Sonos Arc Ultra center channel too loud

Interesting, I will try turning Trueplay off. Thanks.

You are welcome! Let me know how it goes

Well it’s interesting…resetting was not straightforward at all but figured it out and reset everything. It improved 2 channel music listening, some songs that were unlistenable now sound pretty good. It forced me to update the Sonos app for some reason, even though I’d checked this AM. Perhaps got a better Trueplay session, can’t be sure.

However, no change to movies, still have an imbalance with FRFL being lower than all the others, which seems like an easily correctable bug

Sounds good that at least something improved! Definitely the “too loud center channel” issue is something I have faith Sonos engineers will fix down the road. Since we are the first users to use the Arc Utra since its launch. We are the ones who deal with all of the bugs and glitches that will be corrected down the road. For me No Trueplay gives me a warmer and bigger soundstage, the Ultra sounds a bit less trebly if that makes sense and the height effects improved. I am yet to try to run Trueplay again with the new updates!

Sonos should really just consider giving us manual settings UI for those that want it. I used House Curve to capture frequency response with/without Trueplay, except for a dip in the middle, the without curve was better below 200hz…both sound good.

some really good hardware here for that neutral of a natural plot in a giant cavern of my room. Just give us test signals and Parametric EQ for each channel :)

with

without Trueplay

D700 wrote:

Gapz wrote:

Sounds good that at least something improved! Definitely the “too loud center channel” issue is something I have faith Sonos engineers will fix down the road. Since we are the first users to use the Arc Utra since its launch. We are the ones who deal with all of the bugs and glitches that will be corrected down the road. For me No Trueplay gives me a warmer and bigger soundstage, the Ultra sounds a bit less trebly if that makes sense and the height effects improved. I am yet to try to run Trueplay again with the new updates!

Sonos should really just consider giving us manual settings UI for those that want it. I used House Curve to capture frequency response with/without Trueplay, except for a dip in the middle, the without curve was better below 200hz…both sound good.

some really good hardware here for that neutral of a natural plot in a giant cavern of my room. Just give us test signals and Parametric EQ for each channel :)

 

with

 

without Trueplay

 

100% agree with you! The good news is the new management team is taking over after the CEO was fired, so I hope we get these bugs fixed and improvements along the way!

​@Corry P 

A couple of things to note and another bug to report

First, here’s example for Product team documenting the center loud problem:

• Example test tones video
• I took this video of my system playing this test file: https://download.dolby.com/us/en/test-tones/dolby-test-tones_7_1_4.mp4
• As you can see, center channel is roughly 6db louder that Front Right and Left Channel

Second:

• My surround channels were louder than front left/right as well but I was able to use the control slider to lower volume -3db which helped.
• However Front height was lower (even less than front R/L) while rear height was higher, like centers and surrounds.
• Unfortunately, I discovered that the slider to adjust Height Volume isn’t doing anything, there’s no change to the sound for either front or back height channels.

Will you update Product Team to also look into the height channel volume adjustment not working.?

I am really hopeful Sonos will address these problems in software, these seem like pretty straightforward bugs, not something that would get explained to the community as “working as designed” in a white paper.

Sup

Any updates? 

Same issue here. 
 

I have Arc Ultra+sub4+era300. The left and right discrete channels of the arc has a much lower level than both the centre and surrounds. 
 

Did any of you get any updates from Sonos? When I talked with them, they seemed “unaware” of the issue :-/

Maybe we should send mail to CEO directly? And to the press? Social networks? The most important product of recent years works as a bluetooth speaker for $50

That annoyng. How to explain to sonos that it's important and it's a problem!

And this is not a theory. This is an empirically proven fact.

While we’re waiting, I found lowering my surround volume to match my L/R helped quite a bit.

My thoughts:

I conferenced with L3 on this on Jan 3rd. He was professional, acknowledged the L/R difference and we ran through tests and captured logs. He said he would leave the case open and that it was being investigated. No ETA.

One thing I pointed out to L3 was that the difference seems to vary with overall system loudness, greater at lower volumes, less at higher volumes, which makes me think it was designed that way. Rtings also looked into it in their updated review and indicated as much and that other manufacturers do the same. It does keep dialog front and center, even at lower volumes, which I do like.

Even with this complaint, everything else about my system is great, overall frequency response, low end bass and surround/height effects are really good, so I’m hopeful.

I think ultimate solution is add feature to enable dedicated front L/R speakers (like 5s or Era300) then let Arc serve as dedicated center/height speaker...frankly, I’d prefer that before a fix to this...though they need both.

I’m rooting for Sonos, they’ve gotten so much right.

After Sonos latest update I can hear my Arc Ultra standalone sounbar more cinematic, more balanced, surrounds sounds much better and not to say the Height effects are much clearer and cool.

Great to hear. I’m waiting on furniture so haven’t used the room much since latest update which came after I met with L3. 

You will hear the difference. Let me know your thoughts when you can. Thanks

I recently swapped out the Arc for an Arc Ultra and the too loud center channel is very noticeable. As described in this thread it started too loud and remains so after Trueplay. My speakers are ‘up-to-date’ with software/firmware. Is everyone just living with this?

I find it hard to believe that this is a ‘bug’ four months after launch. And if the intention is to have the center channel artificially amplified over the other channels then this needs to be returned - that is no way to set up a HT audio system.

I spent some time today investigating the issue. I got out my old World of Wonder (WoW) Blu-ray which has calibration tools along with a tripod and sound level meter. Went through the same steps as the old days before channel volume level setting became automated.

I found that the Arc-Ultra runs about 4db hot in the center channel compared to the front left/right. This was the same with both types of Trueplay as well with Trueplay off. I also found that Trueplay set the surrounds (Era 100s in my case) 10db or more louder than the front channels. Home theater as instructed by Dolby is that all the channels should be the same volume level at the seating position. We are way off.

So I contacted Sonos Support. And after a false start of the Chatbot explaining that in the EQ settings I can reduce the center channel volume (which is not a feature...) I got an agent. She said that this issue is unexpected and opened a case and suggested I call in to get a level 2 agent. There was a 30 minute wait on the phone so I swapped back in my Arc for comparison.

The Arc had matching volumes across the front three channels immediately. After running Trueplay the center was elevated by almost 2db and the surrounds were between 0db and 2db. The subs ran 10db+ too loud. But that was adjustable in the app. 

So for some reason Trueplay gave a terrible result with Arc Ultra as the host but did fine with the Arc system. 

Subjectively I find the Arc Ultra in my system (with dual subs and Era 100s) in a large room to be a poor performer in comparison to the Arc. It struggles with imaging in the front stage due to the volume differences in the channels and seems to also struggle with placing objects in the surround channels (there are other threads regarding this in 5.1 specifically). 

I’ll note that all the dialog enhancement stuff is off, loudness off and the speakers are all ‘up to date’ as of 3/1. Honestly I’m sad that this seems to be a shared issue and confused that this didn’t get flagged in the reviews. Is there a chance there is a defect in just some units? 

For those that want to try a test video here is one from youtube. All channels should be at the same volume. 

Did you manage to talk to level 2?

Every time I have talked with Sonos I get the same answers; “we are unaware of any such issue” and that’s how it’s supposed to be”. 
 

They don’t seem interested in helping. 

There’s a handful of us that have all replicated all that, so it’s known.  I recorded a video of the anomalies using meter and sent in, then they made an appt and I ran through it all with a L3 person. I found that LR/C delta increased as system volume decreased and vice versa. My Arc Ultra is in the middle of 30’ wall and the L/R speakers fire perpendicular to the seating area, so I wonder if the bar was designed to depend on closer walls for reflection/reinforcement…but that’s speculation. 
 

FWIW L3 said they would leave my ticket open but I have not heard back since posts above

On a reddit thread I saw that someone claimed that LG TVs have a bug that has the AI mess with the sound in some cases when set to Pass Through. I am using an AppleTV to a LG to the Sonos. But looking at my settings all the AI Audio is turned off as recommended.

Have you guys compared notes? My Ultra is boxed up to be returned based on its behavior and this thread’s common experience but I’m still baffled on why this hasn’t been caught in reviews. 

Mine is a TCL tv and I have the same issue. 

So as I mentioned in another thread, I’m currently auditioning both the Sony Bravia theater quad and the Arc ultra with Eros 300s and the sub 3 (I already had the sub from a previous system). As I continue to test both systems, some of these Sonos issues are becoming more bothersome. The center channel issue is painfully obvious as is the rear surround issue, particularly when you run any of the common sound level checks. In fact it’s so obvious that it’s almost impossible to believe that Sonos didn’t see it before pushing the system out. It’s also a head scratcher that none of the reviewers caught this. 

I also have a bit of an issue, which I haven’t seen reported here, with dialogue when I A/B the Quad vs the Ultra system. Although dialog intelligibility is very good on the Ultra, there’s a bit of sibilance in some dialogue on the Ultra that I don’t hear on the Quad. I’ve run numerous TruPlay calibrations, tried turning TruPlay on & off and obviously played with the equalizer as best I could. Yet switching to the Sony, the dialogue just seems smoother without the sibilance. I’ve also turned off any speech enhancement which obviously can contribute to this issue. The front channels, despite the Quad having only a phantom center, are unquestionably better balanced (as are the rears) when performing the typical level tests, but I don’t think that’s related to the sibilance issue. Does anyone else hear this?

I was definitely leaning toward keeping the Ultra, but now I’m really torn. My wife thinks I’m neurotic with the number of times I’ve switched the HDMI cable from the Sony control box to the Ultra…I probably am! ;)

L3 responded today, still actively working the issue.

L3?

Level of customer support

Hi, 

Just wanted to let you know that I am also experiencing the same issue with the center channel being too loud. 

Hope this get’s fixed!