I suppose they could be press, who received them early for review purposes, or beta testers breaking their NDA? Do you have any links?

Hi there, here they are

https://www.google.com/shopping/product/16845507635792336886/reviews?q=sonos+arc&client=safari&rls=en&sxsrf=ALeKk03a6mbzqi64yMaJw4sC6_fVLWSG1A:1590711270532&biw=2156&bih=1287&prds=paur:ClkAsKraX7jbJwgtdp20Zv9WIOAV2AhaxjZWqYi8eWiNpg5PyuR2ThMEkxbJzL6b_5399CmaBTKdQ-O3BpIIlwr8ITqZDRUcKT57VK43f_XaCSqyyu5GSv4DmRIZAFPVH71Vl1hu2QHJysvtwBu4CgdYxtLOQw,cs:1&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj4gbiz5dfpAhXl73MBHd6ZCNUQqSQILA

It says they come from the Sonos website on the same date, no idea what they are as they don’t appear on the arc page… anyone from the Sonos team can comment?

Odd. When I click on your link, I get a ‘the product could not be found.’ And no reviews. 

@Airgetlam oh ok that’s very strange...the way I find it is by typing “Sonos arc” on google then if you are on mobile go on “view more” and you should be able to see the reviews. Also I am in Australia, that might have an impact...

Odd. 
 

I did a search for Sonos Arc review, and got quite a few hits, including Sonos ones and this one:

https://www.pocket-lint.com/speakers/buyers-guides/sonos/152080-sonos-arc-vs-sonos-playbar-is-it-worth-upgrading

among others…

I would assume the posts you’re seeing are from folks who have received pre-release versions, such as press folks, and perhaps beta testers. Who are likely breaking NDA by posting those reviews, if that is the case. 

@Airgetlam I don’t think this is the case, reviews come from the Sonos website so they might have them ready to get published on realised date, they don’t appear on their website but somehow google reviews can see them. This could also mean they are fake reviews ordered by Sonos, they don’t look fake but anything is possible. Or some people had early access to the Arc and Sonos asked them to write a review, I really hope it’s the later.

They are obviously fake reviews for marketing so when the product is launched people will see hundreds of 5 star reviews already posted so they can see how popular it is….it’s all fake. One review even says they’ve been using it for months lol.

if these were real reviews by press then surely we’ll see videos on YouTube by now.

Cant believe Sonos putting fake reviews on.

I didn’t read them all but yeah that’s what I thought right away, I guess I didn’t want to believe it but it doesn’t make sense at all.

Hi @Ryan A, would you care to comment?

You do realize that people doing beta testing have had the Arc for months now, right?  Quite presumptuous of you to definitely state that these are fake reviews creeated by Sonos when you have absolutely no proof that is the case. 

You may be right but why isn’t there even a single video on YouTube or any website? Many companies use fake reviews to push their products. You can see those even on amazon and IMDb. 

So you are saying the reason you think Sonos is planting reviews is a lack of videos? That is quite illogical.  If anything, if it were Sonos planting reviews, they would have more access to videos than anybody out there, and could post them at will.  

I would guess that these are reviews Sonos collected from beta testers and then passed on to Google.  All reviews dated May 14th, which does tend to indicated the reviewers were provided in batch.  If this is the case then consider it to be reviews from people who generally already like Sonos.  If you aren’t good with that, then wait for media reviews and more general customers.

I hope you are right but why do they all have same type of content? almost all have 4-5 lines...and they all look like one guy wrote them considering the similar level of english writing skills...something certainly is fishy lol

I didn’t find the reviews to be all that similar.  Mostly positive yes, but that is expected from beta testers, or the product really is good.  Regardless, if you don’t trust the reviews you see then don’t rely on them.  Your alternative is to do further research and confirm whether the reviews are real or not.   I suppose you could tell everyone that the reviews are fake, in an attempt to damage Sonos somehow, even though you have no proof, but that doesn’t seem like a very respectable thing to do.

I would say that Sonos shouldn’t release these reviews until after the product is released itself, but not sure what typically happens with product releases, or if this was put up on Google early by mistake.  Even then, people may still not trust the reviews.

Also, user reviews have some flaws to begin with.  People are much more motivated to take the time to review when they’ve had a bad experience then a good experience.  And when it comes to speakers, the sound quality is subjective, and highly influenced by their experience with other speakers.    If you’re interested in the product, the best thing to do is get in from Sonos directly or from a retailer that has a good return policy, so you’re not taking much risk.

we all love Sonos products that’s why we are here just found it funny to see those reviews...I hope they r real and the product is as good as they mention. 

If you actually “hope they are real”, then I must question why you would be in here definitivelystating the following:

They are obviously fake reviews for marketing so when the product is launched people will see hundreds of 5 star reviews already posted so they can see how popular it is….it’s all fake. 

Let me just first say that none of those reviews are fake, they were made by beta testers. Faking reviews is something we’ve ever needed or wanted to do. These reviews from beta users were made visible a little early. Usually they don’t go out until reviews from media sources go up, probably just a date miscommunication, but I let the team know just in case there’s a bug. 

Great to know...

Are you serious? Your going to write in here that 59 beta testers all posted 4.9 star reviews but not 1 of them posted a review elsewhere other than sonos.com and  not 1 video? Come on! And not 1 of the testers indicated they were beta testers or mentioned they recieved it early? Sounds ridiculous to me!!!

I don’t think you’re grasping what happened here. Sonos collected these reviews from beta testers, probably through a survey at the end of the beta test, and then passed them on to Google.  The testers would have no reason to mention that they were part of the beta test.  And no, beta testers would not post reviews at other locations since they were under NDA agreements not to do so.

As Ryan stated, Sonos normally doesn’t release the reviews to Google before the product hits the market, but it was released early for some reason.  And no, they did not all post 4.9 star reviews...that’s the average.

All those reviews from beta testers should be heavily marked that they are beta testers on a Sonos internal program and didn’t pay for the device.

Perhaps, but that should certainly apply to all reviews and not just Sonos.  I don’t know, but I suspect this is standard practice for reviews.  

Regardless, media reviews appear to be out today.

It should be done for all, but when an unreleased product goes from 0 to 59 reviews overnight it comes across suspicious especially when they are all 5 star reviews except for 2. They also all seem generic and robotic. Bulk uploads should also not be allowed as it gives the company the ability to pick and choose which ones they upload, as it's not buyer driven. The public does not know if 100 reviews were received and the other 41 were horrible but sonos filtered the 59 best ones to upload. 

Which may be why I’m more interested in the press reviews. So far, all of the ones I’ve read seem fairly well impressed. Although in one of them, it was pretty clear the press individual didn’t understand the difference between HDMI and HDMI ARC, and eARC. 

But so far, I’ve not run in to an unfavorable review. Haven’t checked all my news sources yet, though. 

I think it’s important to remember that these reviews were not supposed to be released until after the product was live.  After that point, I think it matters much less whether the review was a beta tester or not.  As far as the potential for filtering reviews, that’s the case for any site where the product is sold from that site, which is stated.   It does really matter when the reviews came through.

When it comes to Sonos or other companies I’ve bought products from before, I trust my past experience with them more than anything else.    Press reviews are often good when I don’t know much about the product.  Some items, like cables, splitters, converters, you really only have customer reviews to rely on