Sonos Arc Muddy/Bottoming out Bass

Sonos really need to get on top of this now. What HiFi say this: “There are vast quantities of deep, weighty and tuneful bass, but the lower frequencies never overwhelm and even at its loudest and deepest, the Arc remains remarkably composed” yet the rtings review highlights the bass issue (pre-firmware) that we all notice. It’s still not right with the new firmware. 

The what hi-fi review is so good. As where many many others. What was different other than firmware and/or production issues with customer units? 

Something is amiss and Sonos have been too quiet about this. Someone need to stand up and publicly say there is an issue, and they will fix the firmware and/or replace hardware if needed. Even if its just on the community site. 

I had a 24hr delay on a $60 wall mount in March. I never complained and it did not bother me. But I got 20% discount Code from Sonos anyway. That is customer service. I was singing their virtues. I recommended them and commented on how they have great customer service. I know they are just a company but they always seemed to come though. 

June this happens and… next to nothing. Seriously. What a change. 

My folks want to buy some play fives as their B&O Zeppelin is getting old. I just told them to wait or look elsewhere.

The rating from RTINGS is quite bad, the Beam performed better than the Arc.

https://www.rtings.com/soundbar/reviews/sonos/arc

I hope Sonos will fix it soon, otherwhise it´s going back to the dealer.

I’m in the same boat. I’ve got the boxes all ready. Figure I might as well wait until I get closer to the deadline. My Beam has better low end than the Arc as does my Bose Soundlink. The lack of any commentary from Sonos has been probably the worst part. Communication is so key for situations like this

I find it strange that while rtings.com reported the bass issue that some people have experienced, they didn’t report that they experienced it in their pre-12.0.1 testing.  Unfortunately, I’ve used up all my free views at the moment so I can’t see what ratings they gave to the other Atmos soundbars.  I was able to view the Sennheiser review which was rated slightly higher than the Arc (7.0 vs 6.5).  But if you factor out features that some folks might not care about (e.g., Bluetooth, DTS), the scores might get closer.  Depends on how much they weight those other features.

Is this the case if you also have the subwoofer? I ordered both and it sounds like everything work fine if you have the sub!

The sub woofer essentially masks the issue as all the lower frequencies are directed to the sub woofer and not the Arc.  

To directly answer your question, I don’t think it’s ever been an issue when it’s paired with a sub.  Some have reported it still isn’t perfect but it’s extremely hard to tell unless you’re trying to find the problem. 

The common listener will likely never hear any issues if you pair a sub.  I’ve paired my sub from another room with the Arc and it sounds great, so you have nothing to be concerned about.  If it sounds good to you, I would disregard this entire thread unless you plan to have the Arc without the sub. 

I used to have the playbar but the Arc is so disappointing. I have raised a ticket for my Arc and have sent them video and voice recordings. Bottom line is that unless they find a miraculous fix ASAP its going back and I am happy to go back to the playbar because that was immense! I just can't belend they've waited 7 years to make a soundbar that sounds as poor as this does in low frequencies. I am really disappointed 

I just reordered a playbar. Will have a playbar and an arc. Will most likely return the arc. Sonos support told me today that an arc fix might be coming this week. 

I am in no way doubting that folks on here are having issues with their Arcs.  However, I do think that SONOS employees can identify and fix the issue much more quickly if you would all submit a diagnostic and report the number here within a few minutes of noticing issues.  I am reading a lot of specific movie and song examples from the community, and while these are probably helpful in noticing the problem, a diagnostic will give specific software information to the engineers without them having to scroll through all the media examples.  

It would be good to know if there is a fix coming as I mentioned I have an rma ready to go as Sonos decided to ignore my concerns when I asked if it would definitely fix it.