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ggmogollon
Enthusiast II
June 10, 2020
Answered

Sonos Arc Muddy/Bottoming out Bass

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
    July 2, 2020

    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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    Sumit2007
    Lyricist II
    June 30, 2020

    Thanks for all the great details everyone. The engineering team is looking into this right now. We really appreciate what you’ve shared so far.

    If anyone else is experiencing this issue, the more you can share the better as it really helps pin what’s happening down, and also helps the team recreate the issue in their own homes.

    The following questions are the sort of details that would help the most:  

    • What are you watching or playing that you’re hearing this on? Be as specific as possible please and let us know if it’s only with music. For music, it helps us build a list of tracks and sources that we can recreate the issue with. 

    • What volume do you experience this at? Does it only show up after a certain percentage or do you notice it most of the time?

    • Is your Arc wall-mounted?

    • If wall-mounted, does removing the speaker from the wall bracket and setting it on a credenza or table improve the issue?

    • Are you using Trueplay, and does it go away if you turn Trueplay off?

    • Do you have the Bass EQ setting flat or adjusted in some way?

    • If it’s possible, can you share an image of the setup?

    • Please submit a diagnostic from the system with it happening and let us know the number.

     

     

    @Ryan S  , please let us know if sonos planning to release any other patch this or early next week to address midrange and bass issues , as my return window is closing fast and without any fix I have no option but to return arc. 

     

    Just an FYI - someone mentioned that @Ryan S was let go by Sonos along with a ton of their support staff.  Not sure if this is true but he has definitely stopped responding to this thread as of late.

    Edit: I don’t seen ANY recent posts from Ryan.  :(

    Oh sad to know that ..not sure why Sonos company  did that specially when they released a new product and having good product support is very critical for product success.

    DebadgedA6
    Trending Lyricist I
    July 1, 2020

    Yep, confirmed that Ryan is no longer with Sonos. :(

     

    DebadgedA6
    Trending Lyricist I
    July 1, 2020

    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? 

     

     

    I stopped reading the junk that whatHifi puts out. They don’t actually do any testing. They just write and give stars according to how much they are being paid by the sponsors. Or if they are not paid, they just go in accordance to whatever marketing material they are given. If they did any form of testing even at the most rudimentary level or even just a listening test, they would have noticed that the bass is in no way vast , deep, abundant, weighty nor tuneful. Composed at loudest and deepest? This is just one of many times you can catch them doing shit job ‘fake Reviewing’ stuff. 
     

    Basically whatHifi has a vocabulary of 100 words they randomly pick to deliver a review. Some words costs more. But honestly, their reviews are worthless. Not worth the paper it’s printed on, Nor the bandwidth it’s delivered through. 

      kenwk123
      Lyricist III
      July 1, 2020

       

       I stopped reading the junk that whatHifi puts out. They don’t actually do any testing. They just write and give stars according to how much they are being paid by the sponsors.

      IMO, audio review business is not easy, they depend on Manufacturers to give them gears to review.  Critical opinion is very rare unless the reviewer buy his/her own gear to review.  Also bad reviews will pissed off some ppl that that is bad for business, just look at Rtings as an example with so many viewers not happy.

      sebas1509
      Enthusiast II
      July 1, 2020

      Thanks for all the great details everyone. The engineering team is looking into this right now. We really appreciate what you’ve shared so far.

      If anyone else is experiencing this issue, the more you can share the better as it really helps pin what’s happening down, and also helps the team recreate the issue in their own homes.

      The following questions are the sort of details that would help the most:  

      • What are you watching or playing that you’re hearing this on? Be as specific as possible please and let us know if it’s only with music. For music, it helps us build a list of tracks and sources that we can recreate the issue with. 

      • What volume do you experience this at? Does it only show up after a certain percentage or do you notice it most of the time?

      • Is your Arc wall-mounted?

      • If wall-mounted, does removing the speaker from the wall bracket and setting it on a credenza or table improve the issue?

      • Are you using Trueplay, and does it go away if you turn Trueplay off?

      • Do you have the Bass EQ setting flat or adjusted in some way?

      • If it’s possible, can you share an image of the setup?

      • Please submit a diagnostic from the system with it happening and let us know the number.

       

       

      @Ryan S  , please let us know if sonos planning to release any other patch this or early next week to address midrange and bass issues , as my return window is closing fast and without any fix I have no option but to return arc. 

       

      Just an FYI - someone mentioned that @Ryan S was let go by Sonos along with a ton of their support staff.  Not sure if this is true but he has definitely stopped responding to this thread as of late.

      Edit: I don’t seen ANY recent posts from Ryan.  :(

      That was me. And I do not want to speculate regarding the reason Ryan S is no longer at sonos. But he messaged me privately saying he is no longer at the company. I am not sure if it is related to the layoffs but I think that is irrelevant.

       

      sebas1509
      Enthusiast II
      July 1, 2020

      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.

      As i mentioned on Reddit. I love RTINGS have been using their website for 4 years at least. But their soundbar reviews are non-sensical. I believe their measurements. But I don’t think that quite translates to the audio experience one gets with the product.

       

      An example of this is the Beam and Playbar. I previously owned the playbar and have many friends and my brother with Beams in their living rooms. While I say the beam is a good product there is no way in hell they compare. Yet, RTINGS gives the Beam a higher score for mixed use, for MOVIES?? I just cant justify that. If you watch a movie with a playbar you feel so much more immersed in the content compared to a Beam.

       

      Edit: They also compare SONOS soundbars be it the beam, the playbar or the Arc with other soundbars that come with Sub plus rears (even if those are more expensive) and say things like the $1000+ Q90R is better than the $600→ $700 playbar (obviously if you have a sub and surrounds youll get better surround, better low end, etc etc etc). They have yet to evaluate sonos soundbars with surrounds or with the sub. 

       

      I do still find their measurements valuable but I wouldnt use it to compare or estimate which soundbar is better. That is just so subjective, and theres a lot that you just cant evaluate from frequency ranges, dymaic range etc. I am an engineer myself and while I understand those terms and measurements. They just dont quite encompass the whole picture on how much you will like a soubdbar.

        bbalz
        Renowned Enthusiast I
        July 1, 2020

        Just received this email via Sonos…

         


        Hi *********,

        My name is Alex and I'm a supervisor here at Sonos. Our team is still looking into the issue you've reported and are working to address it in a future software update. For the community, we have recently made some changes to our internal teams, which may be why you're seeing longer times to a response there than usual.

        We certainly understand that isn't ideal, and apologize for the inconvenience along the way.

        If you do have any questions or need further assistance, please let me know.

        Best,
        Alex C. 
        Supervisor | Sonos Customer Experience Team

         

        The changes to the internal teams must mean the layoffs that were reported and the community people from Sonos are no longer active, which many have already noted here. 

        At least it notes that they are still looking into the issue and will address it in a future update.  Details are vague but at least it’s something.

          sebas1509
          Enthusiast II
          July 1, 2020

          Just received this email via Sonos…

           


          Hi *********,

          My name is Alex and I'm a supervisor here at Sonos. Our team is still looking into the issue you've reported and are working to address it in a future software update. For the community, we have recently made some changes to our internal teams, which may be why you're seeing longer times to a response there than usual.

          We certainly understand that isn't ideal, and apologize for the inconvenience along the way.

          If you do have any questions or need further assistance, please let me know.

          Best,
          Alex C. 
          Supervisor | Sonos Customer Experience Team

           

          The changes to the internal teams must mean the layoffs that were reported and the community people from Sonos are no longer active, which many have already noted here. 

          At least it notes that they are still looking into the issue and will address it in a future update.  Details are vague but at least it’s something.

          Everyone know that sonos will continue to improve Arc and tweak the sound for a long time. This is just the start I understand the frustration and that some people are not willing to risk it. But they just finished development on their new soundbar. Now it is all about improving and bringing new features to us. Thats what most of the team focuses on. This email makes sense to me. This is a weird time at sonos and in the whole world for sure

          PowdeRiver
          Lyricist III
          July 1, 2020

          Thanks bbalz, it’s pretty annoying the service we were getting post arc. 

            jkozlow3
            Enthusiast II
            July 1, 2020

            Everyone know that sonos will continue to improve Arc and tweak the sound for a long time. This is just the start I understand the frustration and that some people are not willing to risk it. But they just finished development on their new soundbar. Now it is all about improving and bringing new features to us. Thats what most of the team focuses on. This email makes sense to me. This is a weird time at sonos and in the whole world for sure

             

            To be fair, we do NOT “know” that Sonos is going to tweak and/or improve the sound of the Arc for a long time.  At best, we can say “everyone HOPES” Sonos will continue to tweak and improve the Arc.  But there are no guarantees in life.  Laying off a large chunk of their support staff after prematurely releasing a half-baked “flagship” product is not a great way to inspire confidence in the consumer.

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