Enthusiast II

Answered

Sonos Arc Muddy/Bottoming out Bass

1406 replies
193257 views

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

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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Cdodge

Lyricist III

I just got my second one for my bedroom, this one came from PA the first one came from CA. The new one has the same issue. I do not have any subs or rears setup with the new one. At first I thought it didn’t have the issue but after trying a few more movies I started to notice it. Then after tuning it it got worse.

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bbalz

Renowned Enthusiast I

I just tried playing Spotify, 2pac - Changes after moving it to another room on another TV and I had it up to 80% and the soundbar sounded fantastic.

I’m going to move it back to the newer Samsung (2017) that it was on before and it was having the low bass issues. Not sure if these posts are helping or not but just trying to track any adjustments I’m doing and noticing the differences.

Through my testing with the sub and minus the sub… adding it makes all the difference. It removes the need for the Arc to punch as hard and any clips/movie scenes that were noted in this thread or on Reddit I’ve tested and without the sub I have similar experiences but when I add the sub it doesn’t pop/bottom out at all.

With that, I would hope that means a software update could fix this if the bass is being pushed too hard for the Arc at certain frequencies. It’s very obvious if I have the sub + Arc that things sound exactly as I would expect and when I disable teh sub and play the same clips again that the bass bottoms back out.

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bbalz

Renowned Enthusiast I

Thanks for all the great details everyone! We really appreciate what you’ve shared so far. The engineering team is looking into this right now and they’ve been able to reproduce it using your feedback. They’re working on a software fix for it now.

I’ll let you know when there’s more to share. I don’t have a timeline right now as they’re just getting started, but hopefully it won’t be long.

As of now, we don’t need more details on this one, but I’ll let you know if the team determines they need some more data.

Thanks again!

You guys rock!

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ggmogollonAuthor

Enthusiast II

Thanks, Ryan. Very impressed at your team’s responsiveness to the issue. Looking forward to getting that update!

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ewolkoff

Enthusiast II

Is there any way that anyone can share a recording of what this sounds like, somehow?

Here, have a listen, its the same song on Arc and Play5

Bass Drops by Bass Boosted Beats on Amazon Music

https://www.dropbox.com/s/c12advxtdhsj25f/Arc2.m4a?dl=0

https://www.dropbox.com/s/19ghgov1pnxxkr5/Play5.2.m4a?dl=0

This is exactly what is happening for me.

This song plays much better on my Stereo Sonos Ones. Arc really sounds garbage.

I unpaired my sub and am not hearing what you did on Bass Drops. It doesn’t bottom out. Do you need to play it at a really high volume to reproduce this?

EDIT: Glad a software fix is coming.

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Highfalutintodd

Prominent Collaborator I

Thanks for all the great details everyone! We really appreciate what you’ve shared so far. The engineering team is looking into this right now and they’ve been able to reproduce it using your feedback. They’re working on a software fix for it now.

I’ll let you know when there’s more to share. I don’t have a timeline right now as they’re just getting started, but hopefully it won’t be long.

As of now, we don’t need more details on this one, but I’ll let you know if the team determines they need some more data.

Thanks again!

Thanks for the fast response, Ryan. Got to say, I’m impressed with Sonos jumping in and QUICKLY admitting there’s a potential issue. Mine will be arriving and I'll be anxiously waiting to see if 1) there's a problem with mine and 2) if Sonos is able to come up with a fix.

Arc + Sub 3 + One SLs = Awesome and Loving It!

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KGT94

Lyricist III

Thanks for all the great details everyone! We really appreciate what you’ve shared so far. The engineering team is looking into this right now and they’ve been able to reproduce it using your feedback. They’re working on a software fix for it now.

I’ll let you know when there’s more to share. I don’t have a timeline right now as they’re just getting started, but hopefully it won’t be long.

As of now, we don’t need more details on this one, but I’ll let you know if the team determines they need some more data.

Thanks again!

Thank you for the quick work on this.

My only concern now, is why are only some users affected by this? Do we have physically different soundbars that sound worse than those who do not expeirence the issue? Is my soundbar being reduced in function with this fix compared to others, or are they all the same and some people are missing something in their software?

A breakdown of what was fixed after this would help put these fears to rest, if possible?

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bbalz

Renowned Enthusiast I

Thanks for all the great details everyone! We really appreciate what you’ve shared so far. The engineering team is looking into this right now and they’ve been able to reproduce it using your feedback. They’re working on a software fix for it now.

I’ll let you know when there’s more to share. I don’t have a timeline right now as they’re just getting started, but hopefully it won’t be long.

As of now, we don’t need more details on this one, but I’ll let you know if the team determines they need some more data.

Thanks again!

Thank you for the quick work on this.

My only concern now, is why are only some users affected by this? Do we have physically different soundbars that sound worse than those who do not expeirence the issue? Is my soundbar being reduced in function with this fix compared to others, or are they all the same and some people are missing something in their software?

A breakdown of what was fixed after this would help put these fears to rest, if possible?

My guess might be different ears or different expectations. Those not having the issue, have they had Sonos products in the past? Do they have a Beam or Playbar? Lots of variables.

My wife for example said, ‘isn’t that how it’s supposed to sound? isn’t that the loud bass like the media room with the beam + subwoofer?’

At least that’s what I’m hoping. Once the software update is out, if it does indeed fix it for those who were reporting the issue I would chalk it up to people having different expectations/listening ears, etc.

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bdkraem

Lyricist I

Thanks for all the great details everyone! We really appreciate what you’ve shared so far. The engineering team is looking into this right now and they’ve been able to reproduce it using your feedback. They’re working on a software fix for it now.

I’ll let you know when there’s more to share. I don’t have a timeline right now as they’re just getting started, but hopefully it won’t be long.

As of now, we don’t need more details on this one, but I’ll let you know if the team determines they need some more data.

Thanks again!

Thank you for the quick work on this.

My only concern now, is why are only some users affected by this? Do we have physically different soundbars that sound worse than those who do not expeirence the issue? Is my soundbar being reduced in function with this fix compared to others, or are they all the same and some people are missing something in their software?

A breakdown of what was fixed after this would help put these fears to rest, if possible?

My guess might be different ears or different expectations. Those not having the issue, have they had Sonos products in the past? Do they have a Beam or Playbar? Lots of variables.

My wife for example said, ‘isn’t that how it’s supposed to sound? isn’t that the loud bass like the media room with the beam + subwoofer?’

At least that’s what I’m hoping. Once the software update is out, if it does indeed fix it for those who were reporting the issue I would chalk it up to people having different expectations/listening ears, etc.

I really doubt it. Having a single Sonos One sound better than an $800 sound bar (as another reported) really isn’t acceptable. A lot of these reports were coming from people that have other Sonos products. 40-50% volume on bass heavy music shouldn’t make speakers sound like muddled garbage. You could clearly hear it even over cell phone recordings.

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Pompyblade

Contributor III

Thanks for all the great details everyone! We really appreciate what you’ve shared so far. The engineering team is looking into this right now and they’ve been able to reproduce it using your feedback. They’re working on a software fix for it now.

I’ll let you know when there’s more to share. I don’t have a timeline right now as they’re just getting started, but hopefully it won’t be long.

As of now, we don’t need more details on this one, but I’ll let you know if the team determines they need some more data.

Thanks again!

Don’t suppose you can help me out referencing my post on here. Not got anywhere with technical su

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