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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Seeky

Prominent Collaborator II

We have identified a bug that has potential to cause distortion when playing bass-heavy content at higher volume levels on Arc. Our team is working on the fix now. We expect the software release to be implemented as early as next week. I'll share any additional updates here.

Thanks. Will the fix be applied for the Sonos One too?

Ryan S

Retired Sonos Staff

We have identified a bug that has potential to cause distortion when playing bass-heavy content at higher volume levels on Arc. Our team is working on the fix now. We expect the software release to be implemented as early as next week. I'll share any additional updates here.

Thanks. Will the fix be applied for the Sonos One too?

I don’t believe this particular bug affects the Sonos One, but I’ll raise it with the team just in case.

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

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Seeky

Prominent Collaborator II

We have identified a bug that has potential to cause distortion when playing bass-heavy content at higher volume levels on Arc. Our team is working on the fix now. We expect the software release to be implemented as early as next week. I'll share any additional updates here.

Thanks. Will the fix be applied for the Sonos One too?

I don’t believe this particular bug affects the Sonos One, but I’ll raise it with the team just in case.

I tested this yesterday. 2 of my 4 are affected definitely

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wilwong829

Enthusiast II

We have identified a bug that has potential to cause distortion when playing bass-heavy content at higher volume levels on Arc. Our team is working on the fix now. We expect the software release to be implemented as early as next week. I'll share any additional updates here.

It’s really the best news this week!!! Thanks Ryan!! :)

I’m looking forward to receiving my Arc and hope it will be with me after 3 weeks!

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TapDatApp

Enthusiast I

We have identified a bug that has potential to cause distortion when playing bass-heavy content at higher volume levels on Arc. Our team is working on the fix now. We expect the software release to be implemented as early as next week. I'll share any additional updates here.

Thanks. Will the fix be applied for the Sonos One too?

I don’t believe this particular bug affects the Sonos One, but I’ll raise it with the team just in case.

What about an Arc paired with Sub? Does the team believe the issue is only when the Arc is performing solo?

Ryan S

Retired Sonos Staff

We have identified a bug that has potential to cause distortion when playing bass-heavy content at higher volume levels on Arc. Our team is working on the fix now. We expect the software release to be implemented as early as next week. I'll share any additional updates here.

Thanks. Will the fix be applied for the Sonos One too?

I don’t believe this particular bug affects the Sonos One, but I’ll raise it with the team just in case.

What about an Arc paired with Sub? Does the team believe the issue is only when the Arc is performing solo?

The Sub takes over most of the troublesome frequencies for Arc that cause the audio distortion to surface. So it may or may not be affected or apparent, but the fix will apply nonetheless.

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

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Spoetnic

Lyricist II

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

The dsp will limit these to protect the speakers at high volume. Mostly in a way by not going any louder even if you turn it up to 100%. Do the test on your mobile phone, it will not blow your phonespeaker. It is just this software limitation wich makes the Arc sound bad. It sould be like the Beam. After a volume of about 50% it does not get any louder and stays undistorted. Btw, paired with a Sub you can not test this because the cross over is at 110Hz I think, so everything below 110Hz wil not get send to the Arc or at a very low volume.

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Spoetnic

Lyricist II

I have the Arc 5.1 setup and it sounds good with the subwoofer and surrounds on, but the Arc alone sounds very flat. The bass sounds hollow, even when turned up. Feels like I have an $800 bar that only pushes treble. This can’t be what all the reviewers were listening to.

I agree. For products like the Beam/One there is something to say about almost completely cutting of the low frequencies to the Sub, but for a premium soundbar with the potential of delivering a fair amount of bass, Sonos should give us the choise to let the Arc act more as a full speaker and not just a small speaker satalite.