Enthusiast II

Answered

Sonos Arc - Metallic Sound

1017 replies
128929 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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anujgoel83

Trending Lyricist I

I true played twice using an iPhone X, the first time I had some setup issues with the arc so decided to redo whilst ensuring to wave above the arc and this yielded a massively better result. Overall sound is more than satisfactory and miles ahead of the beam, though curiously deactivating the sub makes the arc sound pretty terrible, so not sure what this is about as its phenomenal with sub and surrounds

I commented about that on my dedicated thread about TruePlay, https://en.community.sonos.com/troubleshooting-228999/trueplay-tuning-a-variety-of-speakers-playbar-arc-beam-with-newer-iphones-results-in-tinny-sound-6843248

I agree that waving the affected iPhones directly over the Arc or esp. the side tweeters results in making the TruePlay tuning sound a bit better, but that’s just a workaround of forcing the iPhone to sample a bunch of treble from small tweeters. It compromises the overall fidelity of TruePlay tuning and still doesn’t sound as “correct” as TruePlay tuning with an unaffected device like a 2nd gen iPad Pro.

Maybe so, obviously I haven’t tried on an older device, but I can’t say I’m hearing an overly ‘bright’ midrange deficient presentation in any way, which perhaps is more worrying; as surely points to a hardware problem on certain batches?

No, I don’t think it indicates a batched problem. If one is correctly following the TruePlay tuning instructions, you aren’t supposed to wave the phone directly above the Arc. When you do so above or to the sides of the sound bar, you are basically aiming the microphone at treble-only tweeters that generate surround effects. That’s basically just counteracting and masking the newer iPhone microphones attempting to filter out treble.

I tried this process with an affected phone and can confirm, purposely bringing the mic closer to the tweeters during the TruePlay process does get rid of some of the bright tinny nature, but it’s still not the same as the TruePlay improvements you get with TruePlay tuning using one of the unaffected devices.

In your situation, I'd probably suggest turning off TruePlay and just using the "balance surrounds” feature to equalize, rather than the unscientific approach of forcing TruePlay to listen to some treble up close.

I have tried turning off trueplay and balancing as you suggest, but it always sounds massively better with it active. By saying waving above arc, I meant for a brief time during the process, perhaps 5 seconds or so

Yeah that’s unfortunate. I don’t think this has to do with hardware batches. I have also seen that waving the device above the Arc to capture the up-firing tweeters just for a few seconds does balance the soudn a bit with an affecting phone. But it still is nowhere near as proper sounding as tuning with an unaffected older device.

Could it be better than TruePlay Off? Very possible, but this adds such an unscientific factor in that I don't think we should consider this a solution. How much you bring the TruePlay tuning mic within close range of the soundbar has dramatic effects on the end result of the tuning, both for the better and for the worse.

I agree, the inconsistencies are unsettling. Let’s see what solutions are put out and how that affects things. I’m lucky to be enjoying some great audio, but the lack of a scientific basis or any consistency is not ideal, I.e how will an update that I will have to install affect me if I’m happy with things?

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chillaban

Trending Lyricist I

I’m in the same boat, my friend. For now, those without an army of iPhones lying around can try the technique of gently waving their phone around the tops and sides of the Arc which definitely can go a long way to helping. I tried using this technique and honestly it took me 30-40 minutes of retrying to get a tonal balance that I liked. It’s really frustratingly imprecise and unscientific, and the opposite of the selling point of TruePlay.

But as you said, in the meantime, if investing this bit of effort gets you satisfactory sound, I think it’s better than sitting around with a soundbar that sounds like a pair of cheap beach speakers.

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anujgoel83

Trending Lyricist I

I’m in the same boat, my friend. For now, those without an army of iPhones lying around can try the technique of gently waving their phone around the tops and sides of the Arc which definitely can go a long way to helping. I tried using this technique and honestly it took me 30-40 minutes of retrying to get a tonal balance that I liked. It’s really frustratingly imprecise and unscientific, and the opposite of the selling point of TruePlay.

But as you said, in the meantime, if investing this bit of effort gets you satisfactory sound, I think it’s better than sitting around with a soundbar that sounds like a pair of cheap beach speakers.

Absolutely, like I say, it really does sound impressive as is, but can completely understand your frustration!. Let’s hope in a week from now we are both happy with our purchase!

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TapDatApp

Enthusiast I

So after reading about others having success with Trueplaying older devices, I got a hold of my co-worker’s old iPhone 6 he had sitting in a drawer. All I can say is: wow, the difference is night and day.

My 5.1.2 sounds so much more like I was expecting to now with a more balanced, warmer sound similar to the Playbase set-up I had before. The highs aren’t anywhere near as harsh, although I would argue they’re not perfect either. Still a bit sharp and a noticeable lack of mids. Still, I 100% believe the issue is mostly related to Trueplay on newer devices now. Should be pretty easily replicable for the Sonos team.

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mosodomemo

Lyricist I

My first tune sounded great. I moved things around and had to tune it again and it was very bright. I tried tuning again and had the same problem. For a final attempt, I tried using my 3rd gen iPad Pro and it was less bright, but was still not great and the imaging was worse.

Edit: seems I’m not the only one who tried the iPad vs iphone (11 Pro Max) and had the same outcome: https://en.community.sonos.com/troubleshooting-228999/sonos-arc-metallic-sound-6843110?postid=16442638#post16442638

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lzy1987

Enthusiast I

I don't have any apple product so I can't really try it (might need borrow someone's)

However, I think the main concern is that without trueplay, the default sound of the Arc is bad, which should not be the case.

Trueplay should be improving an already good sound, not fixing bad sound.

On a side note, it's good that there are ways to improve sound quality through software, an indication that its not hardware related.

Im hopeful that this will get resolved soon :)

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TapDatApp

Enthusiast I

I don't have any apple product so I can't really try it (might need borrow someone's)

However, I think the main concern is that without trueplay, the default sound of the Arc is bad, which should not be the case.

Trueplay should be improving an already good sound, not fixing bad sound.

Yeah, I mean TechHive described it in their review as having “thick midrange”. Like… where?! Something isn’t right.

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gswanso2

Lyricist III

If TruePlay really made that much of a difference, then Sonos should advertise their products as iOS only. The Arc’s default should be great sound.

Also, TechHive issued a second review, where they described it as thin. But it still confounds me all the positive press the Arc received before release.

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arpatil1Author

Enthusiast II

I don't have any apple product so I can't really try it (might need borrow someone's)

However, I think the main concern is that without trueplay, the default sound of the Arc is bad, which should not be the case.

Trueplay should be improving an already good sound, not fixing bad sound.

On a side note, it's good that there are ways to improve sound quality through software, an indication that its not hardware related.

Im hopeful that this will get resolved soon :)

Can not agree more. Arc should sound great out of the box without truplay. It’s good that Sonos is aware of these issues and willing to fix them as soon as they can. They dorelease dozen soundbars every year, so I am sure the Arc will get good attention for years to come.

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Pawl

Lyricist III

So after reading about others having success with Trueplaying older devices, I got a hold of my co-worker’s old iPhone 6 he had sitting in a drawer. All I can say is: wow, the difference is night and day.

My 5.1.2 sounds so much more like I was expecting to now with a more balanced, warmer sound similar to the Playbase set-up I had before. The highs aren’t anywhere near as harsh, although I would argue they’re not perfect either. Still a bit sharp and a noticeable lack of mids. Still, I 100% believe the issue is mostly related to Trueplay on newer devices now. Should be pretty easily replicable for the Sonos team.

I’ve read lots of times that the Playbase has a bit wee sharp sound to it in other reviews. However, almost every reviewer on YouTube loved the ARC, but was a bit lacking in bass, or they claim the ARC doesn’t have enough bass.

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