Enthusiast II

Answered

Sonos Arc - Metallic Sound

1017 replies
128989 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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Dysfunctional

Enthusiast II

Hi folks. The issue with the muddy or bottoming out bass from the Arc in a stand-alone configuration (no satellites or Sub) is no longer occurring. If your system is up to date and still the same issue we need to troubleshoot as normal. I’d suggest checking with the content (TV, Music in Sonos app) if it’s the same. If wall-mounted, does removing the speaker from the wall bracket and setting it on a credenza or table improve the issue? Is Trueplay configured on the Arc? Try to enable/disable Trueplay, if there would be any different. Is the Bass EQ setting flat or adjusted in some way? If it’s all the same after playing around, try to reboot the Arc or reset to its factory settings. If the issue still persists, call 800-680-2345 from Monday to Friday from 10 am to 9 pm EST for further steps and resolution. We’re always here to help. Thanks for the patience!

This thread has nothing to do with the muddy bass (though that IS still an issue) - perhaps instead of just copy pasting the same response you can actually do something useful?

I’d suggest actually reading the thread you are responding to...and then “gasp” answer the actual questions or provide an accurate response.

Krishma M

Retired Sonos Staff

Hi folks. The issue with the muddy or bottoming out bass from the Arc in a stand-alone configuration (no satellites or Sub) is no longer occurring so meaning with or without satellites and Sub should work perfectly now and that was fixed by the update on July 7th (build 58.1-78210).

We have another investigation with the Sonos Arc that our engineers are currently working on. That is for the customers reporting poor performance in the center channel / mid-range audio. Resulting in thin, tinny voices with sharp treble and harsh "S" sounds. Music played via TIDAL and Apple Music on the Apple TV 4K also have sharp/tinny voices whereas the instruments sound ok. Voices sometimes sound muffled, contained, not very forward but when they hit the highs and "S"s it is again too harsh. I’m now tagging this thread with that current investigation so we can keep you all posted about it. We greatly appreciate your patience and understanding. We’re all doing our best here to catch up with all your concern and provide the best experience we can give to all our customers. Please let us know if there’s anything else we can help you with.

Help others find useful content by clicking the like button and selecting the best answer to your question.

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PowdeRiver

Lyricist III

Wow

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wilwong829

Enthusiast II

Hi folks. The issue with the muddy or bottoming out bass from the Arc in a stand-alone configuration (no satellites or Sub) is no longer occurring so meaning with or without satellites and Sub should work perfectly now and that was fixed by the update on July 7th (build 58.1-78210).

We have another investigation with the Sonos Arc that our engineers are currently working on. That is for the customers reporting poor performance in the center channel / mid-range audio. Resulting in thin, tinny voices with sharp treble and harsh "S" sounds. Music played via TIDAL and Apple Music on the Apple TV 4K also have sharp/tinny voices whereas the instruments sound ok. Voices sometimes sound muffled, contained, not very forward but when they hit the highs and "S"s it is again too harsh. I’m now tagging this thread with that current investigation so we can keep you all posted about it. We greatly appreciate your patience and understanding. We’re all doing our best here to catch up with all your concern and provide the best experience we can give to all our customers. Please let us know if there’s anything else we can help you with.

Good to know a staff from SONOS pointed out the issues and told us the engineers are working on it. :) Actually I’m fine with my setup now but of course we all want it to be better! Thanks Krishma!

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Viljavi

Avid Contributor I

Watched Lord of the Rings (Fellowship) last night and it was horrible. Piercing. Couldn’t hear voices.

Haven’t returned my quite yet. Waiting on the update.

Return it. It’s crap. Will never work for you.
Mine, on the other hand has been fantastic and it’s no issues with connectivity or Atmos content.
You’re a very small minority of unhappy buyers. The Arc continues to be sold out everywhere with few complaints. Not sure exactly what the expectation was but if you want it to sound like a $40,000 home theatre set up then start saving your money to buy a $40,000 home theatre.

No we don’t we want something that sound as good as the playbar which is 7years old! This fails that in every way except Atmos. Do you ever run yours with bass at 50% plus? Or do you just have a sub?

Most Arc owners will disagree with you. As stated there are very few owners who aren’t satisfied. Sound being highly subjective I won’t argue that yours sounds horrible to “you”. If it does do yourself and the rest of us a favour and sell it or return it. You’ll feels so much better with something else.

As you can see begle there is a problem in arc, not that it is not for us sonos arc ... something is wrong. It's not that we have high expectations and you don't ... the problem exists and they have recognized it. What sonos does is contribute to the problem and not say that if you don't like the sound, give it back and stop bothering. I repeat ... some of us don't like what we hear ... keep that in mind

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lzy1987

Enthusiast I

Yes do keep us posted. This has been pending for two months already. I believe quite a few users have already returned their Arc and getting their refund. For those like me who are still holding on to the Arc, we are putting our faith in your company to get things right.

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dhewitt

Lyricist III

Question.…

has anyone like myself who is also having a major issue with this ‘metallic sound’ maybe been to a shop or round a friends or even had a replacement arc and found another arc not to have this issue?

So many people dont seem to have this issue, wondering if there is a large bad batch (unlikely) but still. Also i understand that all the arc’s could have this issue & not everyone notices it due to the fact everyone’s ears and setup’s are different and may not notice it as much.

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Vegarild

Lyricist I

I was also experiencing bad (metallic) sound from arc+sub, and was just about to deliver it back when I configured trueplay using a newer iPhone. I had previously configured it through a 2 year old iphone and older iPads. Now it sounds as good as I was expecting it to sound.

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cowieson

Lyricist III

I was also experiencing bad (metallic) sound from arc+sub, and was just about to deliver it back when I configured trueplay using a newer iPhone. I had previously configured it through a 2 year old iphone and older iPads. Now it sounds as good as I was expecting it to sound.

I can second this - I borrowed a friend’s iPhone 11 today and went through the TruePlay procedure again and the difference is remarkable. The sibilance from the excessive high-end has been tamed, and mids seem to be much more present.

I had previously used my iPhone 6s to do the procedure (it’s about 4.5 years old now).

K

King Colin

Avid Contributor I

I was also experiencing bad (metallic) sound from arc+sub, and was just about to deliver it back when I configured trueplay using a newer iPhone. I had previously configured it through a 2 year old iphone and older iPads. Now it sounds as good as I was expecting it to sound.

I can second this - I borrowed a friend’s iPhone 11 today and went through the TruePlay procedure again and the difference is remarkable. The sibilance from the excessive high-end has been tamed, and mids seem to be much more present.

I had previously used my iPhone 6s to do the procedure (it’s about 4.5 years old now).

We just have to go out and but an Arc and a new iPhone!!!!!!

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