Enthusiast II

Answered

Sonos Arc Muddy/Bottoming out Bass

1406 replies
193263 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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S

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.

Show previous replies

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Dauda

Lyricist III

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.

Once you have the sub, you will not have any issues...

No offense but the sub and bar are sold independently of each other. The bar should work perfectly at 800 dollars or 900 euros without a sub. While we don’t expect thundering bass like a 10 inch subwoofer it was sold as being good without.

I have a Samsung soundbar from 2017 without a subwoofer ( MS-750) that kills the ARC right now in bass precision and zero distortion. The soundfield of the ARC is definitely wider and heightened, Highs and Mids are great but the lows are terribly inaccurate and ugly at certain frequencies. Sounds like the speaker is about to blow or blown.

just add the 700 dollars sub and it will be fixed 😂. Not that I can’t but I don’t want to inside my apartment.

P

pyro225

Enthusiast II

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.

this has been going on for years and there is still no fix…

https://en.community.sonos.com/wireless-speakers-228992/sonos-play-1-low-bass-popping-6787879/index2.html

Habbas

Contributor I

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.

And just to add the issue does go away slightly when I turn loudness off. Have a try and see if that helps until there’s a fix?

D

Dauda

Lyricist III

I invite my English speaking friends to read this French review. You can use google translate if you wish but the important graph/image is in the Audio section.

you can see the harmonic distortions with and without the sub. (With sub in red, black without the sub).

After 110hz and below the ARC without the sub is pathetic.

seems like a scam to get you to buy the Sub...

https://www.lesnumeriques.com/enceinte-home-cinema/sonos-arc-p57755/test.html

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craigski

Local Superstar

After 110hz and below the ARC without the sub is pathetic.

https://www.lesnumeriques.com/enceinte-home-cinema/sonos-arc-p57755/test.html

@Dauda Does it say what volume level they used to measure the THD? I did English translation but couldn’t see they mentioned the volume level. Need some context to understand the graph, as if the graph was really bad, how come the review still says 4 stars out of 5 for Audio?

J

Jacobjacobi

Trending Lyricist I

I invite my English speaking friends to read this French review. You can use google translate if you wish but the important graph/image is in the Audio section.

you can see the harmonic distortions with and without the sub. (With sub in red, black without the sub).

After 110hz and below the ARC without the sub is pathetic.

seems like a scam to get you to buy the Sub...

https://www.lesnumeriques.com/enceinte-home-cinema/sonos-arc-p57755/test.html

the review is still a positive one, with some referred to imperfections in the high and low end.

I do hear the issue, but I have tried a lot more since I reported it and I see it as a minor one.

there is a reason we have subs and insanely expensive separates systems.

I don’t expect perfect Atmos and flawless quality from an £800 soundbar without a Sub woofer.

the issue is then, could it better handle the issue it has in the toy story type example and I think yes.

others keep referring to a batch, but Sonos have confirmed they can replicate the issue and believe it is software related. Let’s give them the benefit of the doubt.

M

mdreiager

Lyricist III

I invite my English speaking friends to read this French review. You can use google translate if you wish but the important graph/image is in the Audio section.

you can see the harmonic distortions with and without the sub. (With sub in red, black without the sub).

After 110hz and below the ARC without the sub is pathetic.

seems like a scam to get you to buy the Sub...

https://www.lesnumeriques.com/enceinte-home-cinema/sonos-arc-p57755/test.html

the review is still a positive one, with some referred to imperfections in the high and low end.

I do hear the issue, but I have tried a lot more since I reported it and I see it as a minor one.

there is a reason we have subs and insanely expensive separates systems.

I don’t expect perfect Atmos and flawless quality from an £800 soundbar without a Sub woofer.

the issue is then, could it better handle the issue it has in the toy story type example and I think yes.

others keep referring to a batch, but Sonos have confirmed they can replicate the issue and believe it is software related. Let’s give them the benefit of the doubt.

Again, if this isn’t a batch, but a software issue. How is this not affecting everyone? We’re all on the same damn software.

J

Jacobjacobi

Trending Lyricist I

I invite my English speaking friends to read this French review. You can use google translate if you wish but the important graph/image is in the Audio section.

you can see the harmonic distortions with and without the sub. (With sub in red, black without the sub).

After 110hz and below the ARC without the sub is pathetic.

seems like a scam to get you to buy the Sub...

https://www.lesnumeriques.com/enceinte-home-cinema/sonos-arc-p57755/test.html

the review is still a positive one, with some referred to imperfections in the high and low end.

I do hear the issue, but I have tried a lot more since I reported it and I see it as a minor one.

there is a reason we have subs and insanely expensive separates systems.

I don’t expect perfect Atmos and flawless quality from an £800 soundbar without a Sub woofer.

the issue is then, could it better handle the issue it has in the toy story type example and I think yes.

others keep referring to a batch, but Sonos have confirmed they can replicate the issue and believe it is software related. Let’s give them the benefit of the doubt.

Again, if this isn’t a batch, but a software issue. How is this not affecting everyone? We’re all on the same damn software

We all assume we are doing it exactly the same way and that we are all as sensitive to it.

I listened to some of the tracks on my arc for example and hear no issue, but definitely have it with toy story.

music was via airplay and toy story was via iTunes movies, through a LG C9.

the point being that mine appears to have it in one instance and not in another (or I am not sensitive to it).

I’m not an audio engineer but the fact that Sonos could replicate it gives me comfort that it’s not a hardware issue: I am assuming that they tried it against various arcs of course.