Enthusiast II

Answered

Sonos Arc Muddy/Bottoming out Bass

1406 replies
193224 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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Butcher

Lyricist III

Omg. Have just got an arc seems OK on the TV but put it on to my favourite radio station this morning and the bass distortion was ridiculous at even moderate volume . If there isn't a solution soon I will have to return it as I was astonished at how bad it was.

its just funny that there almost only GOOD reviews of the arc on youtube.
Many videos where its in the top 3 of soundbars to buy :(
Maybe youtubers get money to say they are good :dizzy_face:

Ken_Griffiths

I assume folk can continue to submit Arc feedback HERE if they do encounter any issues. I’ve not come across any matters personally speaking and am ‘more than’ happy with the ARC audio connected to our LG C9 TV.

If you have an issue the answer has to be to complete and submit the requested information on the form, which looks to be a rather simple process.

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Paul and Lisa e

Lyricist III

roflmao - sonos is like a disease. my solution... I have ended up spending another £600 on a sub. as i understand this fixes it. Will see in a couple of days

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Paul and Lisa e

Lyricist III

ken - yes i would have submitted data to sonos but it was 6am. i turned my sonos arc plus surrounds onto absolute . was astonished at what i was hearing and immediately turned it off. turned on my kitchen sonos speakers, and had a coffee… then went to work wondering about what I had just heard

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Cardwizard

Enthusiast I

Ok I was so done with the bass issues on the Arc, did not return it but added the Sub, that is such an improvement wow! It should not be necessary but it solves the issue and improves the sound by a million

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Paul and Lisa e

Lyricist III

Ok I was so done with the bass issues on the Arc, did not return it but added the Sub, that is such an improvement wow! It should not be necessary but it solves the issue and improves the sound by a million

Me too. Cures everything but It's whether I stay with it or go for seperates now, as that a lot of capital invested for surround sound

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Bernado

Trending Lyricist III

Ok I was so done with the bass issues on the Arc, did not return it but added the Sub, that is such an improvement wow! It should not be necessary but it solves the issue and improves the sound by a million

And nearly costs as much!

GardeningZen

Lyricist III

What is the difference between the hardware numbers? Colour?

i have 1.27.1.8-2.1 (white Arc) and a friend of mine has 1.27.1.8-2.2 (black Arc).

he claims not to have problems but he has a sub

Mine has no problem and it is a Black Arc 1.27.1.8-1.2

I have a Black Arc with 1.27.1.8-1.2 as hardware version, and I haven’t been able to reproduce any muddy bass problems though 1) I do have a part of Fives grouped with the Arc, and 2) I do only music listening, no TV. The Fives provide plenty of bass for the overall sound stage though I may eventually get the Sub as well if I buy a TV for the room.

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martijnj

Lyricist III

After all updates so far I was not even that dissatisfied with the Arc + 2 Ones, but nonetheless, bought me a Sub gen3 during Black Friday voor 649 euros.

All I can say, OH MY GOD, what a huge difference. It completely opens up a new world, obviously the bass is way way better, but what struck me most is that the mids and the highs coming from the Arc are really much better. You notice the Arc ‘suffers’ from the fact it needs to do the bass as well in normal configuration.

So, even though the Arc really sounds great, the Sub really adds a lot. You have to bite through the pain of the extra money but you forget about it soon enough ;).

jfranche

Enthusiast I

Just was over a friends house that had a beam home theater (with sub) setup. He switched the beam with the arc and so far is considering going back to the beam (and that is without knowing any of the above).

it doesn’t make sense. The arc clearly has to be superior. It just sounded a bit “muddy”.

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