Sonos Arc Muddy/Bottoming out Bass

The bass got a lot better after I turned off trueplay and increased bass in the eq to compensate!

It seems like when trueplay tries to increase bass it also does bleed into the midrange a lot and the hardware of the arc can’t handle that, so the sound hardens up. 
 

Based on my experience Trueplay makes a huge difference to the sound profile for good or bad. It took multiple Trueplay attempts (trying different ways) but eventually I got the sound I'm happy with.

There are multiple variables for doing Trueplay so my advice would be to try it few times. Searching this forum would get you few advices.

My suggestion to Sonos for simplifying Trueplay and making it more seamless is- include/sell a mic like few other companies do to use for Trueplay tuning. And put up a separate guide to Trueplay the soundbars as the standard way of roaming around the whole room didn't give me the best results for Arc.

I just added two Sonos One SL surround speakers to my Sonos Arc. I’ve been using the Arc without surrounds for about 2 months prior. I don’t have a Sub.

Before adding the surrounds the bass produced by the Arc was full, deep and balanced. I had my EQ bass setting on 5 and it sounded incredible. After adding the One SLs the bass sounds pretty bad. It now seems to be mostly in the deep lows and it sounds very unbalanced. Both me and my partner think the bass sounds muted and bad.

I tried running the TruePlay calibration twice and I played with the EQ. Increasing the bass through the EQ increases the bass output in the very low spectrum but makes it sound worse overall.

This happens both with music and with movies and with pretty much any source (stereo or Atmos).

I’m kind of disappointed after investing in the surrounds and having a worse overall sound.

Seems odd, that’s certainly counter to my experience. Have you contacted Sonos support with a diagnostic, so they can see what might be going on?

An update on my issue with bad bass after adding SLs as surrounds to the Arc:

I tried removing the surrounds from the app and played some content through the Arc alone. After removing the surrounds the Arc showed up as True Play enabled in the app (I’m assuming it remembers the last True Play configuration from before the surrounds were added). Lo and behold - the sound quality from the Arc was back to normal! Bass sounded great again.

I then added the SLs as surrounds again through the app. True play showed up as disabled. I played some content before running True play and the sound quality was great. Basically, the Arc continued to sound the same as before adding the surrounds. So now I’ve kept it this way: Arc and surrounds but without True Play enabled.

However, I’m really puzzled. Is this an issue with True Play or is this some intentional adjustment by Sonos. Is it possible that Sonos intentionally lowers the bass of the system when surrounds are added? Or maybe a clever ploy to get us to buy the Sub? :)

I understand that Sonos prefers not to allow users to manually configure the parameters of their products and, generally, I think this is a sensible product design decision. But maybe they could allow users to view the parameters in read only mode. That way us power users could try to debug some of our problems and understand better what’s going on.

As with others on this thread, I have the same issue with the Arc and 2 SLs in my system all on 13.2.  No sub. Disabling True Play eliminates the muddy bass sound, but the overall surround sound quality is not as good as with True Play enabled.  I am living with True Play disabled for now but find myself wondering why it is taking Sonos so long to fix the issue. Leads me to believe that it is hardware related and perhaps cannot be addressed with a firmware update. Certainly hope that is NOT the case.

Sonos Team, what is the status here? Can we expect a fix for this in the near future? 

*** Previously posted under - Sonos 2021 Crackle Topic **.

I installed a new Sonos Arc last week of August 2021. This is connected to a 2021 Samsung TU8000 TV. No problem establishing an eArc connection and receiving an Atmos signal via the TV's eArc HDMI input. 

Problem is loud popping sounds when it comes to the throbbing punchy bass. The sound is muddy and bottoming out. Arc just doesnt seem able to handle the bass sounds mostly especially during Atmos and HD5.1 play back. (By the way I don't get any Atmos effects. But that's for another day). The Arc does produce clean deep bass depending on the source. So this is a Signal/Sound  processing problem not a Hardware issue. 

The Tomorrow War on Prime Video is unwatchable due to this issue. Really horrible sound. So there's definitely a Late 2021 Sonos Arc Bass Issue. The bad spots are the mid to deep bass frequencies. 

Hey Sonos,

Instead of increasing your prices for no good reason apart from greed why don’t you spent some time trying to make your (now even more) ridiculously overpriced products work properly? The sound quality issues described here clearly affects a lot of your unfortunate customers. If you expect people to pay nearly $1000 for a soundbar MAKE IT WORK!!

ADDRESS AND FIX THIS ISSUE ONCE AND FOR ALL! Stop ignoring it.

I was already on the fence about buying any more Sonos products but with your unwillingness to fix issues and now this outrageous price increase you’ve lost me for good.

Hey all,

I would also like to state my disappointment with the sonos arc. I was expecting much more from such an expensive sound bar. Generally the sound is slightly better than my JBL charge 4. I am thinking of returning it for a sonos 5. If I could I would return it for cash and buy something other than sonos. Not worth the money for the sound quality.

Hey everyone,

I just updated my Arc with dual rears and a sub. My problem is the following : sometimes voices especially the low ones like henry cavill voice in the witcher appears to be distorded or muddy. It seems like voices are baddly handled.

I tried multiple eq settings and trueplay too but still same issues.

Any Ideas ?