs after True Play (with iPhone XS Max). It just sounded bad overall.

There were some helpful comments in this thread and a video online that made me try retuning True Play with an OLD iPad mini. I did that this morning and it worked. The arc sounds like a different product, with music and video.

Last night I turned the treble down to -5 with Speech enhance on to be able to watch “Bates Motel” on Netflix and “Warcraft” on FX (via Apple TV 4K). Today After retuning True Play treble is at 0 and speech enhance is off and it sounds so much better.

Thanks for the helpful posts!

O

oriboaz

Prodigy I

This is my first post and I apologize in advance if this isn’t helpful.

In my living room I have a Beam, Sub gen2 and two Ones connected to the S2 app. I replaced a Beam with an Arc yesterday and I experienced the same issues listed here. Muffled bass out of the box and sharp highs after True Play (with iPhone XS Max). It just sounded bad overall.

There were some helpful comments in this thread and a video online that made me try retuning True Play with an OLD iPad mini. I did that this morning and it worked. The arc sounds like a different product, with music and video.

Last night I turned the treble down to -5 with Speech enhance on to be able to watch “Bates Motel” on Netflix and “Warcraft” on FX (via Apple TV 4K). Today After retuning True Play treble is at 0 and speech enhance is off and it sounds so much better.

Thanks for the helpful posts!

Yes, but this is not good experience. I had to run trueplay multiple times, and I am still unhappy with the sound on some programs. I have become acutely aware of mixing problems in shows in the process.

Even after I am happy with the sound signature in one program, I might watch another that is far too bright with very harsh high frequencies. The experience is unpleasant. It is as if the midrange is missing. This never happened with the beam!

I really have high expectations from the Arc, and I eagerly await for Sonos to fix the sound signature.

C

CyberCelt

Contributor I

This is my first post and I apologize in advance if this isn’t helpful.

In my living room I have a Beam, Sub gen2 and two Ones connected to the S2 app. I replaced a Beam with an Arc yesterday and I experienced the same issues listed here. Muffled bass out of the box and sharp highs after True Play (with iPhone XS Max). It just sounded bad overall.

There were some helpful comments in this thread and a video online that made me try retuning True Play with an OLD iPad mini. I did that this morning and it worked. The arc sounds like a different product, with music and video.

Last night I turned the treble down to -5 with Speech enhance on to be able to watch “Bates Motel” on Netflix and “Warcraft” on FX (via Apple TV 4K). Today After retuning True Play treble is at 0 and speech enhance is off and it sounds so much better.

Thanks for the helpful posts!

Yes, but this is not good experience. I had to run trueplay multiple times, and I am still unhappy with the sound on some programs. I have become acutely aware of mixing problems in shows in the process.

Even after I am happy with the sound signature in one program, I might watch another that is far too bright with very harsh high frequencies. The experience is unpleasant. It is as if the midrange is missing. This never happened with the beam!

I really have high expectations from the Arc, and I eagerly await for Sonos to fix the sound signature.

I did return mine for this reason. I’m sure Sonos will get to grips with the issues. I’m just too impatient and expected it to be sorted right out of the box. Plus I would always have the thought that I needed to buy the sub to get the best out of the system.

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