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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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    Ryan S
    Ryan S
    Retired Sonos Staff
    June 11, 2020

    Clarification please.  Does this problem go away if a sub is included because the problematic frequencies are directed to the sub?

    Yes there is no issue when paired with the sub

    Although there may not be the same issue when paired with the sub, I am noticing that the sub does not hit anywhere close to where it was when paired with the Beam.  I do have TruePlay tuned, and it is soft when I turn this off as well.  

    Interestingly enough, I just commented to my wife the other day how nice the bass sounded when we were listening to music.  Now that it is paired with the Arc, it is disappointing that it is not as strong.

    @Ryan S Can you please confirm if this is being looked into even with the Sub added? Coming from a 5.1 setup (Playbar, Sub Gen 2, and 2 Play:1’s), replacing the Playbar with the new Arc has resulted in much lower bass (requiring me to add +5 to the Sub) and a flatter sound all around with both the music and movies mentioned in this thread. When listening to songs like “Collapse” by Tennyson via Spotify, the Arc sounds much softer with mids and highs and the bass is nowhere near as prevalent compared to when the Playbar was part of the setup.

    I’ll let the team know what you’re seeing. If you can submit a diagnostic and let me know the confirmation number, I’ll get it to them.

    Mark good posts by pressing the like button, and select the best answer on questions you've asked to help others find solutions.
      AndrewGL
      Lyricist I
      June 11, 2020

      Same deal here. Coming from Playbar 5.1 to Arc 5.1. Highs mids sound amazing, but I am hearing much much less bass in both movies with Dolby Atmos and with music. I also had the volume pumped up to 65%, whereas with my playbar I never felt the need to go above 35-45%. In general the rears don’t seem to be pushing much sound either.

       

      @Ryan S diagnostic number is 1703600904

      jordharg
      Lyricist I
      June 11, 2020

      Clarification please.  Does this problem go away if a sub is included because the problematic frequencies are directed to the sub?

      Yes there is no issue when paired with the sub

      Although there may not be the same issue when paired with the sub, I am noticing that the sub does not hit anywhere close to where it was when paired with the Beam.  I do have TruePlay tuned, and it is soft when I turn this off as well.  

      Interestingly enough, I just commented to my wife the other day how nice the bass sounded when we were listening to music.  Now that it is paired with the Arc, it is disappointing that it is not as strong.

      @Ryan S Can you please confirm if this is being looked into even with the Sub added? Coming from a 5.1 setup (Playbar, Sub Gen 2, and 2 Play:1’s), replacing the Playbar with the new Arc has resulted in much lower bass (requiring me to add +5 to the Sub) and a flatter sound all around with both the music and movies mentioned in this thread. When listening to songs like “Collapse” by Tennyson via Spotify, the Arc sounds much softer with mids and highs and the bass is nowhere near as prevalent compared to when the Playbar was part of the setup.

      I’ll let the team know what you’re seeing. If you can submit a diagnostic and let me know the confirmation number, I’ll get it to them.

      @Ryan S Diagnostic: 1822024529

      Additionally, on the track “Nothing Revealed / Everything Denied” by The 1975 - the sub/bass was consistently prominent with the Playbar setup and only gets close to the same level about halfway through the song when other instruments go quiet momentarily. The song still sounds flat all around with the Arc now.

      Thanks for looking into this!

       

      Keithmac
      Virtuoso
      June 11, 2020

      There's some terrible sounding recordings on here, hope you all get a solution sorted out quickly.

      Anyone that's upgraded from a Playbar, does the ARC seem as well built/ substantial?.

      Airgetlam
      Airgetlam
      June 11, 2020

      Yes, it’s definitely an upgrade. 

      Bruce
        ewolkoff
        Enthusiast II
        June 11, 2020

        Yes, it’s definitely an upgrade. 

        Agreed. I have the sub ( and am not suffering through this issue) and the Arc is a big upgrade from the Playbar, which was already great.

          Dauda
          Lyricist III
          June 11, 2020

          Hi all,

           

          im unfortunately having the same issue.

           

          at first I thought is sounded great but I noticed in some movies and with bass heavy music the speakers feel blow out and get muddy on the low frequencies…

           

          i wanted a single bar component to replace my Samsung MS-750 which does not have Atmos or height speaker but can go loud without ANY distortion with any track played…


          I hope a fix comes soon and it is not a hardware issue. After paying EUR 900 for a device you would expect it to workout out of the box and gone through proper testing.

          The reviewers must have played with it for 10 minutes on low before turning on the Sub and really testing it.

           

          no way is this an isolated issue.

           

          i trueplayed my device and using it as is.

          hope there is a fix otherwise I’m returning it and keeping my 2017 Samsung that blows this thing out of the water in terms of volume and bass.

          disappointing after reading the raving reviews and reading up about the Sonos brand !

           

           

           

          ripcordaff
          Trending Lyricist I
          June 11, 2020

          Wait a minute - I was just listening to some music on my One in my kitchen and the woofer sounded like it was bottoming out at very reasonable volume levels. I haven’t done any critical listening, but has anyone else checked their other speakers? Did the update that installed affect all the EQ of all Sonos speakers? Or just the Arc? My Play:5 sounded OK earlier, but I wasn’t listening for anything out of the ordinary. 

          arpatil1
          Enthusiast II
          June 11, 2020

          Wait a minute - I was just listening to some music on my One in my kitchen and the woofer sounded like it was bottoming out at very reasonable volume levels. I haven’t done any critical listening, but has anyone else checked their other speakers? Did the update that installed affect all the EQ of all Sonos speakers? Or just the Arc? My Play:5 sounded OK earlier, but I wasn’t listening for anything out of the ordinary. 

          My stereo ones sounds as good as before. No issue there.

          Habbas
          Habbas
          Contributor I
          June 11, 2020

          Same issue here. The bass response is terrible. My beam at about 50% volume has a smoother And cleaner response. This is terribly disappointing and so glad I read this thread. I thought it was me. 
           

          The Highs and mids are incredibly detailed and crisp though. It is a LOT louder when compared to the beam. 
           

          The bass for me was poor while listening to music (Spotify and Apple Music), watching inception on Netflix was great until the bass kicked in and same muddled response. Plugged in the PS4 Pro to play some call of duty and yet again same experience. My sub has yet to be delivered, but thinking of cancelling both and sticking with the beam (much better value for money). 
           

          I have the arc placed on my wooden tv unit with the tv behind it. This is the same location I had the beam with no issues at all. All running through HDMI Arc. Not using optical. 
           

          Hope a software update fixes the issue otherwise, bye bye Sonos Arc. 
           

           

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