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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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    bbalz
    Renowned Enthusiast I
    June 14, 2020

    Hi everyone, I just came across this and I thought it would be interesting to share 

    You can clearly hear that The Playbar has better low end which does not match what other reviewers are saying

    @Ryan S is this related to this bass issue we are all having here?

     

    Playbar did sound much warmer and balanced. Arc’s bass is poor with too much treble. I was expecting much better sound from Arc given how much time they had in between it and the playbar. Currently, i feel like my pair of ones as surrounds are pulling all the weight. Don’t know how much the software update will improve things.

    $799 is ridiculous for the sound it produces. Good at 30% off ($559) which I paid or even less.

    @Ryan S Please let the team know they have a lot of work to do on the Arc. At this moment, it feels half-baked. 

     

    I thought you posted the other day that you received it and had no issues?  What changed?  

    I mean honestly I expected most people to have issues but just wondering.

     

    From your post: 

    Support just reached out to initiate a replacement based upon my initial case from day one. Has anyone else received anything similar? I hate to go though that process if it really is software related but the fact that some people appear to not be affected is strange. 

    Now you’ve got me concerned that they have determined it’s hardware and we are all going to need replacements haha. Hopefully we get an update from Sonos today. 

    I received my Arc today, and don’t have the issue. I did play all the songs listed here and compared them to the recordings people have provided. My Arc sounds different and better. Could be a hardware issue. Who knows!

     

    arpatil1
    Enthusiast II
    June 14, 2020

    Hi everyone, I just came across this and I thought it would be interesting to share 

    You can clearly hear that The Playbar has better low end which does not match what other reviewers are saying

    @Ryan S is this related to this bass issue we are all having here?

     

    Playbar did sound much warmer and balanced. Arc’s bass is poor with too much treble. I was expecting much better sound from Arc given how much time they had in between it and the playbar. Currently, i feel like my pair of ones as surrounds are pulling all the weight. Don’t know how much the software update will improve things.

    $799 is ridiculous for the sound it produces. Good at 30% off ($559) which I paid or even less.

    @Ryan S Please let the team know they have a lot of work to do on the Arc. At this moment, it feels half-baked. 

     

    I thought you posted the other day that you received it and had no issues?  What changed?  

    I mean honestly I expected most people to have issues but just wondering.

     

    From your post: 

    Support just reached out to initiate a replacement based upon my initial case from day one. Has anyone else received anything similar? I hate to go though that process if it really is software related but the fact that some people appear to not be affected is strange. 

    Now you’ve got me concerned that they have determined it’s hardware and we are all going to need replacements haha. Hopefully we get an update from Sonos today. 

    I received my Arc today, and don’t have the issue. I did play all the songs listed here and compared them to the recordings people have provided. My Arc sounds different and better. Could be a hardware issue. Who knows!

     

    Yes, don’t have the issue or at least don’t notice it (may be because I never exceed 50% volume). I was commenting on the overall sound quality, especially for music. For $799 (MSRP), it sounds underwhelming. Would never buy on its own (pair of surrounds is must). Since the update will likely only address bass bottoming out, I doubt it would improve the sound by a lot of margin.

    let’s see.

     

     

    maurice.pothoven
    Trending Lyricist II
    June 14, 2020

    I think it’s 1.27.1.8-1.2 and 1.1 just the color.

    No…

    1.27.1.8.2.1 and 1.27.1.8.2.2

    check your system info

    maurice.pothoven
    Trending Lyricist II
    June 14, 2020

    This one is of that friend of mine

    PowdeRiver
    Lyricist III
    June 14, 2020

    All my products end with .2 and are black are you in the states? Maybe it the power connection

    maurice.pothoven
    Trending Lyricist II
    June 14, 2020

    All my products end with .2 and are black

    But the your final to last is a 1 and mine a 2. The one my friend had 2.2 and is a black Arc

    What i’m on about is maybe a certain hardware version has the issues? @Ryan S 

    dylan290
    Lyricist II
    June 14, 2020

    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. 


    Same issue here, arc bass sounds really bad on music and most movies. @Ryan S I know you said your team is working on a software fix but can you confirm the root cause of the issue is a software issue and not a hardware issue?

    I still see a lot of posts and reviews that rave about the arc so why are only some so satisfied while others can barely listen to it?

     

     

     

     

     

      PowdeRiver
      Lyricist III
      June 14, 2020

      The last digit is color, second to last digit is prob power supply. They wouldn’t design something for the last few years just to change the hardware during the production process.

      Jacobjacobi
      Trending Lyricist I
      June 14, 2020

      Hi everyone, I just came across this and I thought it would be interesting to share 

       

      You can clearly hear that The Playbar has better low end which does not match what other reviewers are saying

      @Ryan S is this related to this bass issue we are all having here?

       


      but their conclusion is that they love it, even with the base as it is. 
       

      this appears to really be a question of taste. I think there is something weird happening in some specific situations, but overall I think the sound is amazing. 
       

      I was worried that the bass issue was hardware related and that would have been a problem for me, but it really seems to be related to how it interacts to with the rears for me and so that can only really be software. 
       

      the soundstage when compared to the play we is enormous. 
       

       

      antx
      Lyricist III
      June 14, 2020

      I am having few issues, 1) I need to bump up the volume really high to hear voice or sound, then suddenly it gets really loud for certain scenes. I am connected with the sub and sub gets too loud too. Something seems not right. I get the muddy bass too. Raised a case with support so not sure if this is something that sonos can fix over software upgrade or is it really some problem with hardware. 

      Overall actually bit disappointed with such a expensive system, I have a LG SJ9 3 years old soundbar which performs better waiting for sonos before I decide on returning.

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