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ggmogollon
Enthusiast II
June 10, 2020
Answered

Sonos Arc Muddy/Bottoming out Bass

Beyond thrilled to receive the new Sonos Arc. True played my room and I have loudness on as well connected to LG B8 using Tidal and Spotify. Most of the sound range is phenomenal, aside from the bass. At even half volume the woofers are extremely muddy and sound terrible. Not sure if this is because I have under two hours of use but I wasn’t expecting to have to break-in the speaker. I own set of speakers next to it in the same room (KEF LS50W) and the difference is night and day. There have also been posts on Reddit regarding this issue. It is interesting given no reviewers have mentioned this issue but more than a few recipients have. Has anyone else experienced similar issues? Turning loudness off helps but it is disappointing for such a highly anticipated product. 

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    Scott - SonosAnswer
    Sonos Product Management
    July 2, 2020

    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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    jkozlow3
    Enthusiast II
    July 15, 2020

    Sonos should be RMA’ing these Arc units and comparing the returned units to “known good units” to determine if there is a hardware problem/bad batch or if they are performing as designed/intended.  Any other response is unacceptable IMO.


    “Just wait...we may or may not release a software update that fixes your problem.  Meanwhile your return window will have passed by that point” is not an acceptable solution.  

     

    Demand more people!

      arpatil1
      Enthusiast II
      July 15, 2020

      Asked for an update and got this response from Tech Support:

      The Arc is not defective, but the engineers have not released the fix for this known issue that has affected some of the Arc devices. They are still looking into it and you will receive an email when the fix has been found/ released.

      To make sure we have not missed anything, have you unmounted the Arc and tested audio while it is sitting on a table instead of being mounted?

      Arc is not defective, but the known issue is only affecting “some” Arcs. Makes sense, Sonos Support. We totally believe that you know what you are doing based on these messages.

      If you did not get 30% off deal, I see no reason to keep the Arc. Easy to just rebuy when Sonos sorts this out. 

      Danio1137
      July 15, 2020

      another interesting video, not solution to the problem maybe but maybe a bit on the way!  https://youtu.be/jmKsMLzv4m8

        britishwonderings
        Enthusiast I
        July 15, 2020

        Quick Update as I have not written in a while. After engaging support they finally agreed to replace my Arc. I got a discount so I don’t want to lose it.

        They will be shipping me the new one before I return the old one, if the new one sounds better I will do a comparison and report back. 

        Beam. 2x Play:1 - 2x Play One (gen 2) - Sub - 2x Play 5 - Move
          Danio1137
          July 16, 2020

          Quick Update as I have not written in a while. After engaging support they finally agreed to replace my Arc. I got a discount so I don’t want to lose it.

          They will be shipping me the new one before I return the old one, if the new one sounds better I will do a comparison and report back. 

          I have started the work of returning mine within the 100 day limit. the idea is to buy a new one again ... or what do all think?

          mattadamsone
          Enthusiast I
          July 16, 2020

          I sent mine back last week, keep checking to see if there are updates, but sadly, nothing. I ended up picking up a used Playbar for the time being.

            Just_Westy
            Trending Lyricist I
            July 20, 2020

            This really sucks as i was hoping the arc was all sorted by now, been itching for a bigger bar but gor now my sub +sub combo works beautifully. The ARC would need some real wow factor for me to keep my testicles  ;)

            bbalz
            Renowned Enthusiast I
            July 20, 2020

            @Scott - Sonos - Has there been any progress made on this issue or any update you can provide to the community?  

            Lots of mixed messages are coming via email, people are starting to return the product for a replacement but receiving the same issue.  

            I am on the final week of RMA and having a hard time justifying spending $800 on a product, especially with how quiet it’s been on this issue. 

            Any status update on this would be greatly appreciated.  

            Thanks for your time.

              sebas1509
              Enthusiast II
              July 20, 2020

              @Scott - Sonos - Has there been any progress made on this issue or any update you can provide to the community?  

              Lots of mixed messages are coming via email, people are starting to return the product for a replacement but receiving the same issue.  

              I am on the final week of RMA and having a hard time justifying spending $800 on a product, especially with how quiet it’s been on this issue. 

              Any status update on this would be greatly appreciated.  

              Thanks for your time.

              Hope Scott responds quickly. But as a general thing the people on support emails probably have no idea this is being worked on in the development department so theyre just doing RMAs which is basically the general solution for audio issues, and that just doesnt solve this issue. This was stated by Ryan S before he departed SONOS. *Not defending anything or justifying* just repeating what a sonos rep said here before. But I hope Scott has an update very soon……...

              pyro225
              Enthusiast II
              July 20, 2020

              Got my replacement with a may 2020 build date my old one was March - just as bad maybe even worse 

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