Enthusiast II

Answered

Sonos Arc Muddy/Bottoming out Bass

1406 replies
193223 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.

This topic has been closed for further comments. You can use the search bar to find a similar topic, or create a new one by clicking Create Topic at the top of the page.

S

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.

Show previous replies

M

MerlinNL

Lyricist III

Feedback after 12.0.1 update

Playing :

At volume 25% it’s constant

At volume 35% it starts ‘wobbing’

At volume 50+% this intensifies

I must say it’s already an improvement vs before. Will watch some video content now to test that.

M

MerlinNL

Lyricist III

After some more testing:

This is a significant improvement. That must be said. However unfortunately not 100% there yet.

Distortion examples

- Netflix Stranger Things S03E01 around explosion
- BluRay Jurassic Park around T-rex scene

- BluRay Deathly Hallows pt2 Voldemort Fight

M

mattadamsone

Enthusiast I

Just got my ARC, updated out of the box and really disappointed with the low end. I also have a Beam and have to say it has smoother low end. Put them side by side and listened to a mix of music and movies and across the board, the low end was smoother on the Beam and extended deeper. It is most noticeable on kick drums. Put on 6 Underground on Netflix and you hear it on the plane scene at the beginning. The mids and highs are great, soundfield is so much better on the ARC, but expected low end at least on par with my Beam, which I’m not getting. I guess the big question here is will Sonos be able to address this with a fix or should I box it up and return?

P

Pawl

Lyricist III

I just updated my Sonos ARC to Version 12.0.1. I don’t know what the magic the Sonos engineers did, but I noticed an enormous improvement. My Sony Bravia and Sonos ARC are playing nice again. 👍🏻

G

ggmogollonAuthor

Enthusiast II

After some more testing:

This is a significant improvement. That must be said. However unfortunately not 100%there yet.

Agreed. Feeling more like 65% of the way but glad I can use it more regularly now

S

sebas1509

Enthusiast II

Feedback after 12.0.1 update

Playing :

At volume 25% it’s constant

At volume 35% it starts ‘wobbing’

At volume 50+% this intensifies

I must say it’s already an improvement vs before. Will watch some video content now to test that.

I have 0 wobbling now at all volumes. I definitely had it before. Are u sure you updated?

Also, some on the reddit recommended retuning after

M

MerlinNL

Lyricist III

Feedback after 12.0.1 update

Playing :

At volume 25% it’s constant

At volume 35% it starts ‘wobbing’

At volume 50+% this intensifies

I must say it’s already an improvement vs before. Will watch some video content now to test that.

I have 0 wobbling now at all volumes. I definitely had it before. Are u sure you updated?

Also, some on the reddit recommended retuning after

Definitely updated. Around 25% the sound is constant (so no issue) higher volumes give a wobbing effect.

Re-tuning could help. I’ll check that out, thanks!

T

Tall Paul

Lyricist III

Will check the update in a bit, slightly confused as the app updated then checking for updates to Sonos said no update was required and ‘about my system’ also reports it’s on 12.0.1, so not sure what happened but it definitely didn’t update or run the process to the speakers.

P

pyro225

Enthusiast II

To me this sounds like the bass has been throttled vs before. Before under 35% I was very impressed with the bass but now it seems underwhelming.

also this update has just updated the s2 app right? Not updated anything on the speaker at all?