Enthusiast II

Answered

Sonos Arc Muddy/Bottoming out Bass

1406 replies
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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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jinjin19

Lyricist III

I think the people who have been using SONOS products for years may have more patience and willing to give them some time to get it right, while especially those who bought Arc as their first SONOS product may not… It make lot of sense!

Nah that’t not it. I have been with Sonos for 2 years and my Beam had 0 issues since day one. People expect the same from a product that costs as much as 2 Beams. That’s not much to ask of a premium brand like Sonos. Consistency

Yes, that’s true!

I’m going to be patiently waiting to replace my Beam until I see further update on this. I thinking that by December this kind of quirk should be fully resolved.

This reviewer has been pretty reliable in his objective approach. It may be worth following him.

THIS is what surprises me the most. Wouldn’t the standard test for a speaker involve going through a test program with all the possible frequencies, recording the response and checking if everything is alright?

This pretty much highlights the problem with the ARC. I did the same test with my other Sonos products and pretty much it only manifested with the Arc being the bass driver specifically at more than 53% volume. Anything lower than that volume seems to be fine for the ARC.

@40hz test

Trueplay On, EQ both at zero, loudness on and off, sub audio set to 0 and +5

ARC alone - problem showed at 53% volume

ARC with gen 2 sub - no issues even up to 100% volume

ARC with just Ones as surrounds - problem showed at 53% volume

ARC with gen 2 sub and Ones as surrounds - no issues even up to 100%

Beam alone - no issues even up to 100%

Beam with gen 2 sub - no issues even up to 100%

Beam with just surrounds - no issues even up to 100%

Beam with gen 2 sub and surrounds - no issues even up to 100%

Sonos ones alone - no issues even up to 100%

Sonos ones as stereo - no issues even up to 100%
Sonos ones with sub - no issues even up to 100%

I hope Sonos does the fix soon based on all that has been given in this forum.

Right. 40 Hz after 50 % volume falls apart. Though the volume tolerance seems to be going up as you increase the frequency until the issue completely goes away.

Yes that’s my observation as well. Problem really just impacts lower frequencies most specifically the ones that gets transferred to the Sub when attached. All my observations though are with Trueplay on, I have not tested with Trueplay off. Not sure if that makes a difference.

Truplay and Loudness turned off do not fix the problem. I already tested that.

Yeah too bad, I’m not surprised at all. Best we could do is wait for the fix and I hope it get’s here soon.

JJ

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craigski

Local Superstar

Is this 40Hz a fair test of a soundbar without a sub, taking into account the size of the drivers, laws of physics, etc?

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Jacobjacobi

Trending Lyricist I

Has anyones ARC been shipped after this thing gained attention? Like shipped yesterday, today etc

This is the really interesting question to me. I have tried not to doubt Sonos, but the shipping times seems so far out now.

I really am wondering if they are still shipping. If they are then we can assume that they are confident that it’s not a hardware issue. If they’re not, then maybe I should be concerned.

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Cherr1020

Lyricist III

Is this 40Hz a fair test of a soundbar without a sub, taking into account the size of the drivers, laws of physics, etc?

The soundbar should know what to do with that frequency without making the sound go to hell. I played some test tones on my Amazon Echo and the bass simply fades away as Hz go down rather than trying to blow the speakers out.

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arpatil1

Enthusiast II

Has anyones ARC been shipped after this thing gained attention? Like shipped yesterday, today etc

This is the really interesting question to me. I have tried not to doubt Sonos, but the shipping times seems so far out now.

I really am wondering if they are still shipping. If they are then we can assume that they are confident that it’s not a hardware issue. If they’re not, then maybe I should be concerned.

Shipping dates have gone far out for all the products, not just Arc. Shouldn’t be a reason for speculation.

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ian101181

Trending Lyricist I

Has anyones ARC been shipped after this thing gained attention? Like shipped yesterday, today etc

This is the really interesting question to me. I have tried not to doubt Sonos, but the shipping times seems so far out now.

I really am wondering if they are still shipping. If they are then we can assume that they are confident that it’s not a hardware issue. If they’re not, then maybe I should be concerned.

ordered mine on the 9th June day before launch I'm in the UK this morning my card was charged and the sonos site now says "dispatch acknowledged" and " processing "

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arpatil1

Enthusiast II

Anyone else get the firmware update out of the box? Could be the issue as well, I’d imagine reviewers would be running a different version which would help explain the discrepancy in reviews vs what we’re hearing

Yes, as soon as I hooked up my Sonos ARC to my app, it flagged me to update the ARC right away. I don’t know what update it was, but I haven’t been able to check the bass as of yet. I do have the sub hooked up.

Just switch of the sub and play testtone 40hz fr Spotify. Mine showed the same problem as the video earlier in the thread.

Just DSP gone wrong. Should be fixable via a software update. Hope things move smoothly and quickly.

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craigski

Local Superstar

Is this 40Hz a fair test of a soundbar without a sub, taking into account the size of the drivers, laws of physics, etc?

The soundbar should know what to do with that frequency without making the sound go to hell. I played some test tones on my Amazon Echo and the bass simply fades away as Hz go down rather than trying to blow the speakers out.

Maybe the ‘software‘ in the Arc thinks its also Sub?

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Sash A

Lyricist III

Anyone else get the firmware update out of the box? Could be the issue as well, I’d imagine reviewers would be running a different version which would help explain the discrepancy in reviews vs what we’re hearing

Yes, as soon as I hooked up my Sonos ARC to my app, it flagged me to update the ARC right away. I don’t know what update it was, but I haven’t been able to check the bass as of yet. I do have the sub hooked up.

Just switch of the sub and play testtone 40hz fr Spotify. Mine showed the same problem as the video earlier in the thread.

Just DSP gone wrong. Should be fixable via a software update. Hope things move smoothly and quickly.

Now that seems more plausible, the DSP going haywire. Let’s hope that’s it.

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Pawl

Lyricist III

I’ve seen some people say with the current issue if you are playing with any loudness, even with the sub, you can damage the arc speakers, is there any truth to this? Is there a need to hold off on using until the update? Thank you.

I’m afraid to play and damage my Sonos ARC right now, until their is a software update. I will be playing my headphones for now.

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