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arpatil1
Enthusiast II
June 17, 2020
Answered

Sonos Arc - Metallic Sound

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
    July 2, 2020

    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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    ledzep1
    Headliner II
    July 31, 2020

    I think a lot of the people who are happy with the Arc are coming from listening to tv speakers.  Which in most cases, a Bluetooth speaker would be an upgrade.  You don’t see many people on here coming from another soundbar, and definitely not a decent hifi setup, praising the arc.  Poor or limited reference points.  

     

    Not all, I had a Yamaha Ysp2700 previously, £900 soundbar, from what I have played so far I think the ARC sounds great.

     

      Danio1137
      July 31, 2020

      When you look at other "cinema" systems, it almost always includes a sub, probably because the soundbar can not perform bass on its own.  It does not defend Sonos but could it be a bit like they thought here too?  Incredibly bad marketing then to say that Arc should have a base.  It may fix itself over time.  I will buy another system now for testing, both are on open purchase.

      craigski
      Local Superstar
      July 31, 2020

       

      From the above facts, here is what I think is happening:

      1. Sonos Arc was tuned at the factory to a certain room size and shape. Testing was probably done for a limited number of scenarios, and for them it works well.
      2. Trueplay also assumes certain factors about a room, such as (maybe) symmetry, wall material, etc. 
      3. Thus, there are problems if people have different room setups that cause distorted sound signatures. For example, in my TV room: the Arc is on a cerdenza near a reinforced concrete wall. Across from it ( about 4.5 meters) is another concrete wall. To its left (looking at it from the sofa) is a big glass doorway, and to its right is an empty space (for the dining area and kitchen). Ceilings and floor are both reinforced concrete, and there are no rugs or anything of the sort. This is very different to what you may find in North America, and perhaps differs significantly from the settings Arc was optimized for. 

      @oriboaz Totally agree the room will affect the sound, lots of hard surfaces will make a bright speaker sound brighter. What is interesting is your room you describe above is similar to the picture of Arc on the Sonos home page, lots of hard surfaces, albeit sonos.com has a rug!

       

        King Colin
        Avid Contributor I
        July 31, 2020

        I think a lot of the people who are happy with the Arc are coming from listening to tv speakers.  Which in most cases, a Bluetooth speaker would be an upgrade.  You don’t see many people on here coming from another soundbar, and definitely not a decent hifi setup, praising the arc.  Poor or limited reference points.  

         

        Not all, I had a Yamaha Ysp2700 previously, £900 soundbar, from what I have played so far I think the ARC sounds great.

         

        I had the Yamaha 2500. The Arc l bought was terrible compared to it!! I got the beam and sub plus rear speakers and that was a good upgrade. I will return for the Arc once this business is sorted.

          ledzep1
          Headliner II
          July 31, 2020

          I think a lot of the people who are happy with the Arc are coming from listening to tv speakers.  Which in most cases, a Bluetooth speaker would be an upgrade.  You don’t see many people on here coming from another soundbar, and definitely not a decent hifi setup, praising the arc.  Poor or limited reference points.  

           

          Not all, I had a Yamaha Ysp2700 previously, £900 soundbar, from what I have played so far I think the ARC sounds great.

           

          I had the Yamaha 2500. The Arc l bought was terrible compared to it!! I got the beam and sub plus rear speakers and that was a good upgrade. I will return for the Arc once this business is sorted.

          It’s so strange, why some have issues and some find it good.

          King Colin
          Avid Contributor I
          July 31, 2020

          I did find the Arc so harsh and tinny. I had it a week and l just couldn’t get it right.l brought it back to the shop and exchanged for the Beam.

          l am very happy with my set up at the moment.If the Arc can be improved-l certainly would consider purchasing again.l intend to audition it a bit more next time.

            craigski
            Local Superstar
            July 31, 2020

            It’s so strange, why some have issues and some find it good.

            Some people have ‘issues’ with soft sweet wine, and prefer a crisp dry. Some prefer processed cheese, others a mature Stilton. Apply same logic to sound. 

             

              ledzep1
              Headliner II
              July 31, 2020

              It’s so strange, why some have issues and some find it good.

              Some people have ‘issues’ with soft sweet wine, and prefer a crisp dry. Some prefer processed cheese, others a mature Stilton. Apply same logic to sound. 

               

              True, but people have these harsh bright issues, my yamaha ysp2700 was I would say, warm sounding, the ARC to me is warm sounding as well.

               

              CuzFeeshe
              Enthusiast I
              July 31, 2020

              It’s so strange, why some have issues and some find it good.

              Some people have ‘issues’ with soft sweet wine, and prefer a crisp dry. Some prefer processed cheese, others a mature Stilton. Apply same logic to sound. 

               

              True, but people have these harsh bright issues, my yamaha ysp2700 was I would say, warm sounding, the ARC to me is warm sounding as well.

               

              For about a month it sounded fantastic to me… then earlier this week I performed a Trueplay after updating to the latest version and suddenly it sounded tinny, weak, and metallic to me.  I did another trueplay and suddenly it sounded fantastic again - warm with a nice middle.

              I think this is not a simple answer.  The performance of the Arc is especially sensitive to position and shape of the room, and in addition trueplay obviously is sensitive to the device perception of what it’s hearing (a complex speaker array may be adding to this sensitivity, along with device mic characteristics).

              There was a video posted above where a reviewer showed how much better the bass performance is with the arc without the sub when using the wall to push the sound back towards the listener… but many have the arc in front of the TV and so aren’t using the wall.  Bass may be dissipating. 

              It would be great if the results of trueplay were displayed, and then the user had a band equalizer to make fine adjustments.  It doesn’t go along with Sonos ‘simple’ philosophy, however it would alleviate confusion.

                dhewitt
                Lyricist III
                July 31, 2020

                All these comments about moving things, changing settings or cables are all irrelevant. You shouldnt have to do any of that. I had an LG SK9Y sound bar mid range from a couple of years ago and i put sound bar and sub in the same position as the old equipment with same cables etc and it sounds no where near as good as my LG. I have had another Arc sound bar sent out to me and that is exactly the same. The issue is the bar nothing else, it needs an update to sort this or if that is not possible then this is a very poor sound bar from sonos.

                Just to confirm my issue with the arc is the extremely noticeable and very bad sounding tinniness to the voices.

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