Ultra - dialogue tinny and soft

Hi @Jonnydrama32 

Thanks for your post!

I’m sorry to hear of this audio issue you are having with your new Arc Ultra.

Please try various levels of the Speech Enhancement option - if that does not help, I recommend you get in touch with our technical support team who have tools at their disposal that will allow them to give you advice specific to your Sonos system and what it reports.

Make dialogue easier to hear with Speech Enhancement

I hope this helps.

@Corry P It’s not a speech enhancement issue, it’s a mix issue. Some people are complaining about the bass not outputting to the sub enough. Similarly, the true play is sending too much sound to the surrounds when it should be balanced. You can tell this is an issue because Trueplay can’t even get speaker distance correct. It thinks all the speakers are 10ft or farther apart when they’re far less than that. Speech enhancement may boost the center channel but my issue is the same as others - Trueplay isn’t mixing the sound correctly, so the system sounds worse than with the original Arc.

Trueplay has never previously adjusted or set the Surround Distance in the app.

When Trueplay is enabled, the Surround Distance options are greyed out.

If you temporarily disable Trueplay, you can adjust the Surround Distance options for both speakers, then enable Trueplay again.

@Jonnydrama32 

Just turn down the surround speakers’ TV level slider in the Arc’s settings to get them to a level you feel is balanced. 

That doesn’t work because it doesn’t adjust individual surround speakers. So they’re not the right balance.

When I disable Trueplay, I don’t see a way to adjust the surround distance. My only option is to “reset” and it automatically makes them both go to under 10ft. But also, if Trueplay is correctly setting this up, why would I need to manually change anything? What I can say is that the left surround is overpowering everything. I need to be able to only adjust that one.

No knock on Sonos, but I am never calling customer service again. Last year I bought the Arc and got two different units directly from the company that had an issue with the capacitive touch button, where the device would regularly say “speaker on, speaker off.” Nobody believed me until others started experiencing the same thing. I spent hours on the phone with CS, who’d just keep sending me around to other divisions. Eventually I bought a unit from Best Buy that worked fine. Sonos said they’d reimburse me the difference between the Best Buy version and the Sonos direct version (because I used a 15% discount), and trying to get them to follow through with that took dozens of calls and emails. At some point, T3 tech support told me that many people had been laid off in logistics, and that was causing communication issues. I had to send both of the broken Arcs back, but Sonos lost one, which they then tried to charge me for. They then ghosted me for months, despite numerous emails. When I finally gave up, they didn’t even offer me a discount code for another product. Worst experience of my life. I even emailed the CEO multiple times without a response from him or his office. All of this happened before the app fiasco. 

Not individual surround volume, no, but if the centre channel is drowned out by the surrounds, you could turn down the level of both surrounds a fraction, and turn up the whole system, so the centre channel plays a bigger part but the surrounds still add the atmos.

Hi @Jonnydrama32 

I am sorry to hear of your previous experience - we definitely aim to do better than that!

If I had a magic button I could press that would solve all your problems, I would press it in a heartbeat. That is not how things work, however, and the assistance that I can provide here is limited - especially when I can’t go through real-time troubleshooting with you.

I think it is a fair generalisation to make that the Arc Ultra should sound better than the Arc - as yours does not, I can only recommend calling in. At this stage, I am not expecting anyone to ask you to return your Arc Ultra, but if there is a fault with the unit itself, nothing short of that will help matters. Conversely, if there is no an issue with the unit, but there is with the software, then, again, the only way to move things forward is to get the behaviour documented with the support team.

It is unlikely but possible that a factory reset of your Arc Ultra will help. Please try this before calling in.

Factory reset your Sonos product

I hope this helps.

First time here and trying to get answers for the above problem (intermittent tinny sound).

I just received my Arc Ultra, Era 300 speakers and Sub 4 about 2 weeks ago. Everything is running great except every once in a while, the Ultra sounds tinny or as my wife said...sounds like an old time AM broadcast.  She wants me to send everything back.

It’s hard to pin point sense it’s intermittent.  I have reset the Ultra but no change and also ran the quick trueplay.  I only use these speakers for the TV, no music.  

Other than the tinny sound, I love these speakers.

Did you try the Sonos staff's suggestions above your post?

Hi Stanley_4

Thanks for the reply.  I’m slowly working at it. Since it’s intermittent it’s tough to diagnose. For the most part it works great. Basically just letting others and Sonos know there is a problem

Try the suggested factory reset, if it fixes the problem  it will save you a lot of work.

If it doesn't then when the glitch happens submit a diagnostic and note the number. At some point call Support with the numbers and have them look at the internal data we users can't see.

Horrible tinny voice again with Ultra too..Sonos messed up again with Ultra too like original arc