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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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    UnasRahl
    Lyricist I
    June 16, 2020

    My arc seems fine, I've checked all provided songs/bass tests and I didn't find anything suspicious. I've done it on about 60% volume level. So I think that maybe there were some issues during the update? Or something like that?

    MikeBurrows92
    Trending Lyricist I
    June 16, 2020

    40Hz test tone

     

    Anyone tried running this to see how theirs sounds? Mine sounds as is it should

    Did you run the volume up high? You need to get up well over 50% and then it should happen.

    Yeah I ran it at 50% and it seemed okay may give it another go and crank it see what happens then

    Neilupnorth
    Trending Lyricist I
    June 16, 2020

    Be careful folks, playing low frequency sine wave test tones at high volume can cause damage to speaker drivers.

    UnasRahl
    Lyricist I
    June 16, 2020

    Be careful folks, playing low frequency sine wave test tones at high volume can cause damage to speaker drivers.

    What do you mean by high volume? Do you consider 60% as high?

    CSonos10
    Lyricist I
    June 16, 2020

    Got mine today and tested it out with music and movie trailers provided in this thread.  I don’t seem to have it as bad as others that posted recordings of their audio via dropbox and google drive…. but when I played a 40hz test tone from Spotify around 50%-60% I got the wavering demonstrated in the YouTube review posted earlier in this thread (below)

     

     

    Fingers crossed this is a simple software fix

     

    wilwong829
    Enthusiast II
    June 16, 2020

    I think a daily update from Sonos at a particular time until the problem resolved make sense... especially for those Arc owners that have a returning window to chase...

      leelaw
      Trending Lyricist I
      June 16, 2020

      I know everyone is saying that the issue goes away if you add a sub as the sub grabs the bass and the ARC doesnt have to. Can anyone verify for me that issue isnt apparent in my setup which will be ARC with 2 play 5’s as surrounds but NO sub?

      arpatil1
      Enthusiast II
      June 16, 2020

      I know everyone is saying that the issue goes away if you add a sub as the sub grabs the bass and the ARC doesnt have to. Can anyone verify for me that issue isnt apparent in my setup which will be ARC with 2 play 5’s as surrounds but NO sub?

      No sub=issues !

        antm22
        Enthusiast I
        June 16, 2020

        I think a daily update from Sonos at a particular time until the problem resolved make sense... especially for those Arc owners that have a returning window to chase...

        At this point, I’m still unable to return mine. I tried to use the online Sonos return process yesterday and the web site advised that my order is “not eligible for return”. I tried to call customer care twice yesterday. Both times, after about an hour and 15 mins on hold their phone system abruptly disconnected me without ever speaking to someone. I then sent an email asking for assistance with a return and I still have not heard back. Called again today, same thing. Over an hour on hold and an abrupt disconnect. I’ve had Sonos products for a while and this is really disappointing. My experience has gone from what appears to be a premature product launch to non-existent customer service to return the product. 

          Profoundsoup
          Lyricist III
          June 16, 2020

          The fact that Sonos hasn't given us any update on the issue that is plaguing every ARC buyer is really just sad at this point. 

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