Enthusiast II

Answered

Sonos Arc Muddy/Bottoming out Bass

1406 replies
193298 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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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.

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maurice.pothoven

Trending Lyricist II

Thanks @Ryan S for the update!

but what if it is a hardware problem? Will there be a recall per country?

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Seeky

Prominent Collaborator II

I btw wrote a mail to the CEO of Sonos With My disappointment and concers. You can find his email on the support page if you feel like expressing yourself as well.

Mind posting the link?

The link just opens up an email window with what appears to be his legit email address: Partick.Spence@sonos.com

I emailed him as well.

I used the email you provided and got a ‘Delivery Failure- Address not found or unable to receive mail’. Has anyone else experienced this?

Maybe thats because it’s misspelled? I am quite sure his name is Patrick.

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Sgil

Lyricist II

I btw wrote a mail to the CEO of Sonos With My disappointment and concers. You can find his email on the support page if you feel like expressing yourself as well.

Mind posting the link?

The link just opens up an email window with what appears to be his legit email address: Partick.Spence@sonos.com

I emailed him as well.

I used the email you provided and got a ‘Delivery Failure- Address not found or unable to receive mail’. Has anyone else experienced this?

Maybe thats because it’s misspelled? I am quite sure his name is Patrick.

Yup, you’re right. Just updated my original post. Thanks!

Ryan S

Retired Sonos Staff

You’re mentioning the audio team. So that means that there is actually a hardware dependent variance in our speakers which needs to be adressed with a slightly different sound tuning? We are not talking about a failed update or a wrong firmware being used?

Do you mean the team that’s investigating? That would be the audio software team. At the most basic level, make the software that tells the speakers what sounds to produce, and they do a whole lot more. Though there are other teams involved too to various degrees. I know in threads like this on these sorts of topics the conversation can get out of control with speculation, so let’s try to taper that down where we can. The right teams are investigating this already and we’ll let you know as soon as there’s a resolution or more details to share.

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

D

dylan290

Lyricist II

You’re mentioning the audio team. So that means that there is actually a hardware dependent variance in our speakers which needs to be adressed with a slightly different sound tuning? We are not talking about a failed update or a wrong firmware being used?

Do you mean the team that’s investigating? That would be the audio software team. At the most basic level, make the software that tells the speakers what sounds to produce, and they do a whole lot more. Though there are other teams involved too to various degrees. I know in threads like this on these sorts of topics the conversation can get out of control with speculation, so let’s try to taper that down where we can. The right teams are investigating this already and we’ll let you know as soon as there’s a resolution or more details to share.

@Ryan S Can you confirm this is a software issue? You originally said it was but now your response only says your team is working on a software fix.

I think most of us are willing to wait for this fix if we have confidence this isn’t hardware related but with the big price tag and limited time to return, we need to know ASAP. Thanks

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Sash A

Lyricist III

Can I get some clarity on this issue, sorry didn’t read the entire thread. Is the issue occurring with tv’s that have ARC port or eARC or both? Have people tried using a different HDMI cable to eliminate the possibility of a faulty one in the box? If this issue is so wide spread how was something like this missed during engineering/software testing before being put into production? Are the units not tested across all volume ranges with multiple tv’s or avr’s to test for issues and compatibility? I don’t mean to be an ass but I am a dev and if I release something to production without testing that it doesn’t break other things I would be getting chewed out. My unit hasn’t arrived yet but this issue would be a deal breaker. I am somewhat an audiophile and this would drive me nuts so confidence for now is pretty low.

Thanks!

Ryan S

Retired Sonos Staff

You’re mentioning the audio team. So that means that there is actually a hardware dependent variance in our speakers which needs to be adressed with a slightly different sound tuning? We are not talking about a failed update or a wrong firmware being used?

Do you mean the team that’s investigating? That would be the audio software team. At the most basic level, make the software that tells the speakers what sounds to produce, and they do a whole lot more. Though there are other teams involved too to various degrees. I know in threads like this on these sorts of topics the conversation can get out of control with speculation, so let’s try to taper that down where we can. The right teams are investigating this already and we’ll let you know as soon as there’s a resolution or more details to share.

@Ryan S Can you confirm this is a software issue? You originally said it was but now your response only says your team is working on a software fix.

I think most of us are willing to wait for this fix if we have confidence this isn’t hardware related but with the big price tag and limited time to return, we need to know ASAP. Thanks

While it’s under investigation, I’m hesitant to say it’s anything specific. This looks to be software related, but let’s give the team some time to work on this and if I can share more with you later, I will.

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

D

dylan290

Lyricist II

You’re mentioning the audio team. So that means that there is actually a hardware dependent variance in our speakers which needs to be adressed with a slightly different sound tuning? We are not talking about a failed update or a wrong firmware being used?

Do you mean the team that’s investigating? That would be the audio software team. At the most basic level, make the software that tells the speakers what sounds to produce, and they do a whole lot more. Though there are other teams involved too to various degrees. I know in threads like this on these sorts of topics the conversation can get out of control with speculation, so let’s try to taper that down where we can. The right teams are investigating this already and we’ll let you know as soon as there’s a resolution or more details to share.

@Ryan S Can you confirm this is a software issue? You originally said it was but now your response only says your team is working on a software fix.

I think most of us are willing to wait for this fix if we have confidence this isn’t hardware related but with the big price tag and limited time to return, we need to know ASAP. Thanks

While it’s under investigation, I’m hesitant to say it’s anything specific. This looks to be software related, but let’s give the team some time to work on this and if I can share more with you later, I will.

Thanks @Ryan S

C

Clark2j2

Lyricist I

You’re mentioning the audio team. So that means that there is actually a hardware dependent variance in our speakers which needs to be adressed with a slightly different sound tuning? We are not talking about a failed update or a wrong firmware being used?

Do you mean the team that’s investigating? That would be the audio software team. At the most basic level, make the software that tells the speakers what sounds to produce, and they do a whole lot more. Though there are other teams involved too to various degrees. I know in threads like this on these sorts of topics the conversation can get out of control with speculation, so let’s try to taper that down where we can. The right teams are investigating this already and we’ll let you know as soon as there’s a resolution or more details to share.

@Ryan S Can you confirm this is a software issue? You originally said it was but now your response only says your team is working on a software fix.

I think most of us are willing to wait for this fix if we have confidence this isn’t hardware related but with the big price tag and limited time to return, we need to know ASAP. Thanks

While it’s under investigation, I’m hesitant to say it’s anything specific. This looks to be software related, but let’s give the team some time to work on this and if I can share more with you later, I will.

How much time are we talking? This week, next, or a month from now? I understand they’re working on it but this is insane given the price of the ARC.
Purchased from Best Buy, and quickly closing in on the return period.

R

Redraider3403

Enthusiast I

You’re mentioning the audio team. So that means that there is actually a hardware dependent variance in our speakers which needs to be adressed with a slightly different sound tuning? We are not talking about a failed update or a wrong firmware being used?

Do you mean the team that’s investigating? That would be the audio software team. At the most basic level, make the software that tells the speakers what sounds to produce, and they do a whole lot more. Though there are other teams involved too to various degrees. I know in threads like this on these sorts of topics the conversation can get out of control with speculation, so let’s try to taper that down where we can. The right teams are investigating this already and we’ll let you know as soon as there’s a resolution or more details to share.

@Ryan S Can you confirm this is a software issue? You originally said it was but now your response only says your team is working on a software fix.

I think most of us are willing to wait for this fix if we have confidence this isn’t hardware related but with the big price tag and limited time to return, we need to know ASAP. Thanks

While it’s under investigation, I’m hesitant to say it’s anything specific. This looks to be software related, but let’s give the team some time to work on this and if I can share more with you later, I will.

How much time are we talking? This week, next, or a month from now? I understand they’re working on it but this is insane given the price of the ARC.
Purchased from Best Buy, and quickly closing in on the return period.

Could not agree more. Sonos seems to be using the same Playbook they would for a customer who purchased a One. With the arc you are dealing with a different customer. A customer who not only was an early adopter, but a premium product buyer. I understand Sonos has “lots of eyes on the problem”, but they clearly don’t have the right CR eyes on this.

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