Enthusiast II

Answered

Sonos Arc Muddy/Bottoming out Bass

1406 replies
193322 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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Redraider3403

Enthusiast I

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.

This is where I am. Really wish Sonos would issue some guidance here. Otherwise I’m sending my arc back just to make sure I don’t have any damage.

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wilf1970

Lyricist I

I also have the base issues with the ARC! I have two ones connected for surround sound and have noticed a change to them as well. This only since updating from the Beam and to S2.

Tested the Beam And noticed a similar issue with the base but not as bad as ARC.

Hopefully SONOS will have an update soon.

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jinjin19

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?

Should be since the beam which is smaller with lesser drivers performs absolutely great at 40Hz compared to the Arc. If the beam did the same then probably I could understand that it’s just a “soundbar”.

JJ

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Seeky

Prominent Collaborator II

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.

If you take the video into account where you can clearly see the ripple, the question is which of the two volumes it produces is the one it should produce, if it is the lower one we might have an issue. Anyway you’d not put speakers in which are close to breaking from the tones you’re producing. I am sure there is still some more they could do without breaking, but they just shouldn’t do it permanently.

Smilja

What’s all this fuss and drama about a WARRANTY ISSUE? If it’s related to the firmware there will soon be a fix available; if it’s hardware-related, then you will either receive a replacement or get your money back.

»And the world is like an apple whirling silently in space, Like the circles that you find in the windmills of your mind.« (›Windmills Of Your Mind‹ [1967]. Music by Michel Legrand ; English lyrics written by Alan & Marilyn Bergman)

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Spoetnic

Lyricist II

I ordered last week with an estimated delivery date of July 17. But just received shipment notification from Sonos that its out for delivery tomorrow, so they are definitely still shipping in Europe. I'll put it to test and will report back here.

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Cherr1020

Lyricist III

What’s all this fuss and drama about a WARRANTY ISSUE? If it’s related to the firmware there will soon be a fix available; if it’s hardware-related, then you will either receive a replacement or get your money back.

Chill with the bold and caps please.

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lstncybrspc

Lyricist III

I have the Arc, Sub, and Amp with SONOS Sonance speakers. I can reproduce if I turn off the Sub and run the 40 hz test sound. However, I never noticed it because I set the room to maximum volume of 60%. When the volume is set to maximum 60% in the App for the room, the Arc plays the 40 hz perfectly and never distorts.

I tend to run volume limits on my speakers because the kids then cannot just run everything up really loud.

For those that are worried about damage, the volume limiting might be something to consider.

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Dave_O

Avid Contributor I

No soundbar can properly reproduce the first octave at high volumes. I did get an update when I first activated my Arc. It’s possible that the update disabled the high-pass filter that normally only is disabled when a Sub is attached.

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Pawl

Lyricist III

No soundbar can properly reproduce the first octave at high volumes. I did get an update when I first activated my Arc. It’s possible that the update disabled the high-pass filter that normally only is disabled when a Sub is attached.

I get this weird feeling that the S2 app might be the problem, because others have reported weird bugs coming from other Sonos speakers.

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