Bass after adding surrounds sounds bad

  • 12 July 2021
  • 6 replies
  • 526 views

Userlevel 2
Badge

Hello Sonos Community!

I just added two Sonos One SL surround speakers to my Sonos Arc. I’ve been using the Arc without surrounds for about 2 months prior. I don’t have a Sub.

Before adding the surrounds the bass produced by the Arc was full, deep and balanced. I had my EQ bass setting on 5 and it sounded incredible. After adding the One SLs the bass sounds pretty bad. It now seems to be mostly in the deep lows and it sounds very unbalanced. Both me and my partner think the bass sounds muted and bad.

I tried running the TruePlay calibration twice and I played with the EQ. Increasing the bass through the EQ increases the bass output in the very low spectrum but makes it sound worse overall.

This happens both with music and with movies and with pretty much any source (stereo or Atmos).

I’m kind of disappointed after investing in the surrounds and having a worse overall sound.

Am I doing something wrong?


This topic has been closed for further comments. You can use the search bar to find a similar topic, or create a new one by clicking Create Topic at the top of the page.

6 replies

I responded in the other place you posted this issue.

Userlevel 2
Badge

An update on my issue with bad bass after adding SLs as surrounds to the Arc:

I tried removing the surrounds from the app and played some content through the Arc alone. After removing the surrounds the Arc showed up as True Play enabled in the app (I’m assuming it remembers the last True Play configuration from before the surrounds were added). Lo and behold - the sound quality from the Arc was back to normal! Bass sounded great again.

I then added the SLs as surrounds again through the app. True play showed up as disabled. I played some content before running True play and the sound quality was great. Basically, the Arc continued to sound the same as before adding the surrounds. So now I’ve kept it this way: Arc and surrounds but without True Play enabled.

However, I’m really puzzled. Is this an issue with True Play or is this some intentional adjustment by Sonos. Is it possible that Sonos intentionally lowers the bass of the system when surrounds are added? Or maybe a clever ploy to get us to buy the Sub? :)

I understand that Sonos prefers not to allow users to manually configure the parameters of their products and, generally, I think this is a sensible product design decision. But maybe they could allow users to view the parameters in read only mode. That way us power users could try to debug some of our problems and understand better what’s going on.

Userlevel 2
Badge

Hey Sonos,

Instead of increasing your prices for no good reason apart from greed why don’t you spent some time trying to make your (now even more) ridiculously overpriced products work properly? The sound quality issues I’ve described here clearly affects a lot of your unfortunate customers. If you expect people to pay nearly $1000 for a soundbar MAKE IT WORK!!

ADDRESS AND FIX THIS ISSUE ONCE AND FOR ALL! Stop ignoring it.

I was already on the fence about buying any more Sonos products but with your unwillingness to fix issues and now this outrageous price increase you’ve lost me for good.

Saying “You’ve lost me for good”  while simultaneously pleading with them to fix your problem? 

Interesting negotiation technique.  :thinking:

My Arc and surrounds sound great to me. Clearly your subjective opinion of your system differs from my subjective opinion of my system.

If the products are overpriced then surely people will stop buying them? In fact, is that not the only useful, objective definition of 'overpriced'?

A company cannot exhibit 'greed' because it is not a sentient being. All it can do is set prices at a level that maximises profit (or minimises losses) long-term. This is a purely commercial decision. Whether Sonos has made the right decision here or made a mistake is for the market to decide. Nobody is forced to buy.

Userlevel 7
Badge +21

Can I suggest the OP submits a diagnostic and post it here for Sonos to have a look at.  Alternatively give them a call, it’s what i would do.  I understand the frustration but this is a support community so little point in ranting here.

 

It looks like maybe one of you surround speakers is on a a different firmware version maybe?  Have you checked in the “About my system” page.