Enthusiast II

Answered

Sonos Arc - Metallic Sound

1017 replies
128930 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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austinVill

Lyricist II

**Updated edit**

So I think I figured it out. Spent a lot of time on this.

Its as if the “virtual surround sound” is tuned too high. Think about a cheap sound bar and you select the “virtual surround button.” It creates a “room filling” sound but this also why people are explaining the sound is irritating especially with music. You hear too much of it thus missing out on the warmth and depth of mods. I suspect people with a large room where sound doesn’t bounce off walls don’t have this problem which explains the differing view points.

Even when I pair the sub and surrounds I still feel like the arc is trying to do too much electronically to fill the room. Let the speaker do the talking and back down the algorithm for emphasizing “virtual surround sound”

This does not explain why the vocals are tinny. Center speaker is till direct, facing you. there is no virtual surround with the speech.

Tuned with an iPhone X and iPad Pro 11. Both sounded tiny.

Tuned With an old iPhone 7 and sounded much better.

side note: I think the arc TRUEPLAY accounts for ceiling height? I Seemed to have much better results staying close to the arc and listening room instead of walking all around the entire room. (I.e. kitchen area)

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neo06

Lyricist III

Is there any progress on this issue. I will be trying to run the Trueplay again with iPhone . I hope it improves things a little. Highs are really sounding harsh to me despite dialing down the treble through the Equalizer. So with all those atmos format trying and testing, I now have issues with Bass, treble and trueplay. I am disappointed to be honest.

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chillaban

Trending Lyricist I

Is there any progress on this issue. I will be trying to run the Trueplay again with iPhone . I hope it improves things a little. Highs are really sounding harsh to me despite dialing down the treble through the Equalizer. So with all those atmos format trying and testing, I now have issues with Bass, treble and trueplay. I am disappointed to be honest.

Does turning off TruePlay result in the sound being more bass heavy and less treble harsh?

If so, either try tuning with a device older than the iPhone X, or alternatively try to wave the phone close to the top of the Arc and the sides of the Arc for 5-10 seconds out of the 1 minute.

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arpatil1Author

Enthusiast II

Is there any progress on this issue. I will be trying to run the Trueplay again with iPhone . I hope it improves things a little. Highs are really sounding harsh to me despite dialing down the treble through the Equalizer. So with all those atmos format trying and testing, I now have issues with Bass, treble and trueplay. I am disappointed to be honest.

https://en.community.sonos.com/troubleshooting-228999/trueplay-tuning-a-variety-of-speakers-playbar-arc-beam-with-newer-iphones-results-in-tinny-sound-6843248?postid=16443159#post16443159

Ryan has passed all the diagnostics to the team and he mentioned that someone is looking into it. But it’s expected that they will only start working on the fix once the bass distortion issue is fixed by the software update (“to come as early as next week”).

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neo06

Lyricist III

Is there any progress on this issue. I will be trying to run the Trueplay again with iPhone . I hope it improves things a little. Highs are really sounding harsh to me despite dialing down the treble through the Equalizer. So with all those atmos format trying and testing, I now have issues with Bass, treble and trueplay. I am disappointed to be honest.

Does turning off TruePlay result in the sound being more bass heavy and less treble harsh?

If so, either try tuning with a device older than the iPhone X, or alternatively try to wave the phone close to the top of the Arc and the sides of the Arc for 5-10 seconds out of the 1 minute.

I tried doing a TruePlay using an iPhone 7 and the brightness has subsided somewhat. I will keep listening to see if I like this sound signature across songs and movies.

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arpatil1Author

Enthusiast II

I am using 2017 iPad Pro truplay profile and still having hard time liking the speech. It’s just hollow with no warmth and depth. Next target after fixing the truplay?

Feature request: ability to EQ the center channel independently.

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Sumit2007

Lyricist II

I am also noticing similar sound issues on arc soundar i.e. distorted bass at high volume and voice goes very thin during movie. Additionally music quality is not great vs sonos one speakers. I believe expected software fix is for distorted bass but not for other reported issues. Also can software fix address so many issues which we are experiencing or it is soundbar speakers?

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idkmybffjill

Contributor II

I am also noticing similar sound issues on arc soundar i.e. distorted bass at high volume and voice goes very thin during movie. Additionally music quality is not great vs sonos one speakers. I believe expected software fix is for distorted bass but not for other reported issues. Also can software fix address so many issues which we are experiencing or it is soundbar speakers?

You know, the Beam did not have any of these issues...

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billiejoe87

Chromatic Producer I

The Arc sounds much better in movies to my ears than the Playbar. It has a wider soundstage even if the actual atmos effects aren’t great.

Music playback sucks though. No two ways about it. It sounds tinny and totally lacking any punch even with the sub. The Playbar and Beam are infinitely better for music.

1 x Arc, 1 x Beam Gen 2, 1 x Amp, 2 x Sonos In Ceiling Speakers, 2 x Sub, 4 x Sonos Ones, 2 x Sonos Era 100, 5 x Symfonisk Lamp (Gen 2)

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Profoundsoup

Lyricist III

I am praying the beta update fixes the sound or I will just end up packing up the ARC and the Sub and sending them back next week.

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