14.12 Update

Indeed. And my first statements were also to the effect that a EULA cannot be a defence against a significant sound profile change that is irreversible. I only looked at the Sonos EULA later to apply my admittedly old contract negotiation experience to what I found there, and I was actually surprised to see that it does not permit changing sound profiles as explicitly as some emotionally invested in Sonos folk would like to loudly claim it does.

You are way off, the volume has decreased substantially. 100% volume is not loud enough now, when the source for music isn’t very loud, 100% is no way near loud enough!!! please please revert this update back or give us an option

Personally yes. I don’t think it sounds ‘better’, and it doesn’t sound ‘worse’, its ‘different’. I have had to turn volume up slightly and bass up +2. Some people are able to ‘absorb’ change and ‘adapt’ better than others.

Hypothetical question - lets assume the Sonos Arc previously sounded like it does with 14.12, we were all used to the current sound ‘14.12’ sound profile. Then Sonos released a version that made it sound like 14.10 used to, would we be having the same discussion?

No.

I'd be eulogising about how the centre was not in a cardboard box, the sounds are spread around the room and my sub now knew more than one frequency.

Thanks Ken for your input. I just would have thought they could have made all these dialogue improvements and embedded them into the existing dialogue enhancement button, and left everything else the same

If I may add one last comment on this topic, 14.12 is a good update but it may take a perspective change to understand why, about me for a bit, I work in the professional music industry as a creative and I’ve done so for over 20 years as a matter of fact my main instruments are electric and synthesised bass, since this topic is subwoofer, bass and volume related something I believe no one likes more than me I feel I can contribute from my experiences.

The human hearing is biased to loudness, we tend to perceive loud as better same for bass, people love loud bass but truthfully it’s the quality of the bass, the tightness and balance of the system we should be liking, before 14.12 there are quite a few thing I found difficult to watch without night sound engaged to tame the dynamics a bit.

DUNE 2021 (the remake)

The Adam Project - Netflix 

These two are what sprung to mind they were the most annoying as I had to reach for the remote control a few times because they were mixed and mastered with so much low end goodness, I found the ARC + Sub on 14.10 didn’t know what to do with dynamics, the thing was all over the place, for the most part I had the volume between 7 and 10, with night sound engaged it was on 15 but wasn’t as enjoyable, the Adam project especially sounded the worst, I thought maybe it was a Netflix problem or perhaps it was mastered poorly, but knowing how finicky and particular mix and mastering engineers can get I ruled that out, those nerds are not always there for the pay cheque they are passionate about sound. it was the systems balance it was off by a lot, then I had an opportunity to listen to a Samsung Q950 with some of the content I’d been struggling with on my sonos, it was a similar setup with the subwoofer and no surrounds, but it was somewhat balanced and detailed with layers of sounds and some sweet textures things my ARC wasn’t presenting, but i was okay with that, I said to myself the ARC has a bold weighty sound kind of like a wrecking ball but if I’m being honest I was slightly tempted, anyway I quickly reminded myself the sonos  system was designed for wireless music distribution across the home and sonos has championed this, my beam gen 1 also had some issues with bass but they fixed and improved the sound profile over time, it is such a pleasure to list to now.

Before 14.12 the ARC could get pretty loud, shockingly loud in-fact but loudness often introduces distortion which isn’t always pleasing to the ear unless it was analog distortion (Warmth) from valve, tube amps, modelled effect processors etc which no sonos speaker has, or distortion intended by the mix engineer or artist as an effect as part of the story telling. 
In conclusion loudness is not always better unless you were fighting a loudness war a systems ability to play clean precise smooth and balanced across all frequencies is far more enjoyable.

Lets instead liken this to an electric car. Yesterday you were able to do 100mph but overnight it received a software update which, let's face it, everyone thinks an update improves things, and now today you can only do 75mph and a few other things don't work how they did yesterday and overall it's made things worse. That's how we feel with this. I'm sure you'd be pretty peed with the product and the manufacturer.

Where are you doing 100 MPH in your car?  😁

@Amzy …… I found the quality of the bass in the 14.10 was fine. I didn’t have any distortion on the SUB or ARC. It felt like the ARC was allowing the SUB to do all the work for the bass. With the Sub now sounding muddy and under powered i adjusted the ARC EQ to try and get the bass back to where it was and im getting massive distortion from the ARC if i put the ARC bass anything above 5. I feel that they have strangled the SUB Bass so as to allow the speech to be heard better on the Ark. As i use my Sonos mainly for music this is a really bad evolution in the sound signature for me. There are solutions as i and many have already said in this topic, such as incorporating this new sound signature into the enhanced speech option or to make multiple signatures such as brands like Sony do. This would be pleasing to everybody. I ask why such a big company like Sonos have not thought about this or allowed for these options in their app before releasing an update that has caused so much upset in the community? Especially since they have a massive beta testing community and feedback before rolling out an update.

I’ve also tried only having my SL ones grouped with my Sub and the Arc disabled/removed from the system. The Bass is still not as before. For now i have no solution to get back to where i liked and enjoyed.

I understand that Sonos want to improve the products but such a drastic change in its sound signature was not something i thought would be imposed on me.

I would be interested if there is any beta testers here that got the chance to test this update before it was forced upon us?

I also switched my mobile phone from android to apple so that i could calibrate trueplay. Now Sonos admit to us that there are problems with trueplay and to turn it off. Another waste of my money. Again lack of proper testing before releasing an update.

For me this update has done more damage than good and i have had no choice in the matter.

What i do know is that i hate this new sound signature, ive been trying to get ‘used’ to it but unfortunately i’m not.

Joining in what @nikid said, its as if ive been sold something performant which i enjoyed only to be restricted through no choice of my own. Much like Volkswagen did to my car and millions of unhappy customers when we had to get our cars re programmed due to them faking emission levels !! Guess what, i sold my car and i won’t be buying from them again ?…. take note Sonos lol.

Sonos please modify your announcement ‘THE BASS DOES NOT GO BACK TO HOW IT SOUNDED IN 14.10 WITH TRUEPLAY TURNED OFF’ contrary to what is stated in your announcement.

You also lowered the volume as shown and proven in the youtube video of peter pee. Again contrary to your announcement. Why lower the loudness of your system? what are you trying to compensate or cover up in doing that?

As you can see im pretty peeved at Sonos. I have a lot of money invested in a system that from one day to the next i do not enjoy through no fault of my own.

Rant over lol……. Sonos get your act together !!!

I agree, I was very disappointed with the volume drop after the update, but knowing a little about how amplifiers work, I understand why they did this, I think where they went wrong was making the ARC play really loud initially, I believe this was to wow people but the ARC never did loudness gracefully over certain decibels sound stage starts to fall apart with grit taking over, on previous firmwares I could never get mine past 50 it was too loud and harsh, brittle sounding, also I believe over a certain decibel it stops getting louder as you turn the volume up, a trick most manufacturers do to give the perception of loudness is put all the power in front anything above a certain point stops getting loud, but you may never know that as you may not play that loud, you may get to a range of 65 or 75 and think loud enough.