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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Niko79

Trending Lyricist I

I RMA’d my ARC...the new one sounds exactly the same as the first. I think this things design is simply a failure. If no fix is added I’ll send it back before the 100 day return window ends.

or maybe its just really more software tweaks needed. If the replacement is the same then it might not be a bad batch or hardware problem at all. Good that at least you have 100 days to enjoy it while waiting for the software fix.

I just listened to "Halsey - Eastside" on Tidal and felt my Ones are going to throw up the speakers. Ugh. Which, makes me get a slight reassurance that's this is, at the end, a software issue. I can't recall anyone complaining about One's doing so as they have been on the market for quite a while vs. ARC. I'm obviously on S2 with latest and not the greatest. 😂

Also, the above doesn't really explain the lack of communication between client (users) and Sonos. Unacceptable!

Found a new problematic film please can someone who claims the issue has gone try it? Go on Netflix and find their film ‘DRIVE’ I think it’s Bollywood anyway 35:00 listen around 30% the right bass sounds good how you’d expect it - now up to 60% it sounds worse than the original toy story sound? Can someone try this except me? Cheers

I just listened to "Halsey - Eastside" on Tidal and felt my Ones are going to throw up the speakers. Ugh. Which, makes me get a slight reassurance that's this is, at the end, a software issue. I can't recall anyone complaining about One's doing so as they have been on the market for quite a while vs. ARC. I'm obviously on S2 with latest and not the greatest. 😂

Also, the above doesn't really explain the lack of communication between client (users) and Sonos. Unacceptable!

Definitely, I thought I was going crazy thinking the Ones and Play:1s I have sounded different, playing Eastside - Benny Blanco really highlights the issue, at even only ~15-20% volume it sounds very very odd. Something I never remember them sounding like. As you say that does add some reassurance it’s a software issue through and through.

Hopefully you guys are reporting these specific issues directly to Sonos as well as they clearly aren’t chiming in here anymore!

Reporting? How? The current wait time to get engineer on the phone is at least 1 hour and support@sonos.com is no more. It's here or... here. 😉

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pyro225

Enthusiast II

Support@sonos.com replied to me within 24hrs tbf

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Niko79

Trending Lyricist I

Nevermind the fact they are closed today all day. Lol

Friday 6/26/2020
Closed

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Niko79

Trending Lyricist I

Interesting. My email to support@sonos.com got this response just now.

Hello,

Thanks for taking the time to reach out to us, we're here to help. This email address is no longer monitored, instead you can reach us by submitting your question via the web at http://support.sonos.com. You’ll also find answers to common questions and alternative ways to contact us.

We look forward to hearing from you.

Sonos Support

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pyro225

Enthusiast II

Nevermind the fact they are closed today all day. Lol

Friday 6/26/2020
Closed

While they are told Apple is buying them 😂

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Roy Hobbs

Lyricist III

Just talked to couple guys at Best Buy and they mentioned they have spoken to SONOS about this (they are well aware of the complaints on this board) and everything they heard was basically the lot of you got a “bad production”. Take it for what its worth

I wouldn’t believe anything the guys at Best Buy said

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raforbes

Enthusiast I

Sonos or other people shouldn’t be surprised to see negative comments about soundbar if the response is the speakers always need adjustments up to a year later to make them sound as advertised

Yes continual improvement and updates should be the mark of failure.

?what¿

No - don’t agree - continual improvements and updates show progress and support. One reason I have a SONOS ecosystem is because I know there will be continuous updates and improvements. I have purchased other products that stop receiving updates within a year. As I have posted before - My ARC sounds great - no complaints at all - Just watched ‘Enter the Dragon’ - no not ATMOS but still sounded better than my Playbar. Mine is not going back - I know it will just get better. It always has.. I’ve been a fan for 11 years now..

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raforbes

Enthusiast I

Interesting. My email to support@sonos.com got this response just now.

Hello,

Thanks for taking the time to reach out to us, we're here to help. This email address is no longer monitored, instead you can reach us by submitting your question via the web at http://support.sonos.com. You’ll also find answers to common questions and alternative ways to contact us.

We look forward to hearing from you.

Sonos Support

Well they laid off 12% of the workforce. But the stock is rockin.. and the direct to consumer sales are up 400% - this is NOT after the ARC but before - The company has always been solid -

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/06/24/sonos-says-its-cutting-12percent-of-global-employees-because-of-covid-19.html

https://seekingalpha.com/news/3586479-sonos-extends-on-recent-rally-5-push-higher

https://s22.q4cdn.com/672173472/files/doc_financials/2020/q2/FINAL-2Q20-Sonos-Shareholder-Letter-5.6.20.pdf

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arpatil1

Enthusiast II

Are all you getting this - I mobile phone mic can even pick out the distortion - would any of you be happy with this?!?

That’s horr

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maurice.pothoven

Trending Lyricist II

Interesting. My email to support@sonos.com got this response just now.

Hello,

Thanks for taking the time to reach out to us, we're here to help. This email address is no longer monitored, instead you can reach us by submitting your question via the web at http://support.sonos.com. You’ll also find answers to common questions and alternative ways to contact us.

We look forward to hearing from you.

Sonos Support

Yeah they are really keeping us up-to-date here… yesterday I turned off my sub just to check: yep still distortion (must say my eq is +5 but my Beam didn’t have any issues with that)

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