Enthusiast II

Answered

Sonos Arc Muddy/Bottoming out Bass

1406 replies
193247 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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Cherr1020

Lyricist III

Experiencing same issue. 2:58 into Toy Story 3 is where I can really notice the problem.

Wall mounted

LG B9

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Londonlad5uk

Lyricist II

Hi I am also getting the same problem almost sounds like speaker has blown when certain bass occurs (Netflix -star trek TNG intro final shot where ship does fly by is very very noticeable but have had with other sources or music also). Bit bummed 😔 hope this can be sorted

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Seeky

Prominent Collaborator II

Just would like to know if this happens only with the Arc alone? What about the setup with Sub and surrounds?

I can’t tell if the addition of the Sub would elimitate the issue from the Arc, but that most likely won’t be the solution for the majority of us.

I tested the Arc grouped together with Play:5 and Ones, the other speakers do not create this bass sound, even if the audio source is playing directly over HDMI to the Arc. So the issue is clearly with the bass sound of the arc only.

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Highfalutintodd

Prominent Collaborator I

A “first world problem” to be sure, but this is all very concerning to hear, especially now that I just woke up to the tracking number for my Arc. I know we’re only a day into this, but do we have any sense if this is a wholesale failure of the entire initial Arc production run?

I bought Arc on the strength of over a dozen GLOWING reviews so obviously Arc is capable of amazing sound. I find it exceptionally difficult to believe that not a single reviewer would have noticed and commented on the sort of issues being seen by so many here. So what changed? Did they get hand-built pre-production models? All reviewers seemed to be working on “pre-release” S2 apps, so maybe the “final” app has screwed up the Arc’s firmware somehow? Could this first shipping batch have simply gotten bad components in manufacturing that are out of spec?

I’ve gotten irrationally excited planning for and thinking about my Arc purchase, my first Sonos and my first real sound upgrade in over a dozen years, so I absolutely feel for everyone who’s experiencing this…. and, no offense, but I hope I won’t be joining you as part of this particular group! 😳

Arc + Sub 3 + One SLs = Awesome and Loving It!

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arpatil1

Enthusiast II

A “first world problem” to be sure, but this is all very concerning to hear, especially now that I just woke up to the tracking number for my Arc. I know we’re only a day into this, but do we have any sense if this is a wholesale failure of the entire initial Arc production run?

I bought Arc on the strength of over a dozen GLOWING reviews so obviously Arc is capable of amazing sound. I find it exceptionally difficult to believe that not a single reviewer would have noticed and commented on the sort of issues being seen by so many here. So what changed? Did they get hand-built pre-production models? All reviewers seemed to be working on “pre-release” S2 apps, so maybe the “final” app has screwed up the Arc’s firmware somehow? Could this first shipping batch have simply gotten bad components in manufacturing that are out of spec?

I’ve gotten irrationally excited planning for and thinking about my Arc purchase, my first Sonos and my first real sound upgrade in over a dozen years, so I absolutely feel for everyone who’s experiencing this…. and, no offense, but I hope I won’t be joining you as part of this particular group! 😳

Multiple people on Reddit have received scratched and dented product (on the plastic grill). There’s a possibility that the manufacturing screwed it up. If so, this is going to cost Sonos big time.

I am still hoping it’s a firmware glitch.

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pyro225

Enthusiast II

‘Experiencing same issue. 2:58 into Toy Story 3 is where I can really notice the problem’

I take it back - after trying the following any volume over 40% sounds horrible like it’s blowing

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Seeky

Prominent Collaborator II

A “first world problem” to be sure, but this is all very concerning to hear, especially now that I just woke up to the tracking number for my Arc. I know we’re only a day into this, but do we have any sense if this is a wholesale failure of the entire initial Arc production run?

I bought Arc on the strength of over a dozen GLOWING reviews so obviously Arc is capable of amazing sound. I find it exceptionally difficult to believe that not a single reviewer would have noticed and commented on the sort of issues being seen by so many here. So what changed? Did they get hand-built pre-production models? All reviewers seemed to be working on “pre-release” S2 apps, so maybe the “final” app has screwed up the Arc’s firmware somehow? Could this first shipping batch have simply gotten bad components in manufacturing that are out of spec?

I’ve gotten irrationally excited planning for and thinking about my Arc purchase, my first Sonos and my first real sound upgrade in over a dozen years, so I absolutely feel for everyone who’s experiencing this…. and, no offense, but I hope I won’t be joining you as part of this particular group! 😳

Such a manufacturing issue for the first batch wouldn’t surprise me. The prototypes most likely arn’t from the same batch. Had a similar issue at my company when our supplier on his own just changed out the material he used, thinking we wouldn’t notice/mind. In the end the entire series was trash.

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Seeky

Prominent Collaborator II

‘Experiencing same issue. 2:58 into Toy Story 3 is where I can really notice the problem’

I take it back - after trying the following any volume over 40% sounds horrible like it’s blowing

Give them a day or two to find out what’s the issue. Might be software related only. I can remember when Amazon launched some Echo speakers they often had the wrong firmware with a faulty sound tuning on them. They got that fixed within a day.

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Redraider3403

Enthusiast I

A “first world problem” to be sure, but this is all very concerning to hear, especially now that I just woke up to the tracking number for my Arc. I know we’re only a day into this, but do we have any sense if this is a wholesale failure of the entire initial Arc production run?

I bought Arc on the strength of over a dozen GLOWING reviews so obviously Arc is capable of amazing sound. I find it exceptionally difficult to believe that not a single reviewer would have noticed and commented on the sort of issues being seen by so many here. So what changed? Did they get hand-built pre-production models? All reviewers seemed to be working on “pre-release” S2 apps, so maybe the “final” app has screwed up the Arc’s firmware somehow? Could this first shipping batch have simply gotten bad components in manufacturing that are out of spec?

I’ve gotten irrationally excited planning for and thinking about my Arc purchase, my first Sonos and my first real sound upgrade in over a dozen years, so I absolutely feel for everyone who’s experiencing this…. and, no offense, but I hope I won’t be joining you as part of this particular group!

Multiple people on Reddit have received scratched and dented product (on the plastic grill). There’s a possibility that the manufacturing screwed it up. If so, this is going to cost Sonos big time.

I am still hoping it’s a firmware glitch.

I am one of these people. Minor gripe, but my arc has some serious panel gaps on the ends. Also the whole body of the arc creaks when pushed on.

S

Seeky

Prominent Collaborator II

A “first world problem” to be sure, but this is all very concerning to hear, especially now that I just woke up to the tracking number for my Arc. I know we’re only a day into this, but do we have any sense if this is a wholesale failure of the entire initial Arc production run?

I bought Arc on the strength of over a dozen GLOWING reviews so obviously Arc is capable of amazing sound. I find it exceptionally difficult to believe that not a single reviewer would have noticed and commented on the sort of issues being seen by so many here. So what changed? Did they get hand-built pre-production models? All reviewers seemed to be working on “pre-release” S2 apps, so maybe the “final” app has screwed up the Arc’s firmware somehow? Could this first shipping batch have simply gotten bad components in manufacturing that are out of spec?

I’ve gotten irrationally excited planning for and thinking about my Arc purchase, my first Sonos and my first real sound upgrade in over a dozen years, so I absolutely feel for everyone who’s experiencing this…. and, no offense, but I hope I won’t be joining you as part of this particular group!

Multiple people on Reddit have received scratched and dented product (on the plastic grill). There’s a possibility that the manufacturing screwed it up. If so, this is going to cost Sonos big time.

I am still hoping it’s a firmware glitch.

I am one of these people. Minor gripe, but my arc has some serious panel gaps on the ends. Also the whole body of the arc creaks when pushed on.

Bit offtopic to discuss this here. Suddenly after the launch date is over it seems there are many people with such an issue. Saw at least 5 such Photos now. I noticed the gap to the side cap also. Maybe it’s related to that...

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