Update 14.12 has ruined my sub bass and overall sound

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 … 👍