Enthusiast II

Answered

Sonos Arc - Metallic Sound

1017 replies
128988 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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starlan

Enthusiast I

I’m still not happy with trueplay. It improves some things for sure (less reverb, balances audio for seating position, boosts bass to my liking) but the mids still disappear and the metallic treble and harsh sibilant sound still exists. I get better results using an old iPad mini vs. newer iPhones but still not totally satisfied.

At this point I’ve just resorted to turning trueplay off and I just boost sub and bass eq a smidge and I call it a day. I personally don’t think the Arc sounds too bright without trueplay. But trueplay still ruins it.

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pyro225

Enthusiast II

on the muddied bass thread they have just said its all fixed with the update...its not!

No, One rep said the muddy bass issue was fixed according to SONOS. They said 0 about metallic sound or trueplay consistency issues………… So let’s not misinform.

I am however, disappointed, no more was explained or a better statement wasn’t made. However, I do not have or perceive any bass issues with my Arc

I bet you do if you play the right things - try drive on Netflix at 35:00 and volume at 50%+ with no sub

or eminem without me 50% +

I listened to the song at 60 percent volume I can’t hear anything wrong.

i played it for a while then switched trueplay off both are in this recording

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1XqMQ8NUzCr3sgjU_b13cowWr3t50Blol/view?usp=drivesdk

Interesting I can’t listen now as it’s late but intrigued o compare in the morning!

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1hXBHZAPA5uQi2H3wpYD8gHJkS5IwCcVL/view?usp=drivesdk

here is the drive movie one. I expect you to venmo me for ruining my newtflix algorithm;) haha

oh well This one I did turn up higher had to disable limit 60 percent I had. I can’t hear anything awful the bass like sounds a bit weird like clubby. But in the sonos one it sounded similar.
I do agree it’s not the strongest bass or like as thumpy as you’d like wirh this type of club music. But it certainly doesn’t sound like shit

That’s so not how this song should sound like lol. I do listen to this song quite often ( Being an Indian). Balance is off by miles. But hey, this is a $799 soundbar that’s not made for Music. So it’s fine.

Hi both of them sound like you’ve massively reduced the bass by the eq or by trueplay or have loudness off? That Drive one still sounds a bit off on the bass but this is mine and my Playbase for comparison forget the Playbase just hear how bad the arc is and tell me if you can hear it?

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pyro225

Enthusiast II

Also you can hear on that video just how tinny and mid lacking the arc is compared to the play base (even if we let them take a rest from the lack of bass as the Playbase has a woofer in it they should be able to cater for the rest)

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arpatil1Author

Enthusiast II

Interesting I can’t listen now as it’s late but intrigued o compare in the morning!

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1hXBHZAPA5uQi2H3wpYD8gHJkS5IwCcVL/view?usp=drivesdk

here is the drive movie one. I expect you to venmo me for ruining my newtflix algorithm;) haha

oh well This one I did turn up higher had to disable limit 60 percent I had. I can’t hear anything awful the bass like sounds a bit weird like clubby. But in the sonos one it sounded similar.
I do agree it’s not the strongest bass or like as thumpy as you’d like wirh this type of club music. But it certainly doesn’t sound like shit

That’s so not how this song should sound like lol. I do listen to this song quite often ( Being an Indian). Balance is off by miles. But hey, this is a $799 soundbar that’s not made for Music. So it’s fine.

The netflix song you mean? I mean obviously this is the first time I’ve heard this song but having the “balance off” doesn’t mean the speaker is broken. If you can give me the name of the song I can try playing it on my sonos one to check “what it is supposed to sound like” then again, maybe to you the sonos one is also not good? Not sure. I do have a homepod but I boxed it since I’m gifting it.

I didn’t love the homepod music performance as I said before, but I recognize the bass is punchier.

The song is called Makhna. Like you said, speaker doesn’t have to be “broken” to have the balance off. It just indicates how poor and unfaithful the sound reproduction is.

Never said Sonos Ones are bad, so don’t put words in my mouth for the sake of argument. They are actually pretty good, just a tad bright for me. I already had a HomePod with 360 degrees sound, so I couldn’t justify keeping them only for music.

Anyway- Just grab any decent pair of headphones/earphones and listen to the song.

having said this, I think I am gonna sign off from the thread now. It’s pretty clear you love your Arc while I think it’s bad at that price. No point in proving anything to anyone further.

To those who are having issues, I hope Sonos really solves them unlike the muddy bass problem where they said they are still working on the issue and now just declared out of nowhere that there’s no problem now without pushing any update.

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sebas1509