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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S

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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kmoney

Lyricist II

Just updated app and Arc/sub to 12.0.5, reran Truplay and no change. Trusting in Sonos to address this as I purposely passed the return window and am getting anxious. Not an exaggeration, I have to run at -10 treble just to not be uncomfortable listening to this thing. So disappointing to be nearly 3 months in on something I preordered and still experiencing awful sound.

As an aside, I was at my friend’s again this weekend and envying the warm, rich sound from his Playbar. Even without a sub. I’d take that over this Arc/sub setup hands-down right now. It’s that much of a difference.

C

cowieson

Lyricist III

Just updated app and Arc/sub to 12.0.5, reran Truplay and no change. Trusting in Sonos to address this as I purposely passed the return window and am getting anxious. Not an exaggeration, I have to run at -10 treble just to not be uncomfortable listening to this thing. So disappointing to be nearly 3 months in on something I preordered and still experiencing awful sound.

As an aside, I was at my friend’s again this weekend and envying the warm, rich sound from his Playbar. Even without a sub. I’d take that over this Arc/sub setup hands-down right now. It’s that much of a difference.

I suspect that if you’re having to run treble that low, something else might be at play in your case. I’m not aware of the problem being quite that severe in most cases.

J

JakobSz

Contributor I

Did the iPad Trueplay tuning instead of my iPhone XS, which I initially has used for tuning.

The difference is insane - music listening has gone from horrible, to outstanding. Movies are sounding much better also.

C

cowieson

Lyricist III

Did the iPad Trueplay tuning instead of my iPhone XS, which I initially has used for tuning.

The difference is insane - music listening has gone from horrible, to outstanding. Movies are sounding much better also.

Sounds similar to my experience (although music wasn’t horrible before, just sub-optimal really with scooped mids and accentuated presence).

It would be good to get some input from the Sonos staff on exactly why the differences are so stark between Apple devices.

V

Viljavi

Avid Contributor I

In my case after the update, everything remains the same, treble at -6 to be able to support television channels and still lacks media. In 5 days I get the arch replacement, to see if it improves anything.

M

maurice.pothoven

Trending Lyricist II

I really don’t have those severe treble problems. Treble 0 and bass +7 for me is just fine

D

dhewitt

Lyricist III

Going to re-post this incase any one has any light on this post and missed it…

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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craigski

Local Superstar

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?

Or the reverse? ie someone that doesn’t have the issue, been to a friends that does.

O

oriboaz

Prodigy I

I found that Trueplay makes a huge difference. I highly recommend running Trueplay again if you are unhappy with the sound. I still think that the sibilance can be improved, but overall the sound is much better now.

D

dhewitt

Lyricist III

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?

Or the reverse? ie someone that doesn’t have the issue, been to a friends that does.

This as well, will be very interesting to see any peoples feedback here. If i didnt live darn an hour and a half away from my nearest richersounds store, which seems to be the only stores with these on demo, at least anywhere around where i live anyway, i would take my arc to the store and compare against there demo. Anyone feel free on my behalf to do this 😂

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