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Hello everyone! 

I’m new to the community forum, so sincere apologies if this conversation is being repeated.

Jumped on the Sonos band wagon for the Ultra, as in my mind it could only be better than the ARC, even if incremental — so far I’m struggling with the sound, all I’m getting is, very tinny, hollow vocals and lacking any refined mids, they are non existent as far as i’m concerned. It’s all a bit of a incohesive sound combined with Sub Gen3…could this be down to the mini integrated sub robbing some of the lower frequency from the crossover?

I have tried all the required configurations as per Sonos, but it’s still coming up short for a £1000 upgrade.

Solo, it’s okay-ish, but still very bright, hollow and tinny on the vocals (notable with actors that have deep vocals), it’s not a well rounded sound...two words, “no weight”. 

This was the very reason I sort to upgrade, for vocal projection on movies, because if there was one fix for the ARC it would be vocal presence on lower volume, it lacks in that department, especially when using different platforms. It’s a constant battle, of turn up volume for dialogue, and down for action scenes.

There is also the question of where is the spatial audio, or surround?  It is very much one directional and not as pronounced as the ARC, there are brief occasions where it’s like wow! this is what it’s meant to sound like, but then reverts back to a tinny, one directional experience.  It’s not a good surround experience if you know where sound is coming from, it’s distracting!  

I’m gutted about this, I’m also thinking of returning the Ultra and sticking with the ARC.

My question to Sonos is, is there a fix within the software? Or, is this the actual product?  

Sounds unusual, I'd start with a call to support to have them look at the Ultras internals before anything drastic.

Have you done Trueplay, is so what happens when you toggle it on and off? 

Have you tried power cycling the Ultra?

Hi, yes I have carried out Trueplay tuning, but it’s still lacking that weighty sound. 

I have turned the treble down by -5, bass to 0 and sub +2 which sounds a little better, but I’m not jumping with joy.

I haven't rebooted the speaker yet, but I am just about to delink it from the WIFI, both sub and soundbar and run another Trueplay, but this time I will remain still for the second part of the tuning process, as I’ve read other articles on the ARC where they had tinny sound issues when first released, they tried this method and it worked. Not sure if this will work for the Ultra, but it’s worth a try — I’m not an audiophile but I know good sound when I hear it, and at the moment it’s all a bit bright for me.

Maybe the speakers need a little more time for burn-in. The ARC wasn’t that great out of the box either, but currently it out performs the Ultra.

Upgraded to Ultra due to original arc's tinny voice...With Ultra also same issue continues.planning to sell all Sonos gear

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