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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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    Cardwizard
    Enthusiast I
    September 11, 2020

    There is no way that an app update can make improvements in the way a speaker sounds, I tested a while now and the Arc still do not sound good! Period

      ricow
      Lyricist III
      September 11, 2020

      Try doing a new trueplay. It surely fixes the muddy bass from a tuning point. Would make sense as they can manipulatie the way audio sounds using trueplay. Make sure that there is actually no other sound happen when doing the trueplay. Als make sure that you walk in front of the arc at least once. 
       

      Really did the trick for me.  So fingers crossed it will solve your muddy bass as well. :)

        Niko79
        Trending Lyricist I
        September 14, 2020

        What's surprising, is that noone else really has commented on the latest update. So many people complained about the sound in the previous months, including myself, and now (past 12.0.6) there is noone else to confirm there is an improvement or not aside from one person. Weird... 

        Viljavi
        Avid Contributor I
        September 14, 2020

        In my case, after the update I still have the treble sounds at -6, I think people do not write because many have already returned it and those who have not are already discouraged

          bbalz
          Renowned Enthusiast I
          September 14, 2020

          The 12.0.6 update did not fix the issue for me.

          If Trueplay was the way to fix it, that wouldn’t really be a good thing since there are lots of people out there who can’t Trueplay because they don’t have an iOS device.  

          Trueplay shouldn’t fix problems in my opinion, it should only enhance the sound to make it sound even better for the room it’s in.  The soundbar should sound good without Trueplay being done.

          However, after trueplaying again for me… the muddy bass still exists.

          I’ve just kind of given up until I see firmware hit my soundbar before I really put it through it’s paces.  I did try again this time because of 2 people reporting it here in the thread but didn’t really have high hopes, for good reason.

            Doozeruk
            Lyricist III
            September 14, 2020

            What's surprising, is that noone else really has commented on the latest update. So many people complained about the sound in the previous months, including myself, and now (past 12.0.6) there is noone else to confirm there is an improvement or not aside from one person. Weird... 

            Got fed up and could never see an improvement happening so returned mine.. No complaints now 

            akawoj
            Lyricist III
            September 14, 2020

            12.0.6 didn't help. I did second truetone calibration. Same story - using this device near 50% of volume makes some bass frequencies unlistenable. It is even hard to say how bad it is. It sounds like some cheap speaker put at 100% of volume.

            I'm disappointed...

            Can anyone guide me with RMA procedure?

             

            Doozeruk
            Lyricist III
            September 14, 2020

            Log in to Sonos account and hit returns in menu.. Its all quite simple and done well. 

              Niko79
              Trending Lyricist I
              September 14, 2020

              Well, my overall experience improved but I had my RMAed. Will keep watching this thread. 

                dmlear57
                Trending Lyricist I
                September 15, 2020

                I did the upgrade, rebooted the Arc and redid Trueplay. So far it sounds much better. At regular listening levels it seems like that wierd bass sound is gone. It no longer sounds like someone banging on a plastic tub. If I have trueplay on I hear it slightly, if I turn trueplay off it seems to be gone. We’ll see how it goes over time

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