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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pyro225

Enthusiast II

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..

this isn’t a dig honestly but can you hear the problem on my video just because ears hear things differently - if you can hear it then I’m more and more believing hardware faults on some units

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Jacobjacobi

Trending Lyricist 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..

this isn’t a dig honestly but can you hear the problem on my video just because ears hear things differently - if you can hear it then I’m more and more believing hardware faults on some units

That sound is an issue: no doubt. I Just listened to that scene on my arc and have to say that it doesn’t sound brilliant as tight as I would like but nothing like as bad as your recording.

i am not sure of your recording is making it sound worse: I can see how a recording of mid could end up sounding like yours.

I am running it from Apple TV using the latest “fix” update on Sonos.

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pyro225

Enthusiast II

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..

this isn’t a dig honestly but can you hear the problem on my video just because ears hear things differently - if you can hear it then I’m more and more believing hardware faults on some units

That sound is an issue: no doubt. I Just listened to that scene on my arc and have to say that it doesn’t sound brilliant as tight as I would like but nothing like as bad as your recording.

i am not sure of your recording is making it sound worse: I can see how a recording of mid could end up sounding like yours.

I am running it from Apple TV using the latest “fix” update on Sonos.

It sounds exactly like that in real life - I too using Apple tv4k Netflix and latest fix from sonos

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pyro225

Enthusiast II

How are people getting on with Sonos ‘support’ - tbf they are emailing me once a day with things to try today it was try turning trueplay and loudness off… same drive clip just as horrible but have to get the volume 5 higher before it starts…..

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anujgoel83

Trending Lyricist I

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

Just tried this and its absolutely faultless, actually sounds pretty phenomenal. Guys this HAS to be a hardware problem. Im actually anxious about updating to the latest s/w version as I bet it will make it worse.

P

pyro225

Enthusiast II

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

Just tried this and its absolutely faultless, actually sounds pretty phenomenal. Guys this HAS to be a hardware problem. Im actually anxious about updating to the latest s/w version as I bet it will make it worse.

You are running over half volume if you go into the app (maybe 60%?) trueplay and loudness on with NO sub?

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anujgoel83

Trending Lyricist I

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

Just tried this and its absolutely faultless, actually sounds pretty phenomenal. Guys this HAS to be a hardware problem. Im actually anxious about updating to the latest s/w version as I bet it will make it worse.

You are running over half volume if you go into the app (maybe 60%?) trueplay and loudness on with NO sub?

no with sub at any volume my ears could tolerate, I can try without sub but the thing just sounds awful without, but so did the beam tbf, its unreal the difference sub makes to the soundbars sound signature, almost as if they were completely designed to work in tandem

A

anujgoel83

Trending Lyricist I

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

Just tried this and its absolutely faultless, actually sounds pretty phenomenal. Guys this HAS to be a hardware problem. Im actually anxious about updating to the latest s/w version as I bet it will make it worse.

You are running over half volume if you go into the app (maybe 60%?) trueplay and loudness on with NO sub?

ok just tried without sub, and aside from there being a disappointing lack of bass, the distortion is there, but nothing like the level you are experiencing, and this is pre update. whether sub is masking the issue, or stoping arc from reproducing them I don't know, but I suspect the latter.

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maurice.pothoven

Trending Lyricist II

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

Just tried this and its absolutely faultless, actually sounds pretty phenomenal. Guys this HAS to be a hardware problem. Im actually anxious about updating to the latest s/w version as I bet it will make it worse.

With sub I can push up to 80% with ease (eq bass +6) when watching 6 Underground intro. No problem at all, also with music, . Turn the sub off → problems

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pyro225

Enthusiast II

That’s the problem though guys all the reviews said it has so much bass it doesn’t need a sub unless you are listening at high volumes and as you have rightly said the bass isn’t much more than a beam - and the beam doesn’t distort… so why is this over twice the price for a little extra length?

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