Enthusiast II

Answered

Sonos Arc Muddy/Bottoming out Bass

1406 replies
193223 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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bbalz

Renowned Enthusiast I

Each time there’s an update the support people who I’ve been dealing with since the beginning tell me to remove my surrounds and re-tune the Arc by itself and see how it sounds… send diagnostics. Add the surrounds, see if the sound is better/worse and send more diagnostics.

haven't had luck either way myself and according to @portwash, apparently they aren’t looking into the muddy or wobbly bass with the new testing that is happening and just routing you to the support team.

in time it’ll probably be addressed but almost wish they’d just give me a 30% off for a sub and I think I’d just buy it to be done with all the testing they’re asking me to do

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Cardwizard

Enthusiast I

After the new update and new Trueplay it does not sound better, bass is terrible

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mikecousins

Lyricist III

Yeah it’s still sounding really terrible. Completely unlistenable.

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sebas1509

Enthusiast II

Yeah it’s still sounding really terrible. Completely unlistenable.

While I understand some people think the bass isn’t quite there and not as good as it should be. I’m very baffled by this type of comments. Because 1) I would never say it’s unlistenable and others that have heard mine don’t think so either. (Maybe you can argue not performing at the $800) but terrible garbage unlistenable certainly NOT.

kind of wondering why someone would buy a speaker for $800 and think it’s unlistenable and garbage and keep it?? Oh well…

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RedVespaBlur

Lyricist III

Yeah it’s still sounding really terrible. Completely unlistenable.

While I understand some people think the bass isn’t quite there and not as good as it should be. I’m very baffled by this type of comments. Because 1) I would never say it’s unlistenable and others that have heard mine don’t think so either. (Maybe you can argue not performing at the $800) but terrible garbage unlistenable certainly NOT.

kind of wondering why someone would buy a speaker for $800 and think it’s unlistenable and garbage and keep it?? Oh well…

Agreed. Mine is great. They talk about paid reviews - these guys sound like paid trolls.

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mikecousins

Lyricist III

I could never imagine calling it great. Wow. Are you honestly saying your bass doesn’t sound like someone pounding a yogurt container?

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sebas1509

Enthusiast II

I could never imagine calling it great. Wow. Are you honestly saying your bass doesn’t sound like someone pounding a yogurt container?

100 percent I’m saying this. I would agree it isn’t the punchiest bass. But music is enjoyable good enough. If you love music speakers I wouldn’t use this as my main music speaker. For me it’s good but yeah it doesn’t compare to the five. But for me it’s good enough. Especially if you add one surrounds they complement the music very much adding the bass from the ones.

Why would you not return the arc or ask for a replacement if the speaker doesn’t work properly

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RedVespaBlur

Lyricist III

I came from a Playbar and this I find much better - I love the wide soundstage and Atmos - used judiciously by the content creator- works well.

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craigski

Local Superstar

I’m very baffled by this type of comments.

Love the term baffled when discussing sound.

Some of us are baffled, some have speakers that are baffled, some both :joy: