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?

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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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sebas1509

Enthusiast II

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 have not had 1 content be too bright that it hurts or too muddle that it cant be understood. And I have tried tons of streaming services and content already. I tuned with iphone XR and have done it a couple of times (after adding the sub for example) I did use it without the sub for a bit too. Not had any issues with it being too bright. Had one content (Hamilton) sound too high pitched SSSSSS but then my brother said the exact same thing coming from his playbar and someone else on reddit said the same from the playbase so I think it was the mics used.

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sebas1509

Enthusiast II

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 have not had 1 content be too bright that it hurts or too muddle that it cant be understood. And I have tried tons of streaming services and content already. I tuned with iphone XR and have done it a couple of times (after adding the sub for example) I did use it without the sub for a bit too. Not had any issues with it being too bright. Had one content (Hamilton) sound too high pitched SSSSSS but then my brother said the exact same thing coming from his playbar and someone else on reddit said the same from the playbase so I think it was the mics used.

Note not trying to say there is no issue. I am saying the opposite this variance in users experience is too wide. Why does someone have to use -5 treble to be able to watch on the Arc? That is not right. I thinkt here is a serious bug here

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415SF

Lyricist I

Has anyone experienced this issue, exchanged for a new Arc, and felt that the issue was improved with a new unit? Local Best Buy has offered to replace mine, but I am wondering if it’s affecting all units or just some. To echo many other people here, it literally sounds like the center channel/tweeter has a serious problem on my Arc. All dialogue sounds like S’s are super harsh/way over pronounced, as if someone is hissing into their mic. Don’t know if I should bother exchanging it, or just wait it out until Sonos addresses the issue via firmware update.

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oriboaz

Prodigy I

Has anyone experienced this issue, exchanged for a new Arc, and felt that the issue was improved with a new unit? Local Best Buy has offered to replace mine, but I am wondering if it’s affecting all units or just some. To echo many other people here, it literally sounds like the center channel/tweeter has a serious problem on my Arc. All dialogue sounds like S’s are super harsh/way over pronounced, as if someone is hissing into their mic. Don’t know if I should bother exchanging it, or just wait it out until Sonos addresses the issue via firmware update.

I really hope it’s a firmware issue. Your description is very apt. In my country I would have to go through hoops before someone would exchange the unit.

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PubicZirconians

Contributor I

Mine is updated and I still get a popping sound. While watching interstellar, a minute and 30 seconds in when they show the ship re-entering earth, it starts popping and crackling. Atmos generally sounds great, but that popping sound is annoying and ridiculous for an 800 speaker.

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shane_sd

Lyricist III

Any update on this Sonos?

Got my return label today but hoping for a miracle.

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RussHill919

Contributor I

Whilst I don’t think I’m a sensitive to it as some people on here, I have the same issue - the highs seem quite brittle (for lack of a better description) and sibilants are particularly unpleasant on content that is lower budget (I.e. high budget movies sound fine but voiceovers in supervet for example are uncomfortable to listen to).

I have treble turned down to -4 in the EQ and that tames it a bit but you do lose some of the clarity and energy. I’ve submitted a diagnostic and look forward to any updates.

Thanks for the updates SONOS

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Danio1137

Hi.

with the problems with Arc, does it help with buying a Sonos sub, is the problem blown away then?

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pyro225

Enthusiast II

This is such a joke people are bored of posting now on here and Sonos will probably just accept everyone is putting up with it… we need updates!

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bonedaddy

Trending Lyricist I

I have the Arc, sub and 2 play 1's. My Arc was terribly harsh sounding even after multiple Trueplay attempts. Way worse sounding than my Playbar. To the point anyone who listened to it mentioned the shrill sounds. And that's without me saying anything.

I sent mine back and will continue to use my Playbar until if and when Sonos can figure this out. I'm not going to sit on a $900(tax) sound bar with the "hope" that it gets fixed.

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