Sonos Arc Muddy/Bottoming out Bass

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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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AndrewLC

Enthusiast I

Those of us who don’t yet have one are as interested in the outcome as the albeit slightly more anxious ones who do. I would certainly have one ordered by now if it wasn’t for finding this out, and will wait until I’m certain about the result before committing.

Ryan S is it in your remit to be able to say if the production models now shipping are identical in their hardware and come from the same factory as the ones which received glowing reviews from various trustworthy sources a couple of weeks ago?

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raforbes

Enthusiast I

Personally knowing the SONOS products I would lean more toward believing this is a software/firmware issue and quite fixable - SONOS will have a pretty large black eye if it is not and a LOT of ARCs to RMA and replace. Mine comes Thursday and I certainly hope this is fixed by than - I have a great deal of confidence they will resolve this - They always do..

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brettkotze1

Lyricist I

I’ve had my ARC installed for a week and I am experiencing the same bass issue. I hope the software update addresses this. The frustrating thing is if it doesn’t, it forces owners into purchasing a sub to address a manufacturing error. Let’s see the results. Makes me wonder why the ARC wasn’t bundled with a sub from the get-go if it can’t handle bass.

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Sash A

Lyricist III

I’ve had my ARC installed for a week and I am experiencing the same bass issue. I hope the software update addresses this. The frustrating thing is if it doesn’t, it forces owners into purchasing a sub to address a manufacturing error. Let’s see the results. Makes me wonder why the ARC wasn’t bundled with a sub from the get-go if it can’t handle bass.

No one is forcing you to buy a SUB and you absolutely shouldn’t if this isn’t corrected. You shouldn’t have to pay $799 and then have to spend another $700 just to get the bass to work properly.

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antm22

Enthusiast I

I’ve had my ARC installed for a week and I am experiencing the same bass issue. I hope the software update addresses this. The frustrating thing is if it doesn’t, it forces owners into purchasing a sub to address a manufacturing error. Let’s see the results. Makes me wonder why the ARC wasn’t bundled with a sub from the get-go if it can’t handle bass.

Even with a Sub the bass from there Arc is not 100% perfect. The update needs to address it. if it doesn’t and there are still issues, the answer shouldn't be spending more money on a Sub. The answer should be returning the Arc.

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raforbes

Enthusiast I

Honestly, as pro SONOS as I am - I do wish I had read these posts - my ARC gets here tomorrow - they sent it ground instead of 2 business days - Maybe so they could get an update out before it arrived - Anyway, staying positive and added another Play Five to the stable - wife thinks I have too many speakers - who can have too many speakers ? Go to have a pair in every room - and three outside :)

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pi3rc3y

Lyricist III

I’ve had my ARC installed for a week and I am experiencing the same bass issue. I hope the software update addresses this. The frustrating thing is if it doesn’t, it forces owners into purchasing a sub to address a manufacturing error. Let’s see the results. Makes me wonder why the ARC wasn’t bundled with a sub from the get-go if it can’t handle bass.

Even with a Sub the bass from there Arc is not 100% perfect. The update needs to address it. if it doesn’t and there are still issues, the answer shouldn't be spending more money on a Sub. The answer should be returning the Arc.

I have to agree, I have the Arc, Sub (gen2) and two play:1’s for the rears and the bass is worse and not as deep compared to when I have the Playbase set up with my sub and both play:1’s. Definitely looking forward to the update when it comes out to see if the Arc performs just as well as when I had the Playbase. I’ve had no complaints from the neighbours since upgrading to the Arc 😂😂

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antm22

Enthusiast I

I just got an App and system update on iOS.