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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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    Seeky
    Prominent Collaborator II
    June 13, 2020

    Unfortunately I have found a really bad example of this phenomenon that brings me back to thinking the arc will have to go back if not fixed. 
     

    listen to “Bats in the Attic” by King Creosote and Jon Hopkins. From 1:43 the bass is just unlistenable. It is awful. Sorry. 
     

    https://www.dropbox.com/sh/zufvp791ofpv079/AADKtrP9qEyCHAuTZmSTRJS6a?dl=0

    Empty folder ;(

    Jacobjacobi
    Trending Lyricist I
    June 13, 2020

    Unfortunately I have found a really bad example of this phenomenon that brings me back to thinking the arc will have to go back if not fixed. 
     

    listen to “Bats in the Attic” by King Creosote and Jon Hopkins. From 1:43 the bass is just unlistenable. It is awful. Sorry. 
     

    https://www.dropbox.com/sh/zufvp791ofpv079/AADKtrP9qEyCHAuTZmSTRJS6a?dl=0

    Empty folder ;(

    Sorry. Yes. I had an issue. 
     

    I have just had a breakthrough for how the issue effects my setup. I have two play:1s as rears. I think this has been touched on before, but the issue mostly goes away if I set surround to full and not ambient. 

    I redid the Toy Story test, but with rears off and the issue also goes away. 
     

    This is clearly a software issue. 
     

    there are two recordings in the folder. One set to ambient and one to full. 
     

    https://www.dropbox.com/sh/zufvp791ofpv079/AADKtrP9qEyCHAuTZmSTRJS6a?dl=0
     

     

    maurice.pothoven
    Trending Lyricist II
    June 13, 2020

    I’ve just tried without the One’s but no difference for me. It sounds horrible :(

     

     

    Jacobjacobi
    Trending Lyricist I
    June 13, 2020

    I’ve just tried without the One’s but no difference for me. It sounds horrible :(

     

     

    I have also found that my position really effects it. If I am in the middle of the room with no soft furnishings it is very hard to identify. If I am sitting in the corner of the corner sofa (couch) it drowns out most other sound as per the first recording   

    kelly206
    Lyricist II
    June 13, 2020

    I’m playing music on my entire home setup and It appears to me that all of my home speakers have lost the tightness in the bass and And are predominately treble which is disappointing. 
     

    My play 5 combined with my arc surround sound sounds bad. My play 5 + sub before the addition of the arc’s was amazing.  I did notice an improvement when I changed the audio output to full from ambient. 

     

    Also a major headache for me is the inability to have my subs multipurpose between my play 5 and my Arc surround sounds. Im hoping to just use my old play 5 + subs since the sound for me before was far superior. 
     

    My setup if it matters.

     

    Family room: 

    Arc

    Sub

    Pair of ones sl

     

    Dining room

    Play 5

     

    Living room

    Arc

    Sub

    One sl


     

     

    bbalz
    Renowned Enthusiast I
    June 13, 2020

    @Ryan S Thanks for all the information you’ve passed along and bringing this to the team.  Does the team anticipate when they might be releasing this update?  

      maurice.pothoven
      Trending Lyricist II
      June 13, 2020

      Or going back to before this first Arc update?

      Mightbeandy
      Lyricist I
      June 13, 2020

      I’m playing music on my entire home setup and It appears to me that all of my home speakers have lost the tightness in the bass and And are predominately treble which is disappointing. 
       

      My play 5 combined with my arc surround sound sounds bad. My play 5 + sub before the addition of the arc’s was amazing.  I did notice an improvement when I changed the audio output to full from ambient. 

       

      I wasn’t sure if I was going crazy but I was thinking the bass on my play 5 also didn’t sound as good as it used to... 

      Seeky
      Prominent Collaborator II
      June 13, 2020

      I’m playing music on my entire home setup and It appears to me that all of my home speakers have lost the tightness in the bass and And are predominately treble which is disappointing. 
       

      My play 5 combined with my arc surround sound sounds bad. My play 5 + sub before the addition of the arc’s was amazing.  I did notice an improvement when I changed the audio output to full from ambient. 

       

      I wasn’t sure if I was going crazy but I was thinking the bass on my play 5 also didn’t sound as good as it used to... 

      I did the comparison Arc vs Play:5, the Play:5 atm definitely is much better. I can’t really tell if the Play:5 quality degraded, but what I can say is that it doesn’t have the bass bottoming out like the Arc does...

      britishwonderings
      Enthusiast I
      June 13, 2020

      My beams bass sounds better. Much tighter. Got the arc yesterday and been battling atmos. Thought I’d check on this issue as well. 
       

      • What are you watching or playing that you’re hearing this on? Tried it with Daft Punk - Loose Yourself To Dance

      • What volume do you experience this at? 50% ish - no adjustments  

      • Is your Arc wall-mounted? No

      • Are you using Trueplay, and does it go away if you turn Trueplay off? No

      • Do you have the Bass EQ setting flat or adjusted in some way? Flat

      • If it’s possible, can you share an image of the setup? Excuse the state of my basement, midst of painting etc 

      •  

      • Please submit a diagnostic from the system with it happening and let us know the number.488487580

      FYI not tried it with the sub. 

      Thanks

      A

       

       

      Beam. 2x Play:1 - 2x Play One (gen 2) - Sub - 2x Play 5 - Move
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