Sonos Arc Muddy/Bottoming out Bass

Yea… I agree with this. It’s not about the money. I didn’t not pay my mortgage so I could afford the Arc. It’s just that I spent the money, I expected it to work correctly and sound as good as the reviews said it did. Return policies exist for this reason. You’re not happy, you return it. Once it gets fixed and the kinks are worked out, maybe I’ll buy another one. Mistakes do happen but I just can’t align with the… I gave Sonos more business, they released something that doesn’t work right, but I’ll wait for them to fix it point-of-view. At the end of the day, I still have a product in my home that I’m not enjoying and don’t know when I’ll be able to fully enjoy.

Yeah exactly - that’s the whole point of return policies. 

For me, I am still enjoying my Arc but that’s because my use case scenario isn’t the same as other peoples.  I don’t play a lot of bass heavy music, I like the simplicity of multi-room music, and I don’t find the need to play music or movies that loudly (usually around the 25-35% range is more than loud enough for me).  This is why I’m willing to wait but I don’t presume that others are like me.  

If you don’t like it, return it!   The speaker/soundbar/home theater space is competitive enough where you have options.  

I’m reminded of the programmer’s drinking song:

99 bugs in the code,
99 bugs in the code,
fix one bug, compile and go,
101 bugs in the code.

101 bugs in the code, …

Seriously, the issue could have been introduced late one night on the assembly line. A part may have been substituted because it “works the same” or a specified part may have been changed internally by its manufacturer and no one was notified because it “works the same”. Unfortunately, if this “new improved” part runs at a different speed, an audio application is likely to break. The challenge is to implement a fix that is tolerant of both versions because both are in the field.

In spite of all the posts we are only a few days into this issue. I agree: Patience should be the order of the day.

If you think its ok that they release a $799+tax product without proper testing then that’s on you. In my opinion they rushed to market trying to capitalize on people sitting at home and said we’ll deal with the fallout later. How can something like this go unnoticed? This isn’t some isolated incident to be called “mistakes happen”. They released untested product. Something that costs the price of two beams should work from day one as intended. Just because the issue doesn’t bother you doesn’t mean that it’s ok for the issue to be there in first place. This is Sonos and this isn’t their first rodeo. Should not have happened, period. The product is used for AUDIO, that should be working flawlessly and not become unusable at over 50% volume. it’s like buying a car that can only go 50mil/hr but hey it’s ok they’ll figure it out later how to make it go faster.

Hi. I think this thread has been really civil so far. There are clearly some who are a little anxious about the situation and I think that’s ok. For some this will have been a really big purchase for themselves and being let down after having chosen to spend their money on this and not something else will result in a more pronounced disappointment. It was my main birthday present this year. 
 

let’s not start posting comments that judge people’s reaction to the issue. If someone goes a little too far, the best thing we can do is ignore it. 
 

If someone judges your comments in a clearly inciting manner then leave it. 
 

otherwise we risk this whole thread getting derailed. It won’t encourage Sonos to support this group. 
 

Please don’t bite  

Ok I’ve done some additional testing and the “software bug” is definitely affecting my whole system. I can hear muddy and distorted bass on my Ones and Move, as well as my Play 5 (But to a lesser extent, perhaps due to the increased bass capability of the Play 5). 

@Ryan S - I am ok with being patient, as I know how complicated these issues can be, but can you please let the team know that the issue may be affecting all sonos products, not just the Arc? 

I thought this too, but part of me just wonders if this has always been a characteristic of Sonos, but it was accidentally very pronounced on the arc which made us look out for it on other devices. 
 

has anyone reverted and of their setup back to S1 to see if the issues goes away on their old kit? I haven’t had a chance since I thought about doing it. 

I’m not sure it’s possible to revert to S1 once you have changed to S2 is it? As far as I can tell as soon as I installed S2 it gave everything in my system an update which I’m thinking would prevent them working on S1.

Haven’t noticed any deterioration on mine though. In fact I found myself thinking everything sounded slightly better then decided I was almost certainly imagining it! 

I think if you install the S1 app, it will prompt you to re-update everything.  

I have 20+ Sonos products -- most of which I’ve had a long time (the only Sonos products I don’t have are the Play 5 and the Play 3).  I assure you, I have never heard anything like what people are reporting/recording on this thread.  That Sonos has acknowledged the issue suggests that it isn’t something normal.

I’ll add though that I have the Arc and have had no issues (but I have a sub connected to it).

Perform an un-update? I guess it’s possible, although it wouldn’t work on the Arc as that is S2 only. 
I’m glad I dithered at this point and now cannot get one for at least another 6 weeks or so! 
 

So the most recent suggestion is now inferring that the glitch / mistake could be with the S2 software update on all devices??