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Apple Music Dolby Atmos crossfade on Sonos Arc

  • 27 September 2023
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When my Sonos Playlist contains Apple Music Dolby Atmos tracks, those tracks will NOT crossfade. The first track has to end fully before the second is heard but starts 10 secs in (ie. no 10-second fade-up).

Crossfade works fine with non-Atmos tracks.

Is the Sonos bandwidth just not up to playing two Atmos tracks over one another? 

(I have a Sonos Arc with sub and surrounds.)

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Best answer by Jamie A 5 October 2023, 14:17

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Hi @Rhonny,

Thank you for providing us with this information. We’ve forwarded this to our engineering team who are currently looking into this, however we have no further information to share. For now, we would recommend you to disable crossfade or to remove Dolby Atmos tracks from your playlists. 

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Thanks for that. Hopefully there will be a remedy in future updates, if the issue is replicated your side.

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The latest 15.11 update STILL doesn’t enable crossfading on Apple Music Dolby Atmos songs on an Arc/surrounds/sub setup… The next song will still only kick in once the previous one has faded out. Grrrrr.

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The latest 16.1 update STILL doesn’t enable crossfading on Apple Music Dolby Atmos tracks on an Arc/surrounds/sub setup! 

It’s now FIVE months since I brought this to Sonos’ attention, and there have been a number of updates since, but still no remedy. Can anyone on here with a similar set-up check whether it’s the same issue for them so that Sonos can be aware it’s not just a single user issue?

Here again is what I had originally posted:

“When my Sonos Playlist contains Apple Music Dolby Atmos tracks, those tracks will NOT crossfade. The first track has to end fully before the second is heard but starts 10 secs in (ie. no 10-second fade-up).

Crossfade works fine with non-Atmos tracks.

Is the Sonos bandwidth just not up to playing two Atmos tracks over one another? 

(I have a Sonos Arc with sub and surrounds.)”

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Unbelievably, the new app update and firmware update STILL doesn’t allow you to crossfade Apple Music Dolby Atmos songs on an Arc/Sub/Surrounds set up!

Please can anyone with a similar set up confirm that this is the case with them too?!

The first song ends before the next one comes in, but it comes in 8-10 secs into the song, so is clearly trying to crossfade but can’t bring up the sound of the next track until the first track has gone!!

@Jamie A - this thread is marked as answered but it isn’t…

Unbelievably, the new app update and firmware update STILL doesn’t allow you to crossfade Apple Music Dolby Atmos songs on an Arc/Sub/Surrounds set up!

Please can anyone with a similar set up confirm that this is the case with them too?!

The first song ends before the next one comes in, but it comes in 8-10 secs into the song, so is clearly trying to crossfade but can’t bring up the sound of the next track until the first track has gone!!

@Jamie A - this thread is marked as answered but it isn’t…

The speaker firmware that does the playback from source has not altered - it will need that to change to sort your reported cross-fade issue. The updated software is just a controller ‘remote’ App. So I would not expect this App to have changed the way things work. I can see this perhaps being pushed further down the development list now as there seems to be bigger priorities at the moment. (That’s just a guess).

Userlevel 4
Badge +4

Unbelievably, the new app update and firmware update STILL doesn’t allow you to crossfade Apple Music Dolby Atmos songs on an Arc/Sub/Surrounds set up!

Please can anyone with a similar set up confirm that this is the case with them too?!

The first song ends before the next one comes in, but it comes in 8-10 secs into the song, so is clearly trying to crossfade but can’t bring up the sound of the next track until the first track has gone!!

@Jamie A - this thread is marked as answered but it isn’t…

The speaker firmware that does the playback from source has not altered - it will need that to change to sort your reported cross-fade issue. The updated software is just a controller ‘remote’ App. So I would not expect this App to have changed the way things work. I can see this perhaps being pushed further down the development list now as there seems to be bigger priorities at the moment. (That’s just a guess).

 

Thanks. But the crossfade issue has not arisen following the app update or the firmware update. It has NEVER been able to crossfade Apple Music Dolby Atmos on an Arc surround set-up. What I meant by “STILL doesn’t allow” is that despite the updates, it’s still not working. The update hasn’t broken it. 

I yearn for the day when another Arc/Sub/surround owner tests Apple Music Dolby Atmos crossfading and posts on here to confirm that it doesn’t work for them too!! It would be ideal to know it’s not just me, so that Sonos might sort it in a future update. There shouldn’t be an issue crossfading ANY selected music...

The speaker firmware that does the playback from source has not altered - it will need that to change to sort your reported cross-fade issue. The updated software is just a controller ‘remote’ App. So I would not expect this App to have changed the way things work. I can see this perhaps being pushed further down the development list now as there seems to be bigger priorities at the moment. (That’s just a guess).

 

Thanks. But the crossfade issue has not arisen following the app update or the firmware update. It has NEVER been able to crossfade Apple Music Dolby Atmos on an Arc surround set-up. What I meant by “STILL doesn’t allow” is that despite the updates, it’s still not working. The update hasn’t broken it. 

I yearn for the day when another Arc/Sub/surround owner tests Apple Music Dolby Atmos crossfading and posts on here to confirm that it doesn’t work for them too!! It would be ideal to know it’s not just me, so that Sonos might sort it in a future update. There shouldn’t be an issue crossfading ANY selected music..

Yes I am aware of the issue and what you were referring too, but it will need a firmware update aswell as an App update. I just suspect there may now be a delay for this, because of the other issues that are taking place and perhaps need sorting, before this can be resolved.

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@Ken_Griffiths 

Understood!

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