This online review of the 14.12 software update and it’s affect on the Sonos Arc is maybe worth a look-see. It makes some suggestions for you to perhaps consider…

https://youtu.be/C7sLAhDXH7A

If the Bass has disappeared from your setup after adjusting the room volume level, then it might be something else? You could perhaps consider submitting a Sonos diagnostic report and contacting the Staff direct via this LINK, if you think that is the case.

Thanks Ken, I’ve contacted the staff through chat, sent a diagnostic report and sent an email.

Im now regretting switching my beam for an arc. From what i understand, sonos are trying to compensate for the lack of voice clarity by dropping the sound on the non central speakers. What they fail to realise is that many users (such as myself) use sonos mainly for music. This new sound signature has removed the dynamic full sound i loved. I also like to have the music loud, thats been hampered too. They need to give the user the opportunity to change the eq for all ranges of sound. Sony and other leading companies have the option on all top end systems, even headphones. What do sonos not give us this option? Are they trying to protect the speakers? Not enough power in the arc? I would also like to know why they have changed the output of the sub. They oblige us to link it to the ark and thus the arc dulls out the sound it used to produce. I would rather it had its old sound signature back and was independent from the arc.

Spending thousands on a sound system for Sonos to give us no choice but to impose sound signatures we don’t want is really bad business. They could even create a menu with different sound signatures to allow us to choose. Just like Devialet, Sony etc, That way satisfy music and movie lovers.

Anyway, thanks for your help. Im looking into the Sony HT-A9. That way i will have full control of the settings and not have to worry about what the next update will do. I’ll give sonos a few weeks to get the sound back to where it was before moving on.

cheers, Ian

@Ian Sives,
Before switching to Sony HT-A9, I would perhaps do a search on ‘audio dropouts’ on that product via Google or similar search engine, as you may just want to look a little deeper into that topic before you make your decision to switch. HTH 

Thanks Ken, I had audio dropouts on my sonos at first too. The solution was to but a sonos boost and run my sonos network from there. Since then its never dropped out. Will need to look into the Sony problem and see if its a network priority problem related too. Thanks again !!

@Ian Sives 

I use mine exclusively for movies and TV and trust me it's awful compared to what it was I listen to music on a pair of 5's and sub and those are affected as well hopefully they will fix this or I will have to replace it with something else

Thanks for that info. So basically Sonos has ruined the sound signature for all its products ! Well done Sonos for this disaster. The software updates like this and fazing out support for your older hardware will be the downfall of the company. People spend thousands of pounds/dollars on the equipment to have quality. From one day to the next the quality is gone. Soon it will be many the sonos users that are gone.

@Ian Sives 

I will wait for the next patch but if it stays as bad I will either get the LG S95 bar if I just replace the cinema part of my system and keep the sonos for music or if I decide to replace the lot I will look at the Denon HEOS system 

If I only had a £/€/$1.00 for every-time someone mentions these type of things in their posts whenever there’s a Sonos change…

Anyhow, trying to be a little more constructive here instead. My own thoughts are…

That even with the Arc volume lowered by the recent update - you would have to have a very large room to want to set its volume high and right at the very top-end of the volume slider. 

My average-sized HT listening room, now has the Arc volume set around the 40% volume level (up from 30%) and that’s fine for my ears... with plenty left in the tank to crank the volume up higher to cause the neighbours to want to move out.

I’m not personally experiencing the ‘other’ Bass issues that some users mention - The Moves, Fives etc; still all sound okay to me, so not sure why some are getting issues with those other Sonos products? I think all, and in particular the Move, still sound great with the current software.

Center-channel volume-control on the Sonos HT is what I would personally like to see happen …and ’perhaps’ just as a further useful feature, I would also like to see an option to manually balance the audio between the left/right HT channels. However the latter suggestion could perhaps be considered a little further down the line, as I guess these things are often much easier said, than done.

I just happen to think that such further elements of audio customisation would (hopefully) help to please most Sonos HT users.

Default settings and ‘ease of use’ however should remain ‘key’ when introducing any additional system customisation. 

I’m very much a believer in Sonos keeping things simple for their end-users, but a little more channel control might not be a bad thing for a Sonos HT setup.

I hope that was a little more constructive than just threatening to go out and buy another system, particularly when we all know that Sonos do listen to their customers and have an excellent record for resolving these sort of ‘customer-preference’ issues for the majority of users.

@Ken_Griffiths 

Sorry but my system sounds terrible now I have a small room so never had it over 35 before 

The volume is not the issue for me the heavy mid/centre focus sounds awful for my ears before this update everything was fine 

Glad you are happy Ken but I am close to shooting the bunny 

I understand you are having a difficult time with the update @skullc and I hope a solution is found for you too …

@Ken_Griffiths 

Cheers mate I have enjoyed the system up till this year's 2 bad updates another thing I noticed that some frequency that is coming from the system is causing a slight problem with my ears not an earache but like a pressure and is making listening tiring not sure I am describing it correctly but we are all different with our listening tastes but it is odd that I am experiencing this 

As well as not enjoying the new sound profile that is, hopefully it will be resolved soon

If other speakers would be affected by this, would they not also have lost Trueplay?

No they didn't but I redid truplay but it didn't help

That’s a good point @106rallye  - I’m not seeing any issues with any of our other Sonos products - the first (initial) thing I did notice, is the slight volume-reduction in the Arc. I think a number of folk have noticed that …and things nearly always tend to sound ‘not as good’ when their output is quieter.

I do think that the center channel dialogue audio has been improved and all I’ve gone onto do, is increase the Arcs volume to compensate for the changes. 

I’ve left Trueplay disabled, but I’ve had the Arc like that before the update anyway, as it just suits my own preference. I usually increase the treble slightly on my devices aswell (that’s undoubtedly an age thing - I prefer a notch, or two, more treble with my own hearing). 

For TV audio, I could probably choose to actually take the bass down a few notches, but I have left it ‘flat’ as I prefer it that way for music and I can’t be bothered to keep regularly adjusting it, so it’s a bit of a compromise for the different audio sources in my case, plus there’s alway the option to use SVC to enable ‘Night Mode’ if the Movie gets too boomy during some surround-sound loud action sequences.

So I’m not suffering with bass/sub issues, like some, but as @skullc mentions I guess that we each hear things differently, aswell as having different setups and environments, which is why I think a way to resolve the issue, perhaps for the majority, might be some additional (but simple to use) controls for channel customisation. 

Anyhow, I’m sure that the Sonos engineers will be looking at this matter further and taking onboard the suggestions and various options available to them and we will have to see what they decide.

From my own perspective I’m not overly concerned by the recent software/firmware update, as the change to my system has not caused me the problems that @skullc seems to be having with his setup.

So.."I’m alright Jack!”.. ha ha

(Sorry @skullc - I do actually sincerely hope you do get things resolved for your Sonos setup).

Thanks @skullc for the advice on other systems. I will be checking them out.

@Ken_Griffiths i have a large room and am lucky to have a detached house so i liked to play it loud. I have a second set of SL ones in the same room. Its a shame that sonos won’t let me pair them into the same room, it could have fixed the volume im missing. Again limited by the app and software. This has been a topic pushed since the beginning of sonos that they refuse to address, so i don’t fully believe they listen to their users. When i play music to all of the speakers the extra SL ones have an audio delay that i can’t fix so basically they are redundant. A solution could be to buy a set of fives to replace my rear sl ones, but i won’t invest more money into sonos now that i have first hand experience of how they can mess up my listening experience without giving me a choice.

Yes companies can mess up but they have a huge beta testing community and surely this kind of feedback must have been known. I believe that the arc is at its limits of power and they have taken more from outer speakers to power the central to resolve the dialogue/speech problem. They have also changed the signature on the sub so as to allow the dialogue/speech to be heard. The sub really does sound under powered. I could hear the plasterboard walls in my room vibrate at anything above 60 % with sub at 0. Now i can set it to 15 and at 60% and there is nothing. The bass is nothing like it felt or sounded like before.

They can give options to allow people to choose the sound signature they want but as with pairing extra speakers to the same room they refuse to allow it. Why is this?
perhaps going back to wired audio where updates can’t hurt the experience may be an option, but im definitely exploring them. Id rather sell my system while its worth something and invest in something else, honestly. Im that annoyed and angry about this. Its a hell of a lot of money I've invested in sonos material including a move.
 

@Ken_Griffiths 

Hallelujah!

I have found a setting to stop the pain/pressure effect on my hearing 

Volume 40 bass 0 treble -8 sub 0 truplay on

Still sounds poor but it doesn't hurt

Or it could be the Stella unfiltered numbing me

You might have network issues here - when playing music audio to all speakers ‘grouped’ you should not be experiencing any audio delays?. You may want to just double-check that is happening. 

TV audio will be delayed on the ‘grouped room’ of course, but you could try correcting that, particularly for TV music audio, using the "TV Dialog Sync” feature in the HT room settings - it works fine for stereo audio to help put all ‘grouped rooms’ in sync.

Hope that assists.

That’s a different experience to my own setup here and I have three Sonos Subs around the Home, One with an Arc, one with a Beam gen2 and another that I use to float between rooms and is currently just attached to a stereo pair of Ones. I’m not personally noticing the issues mentioned, but I don’t usually have them rattling/vibrating things here - as mentioned I could actually be happy with a sub set to a minus volume setting when connected to a TV and ‘flat’ when playing music - music bass audio varies so much (a lot) anyway between the different tracks I usually listen to… I would likely end up with the App open and changing settings between tracks - so I’m happy with the ‘flat’ mid-point. I haven’t personally noticed a change in this area, but maybe that’s down to my own hearing ability.

I’m not here to side with anyone, I’m just speaking ‘as I find’ - I can’t/wouldn’t stop you changing your setup, that’s entirely up-to-you …and it would undoubtedly benefit the person purchasing it, but just seems a drastic outlook at this rather early stage.. although maybe without some system customisation options Sonos may find it difficult to perhaps ‘please all the people, all the time’… I don’t really think anything can be said to change your mind, if things do turn out to not suit how you like to hear/listen to your audio sources. As with any audio system, it will always be about trying to please the ‘majority’.

in my double sub setup there is a very audible difference after this update. When trying to correct with the sub volume you get a boost in midbass, but not in the sub region. 

It sounds like a cheap cardboard passive sub when you do that. 

@Ken_Griffiths @skullc @rsint @106rallye 

I just got an email reply from Sonos after contacting them, hope this helps……

Hello Ian,

Thank you for contacting Sonos Customer Experience. My name is Shising, and I am happy to assist you regarding your issue. I am sorry you have had to deal with this issue. I know how frustrating it is when the system does not work as it should, and I will do my best to help you.

After the release of R3 2022, an issue was discovered that impacts audio quality negatively with Trueplay enabled on certain Home Theater Configurations.

The issue will result in slightly less output from the Sub. The issue for Arc will also affect certain other frequencies and currently, it can only be fully mitigated by Turning off Trueplay tuning | Sonos.

Please note that R3 also introduced additional changes to the Arc's audio output. These changes are expected and can result in a slightly lower perceived volume output but can simply be changed by raising the volume slightly in the Sonos app. The user doesn't lose out on overall volume, as it's just the volume scale that has been adjusted slightly. These changes are intended and are working as designed.

We are aware of the issue that Trueplay affects the sound quality negatively and are working on a fix but do not have any more information or a timeline to share.

Once again, we apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused you, and we thank you for your understanding on this matter. If you have other concerns, feel free to let us know.

All the best,

Same issue. It sounds terrible. 

Perhaps see the suggested workaround in the main 14.12 thread until the matter is resolved.

Hi all,

Thank you for your continued discussion. We’re really happy to be able to tell you that today we’ll release an update that will include fixes to the issues that resulted from the 14.12 software update with Enhanced Clarity for Arc.In the 14.12 release, we made a change to Arc’s sound profile to improve dialogue clarity and the overall sound experience.  Since that update, some users whose configuration included a Sub have experienced two issues:

1. Users of Arc would find the same volume settings resulted in lower output volume. Whilst the maximum volume and bass capabilities were unchanged, volume settings in the lower regions resulted in a quieter sound than before the update
2. Users of Arc, Beam and Ray would find their Sub output is lower than desired after performing a new Trueplay tuning.

(Home theatre configurations without a Sub were unaffected, including standalone soundbars and those bonded with surrounds only)

With the 14.18 software update, both of these issues have been addressed, and the Enhanced Clarity for Arc adjustments are retained. There was a clear preference within our community for the previous volume settings, and these have been restored. This will be apparent immediately after updating to 14.18. The Trueplay issue has been fixed. Customers who experienced a lower Sub level after performing Trueplay after updating to 14.12 will need to update their systems and then perform a new Trueplay tuning in order to address these improvements in their system. Customers will hear a more powerful low end response, meaning any Sub level adjustments made after 14.12 should no longer be required.

I have issue since 14.18 that the sub mini output is to low. With 14.16 you can hear sub mini output very strong. But with 14.18 it’s bearly noticeable and the most bass is coming from the beam gen 2. Increasing sub level to Max. Does only help a very little bit.

greetings Roy

I haven’t seen actually anything mentioned about any changes to the Sub-Mini in the community here, post software update, so if the issue persists and you are not able to resolve the matter, you are perhaps best to submit a diagnostic report and contact Sonos Support Staff via this LINK.

I have a Sub-Mini too and the sound here hasn’t (noticeably) changed, but I’m using it bonded with a Beam (gen 1) and surrounds, so that appears to be different to your setup, based on your community profile.

Anyhow perhaps post back the outcome, after speaking to the Staff, if that becomes necessary.

If you purchased a Sonos product, it’s because you liked the sound signature. Remember : you purchased the product and did not rent it. How in the world a company can change the character of a product that you purchased, without telling you explicitly what is happening and whitout the possibility to go back to the original signature/workflow that was there when you took the decision to puchased the product is insanely chocking and I wonder why there is no law against such unpolite and brutal behaviour. A corporation with narcissist and sociopathic traits.

Also, if your product does not work well, I would give the advice to take a day off from work, because you could have to help the service team for hours before they find out. Remember, they won’t take care of your product by themselves. You will be requested to help them and lose your precious time. With normal companies, when there’s a problem, you just give them the product and they check it. Not Sonos. You have to be part of that process and spend hours with them in the hope that will solve the problem… which is absolutly not guaranted. I have a defective Sonos Port and spend hours with them… and I’m still stuck with a defective Port. I just gave up.

So on one side, they don’t care about you as they will force change without telling you, but on the other hand, they request your precious time when there isi a problem with their product. Wonder how long such a disrespectful business model can last.