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Rhonny
Prodigy III
September 27, 2023
Answered

Apple Music Dolby Atmos crossfade on Sonos Arc

  • September 27, 2023
  • 18 replies
  • 850 views

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

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. 

18 replies

Show previous replies
Sazo2002
Lyricist I
May 28, 2024

Sorry I’m not very technical, but I think I’m having similar issue…

I have a Play 5 and a Move. Since the app update my crossfade has been affected when playing my Apple Music playlists. It gets to the end of a song, has a small gap and then either skips the next song or goes into the next one a few seconds in.
 

I’ve noticed “lossless” appear on the screen now too but didn’t know what that was without a Google search. Sorry I’ve not got any answers either but your thread appeared when I was searching for my issue so thought it was worth sharing my experience. 

RhonnyAuthor
Prodigy III
May 28, 2024

Thanks, @Sazo2002! 

In a nutshell, it seems the speakers cannot crossfade tracks where they come from a music service with high resolution/bitrates (like Apple Music). You are experiencing the same as me. Interesting it appears to be wider than just an Arc/sub/surround issue. 


Originally it was just Dolby Atmos tracks that couldn’t crossfade, as these are high bitrate tracks and so the speakers appear not to be able to cope with so much data playing at once (one track over another). 

Since Apple Music tracks are also now Lossless on Sonos (following the recent update) - which is very good news for high resolution quality - the issue of crossfading now also applies to pretty much all Apple Music tracks!

 

I don’t know if this is an easy fix or whether the amount of data needed to be played at once just makes Sonos speakers incapable of crossfading this music…

 

Hopefully we’ll find out in due course. But thanks for being the only person so far to post with a similar issue!!

    furacaopr
    Prodigy III
    June 14, 2024

    It's not only Apple Music but on Amazon Music as well. I have had this issue since Atmos was jointly launched by Sonos and Amazon back in December 2021. I have reported it multiple times and I've noticed the general behaviour has changed during the release of new firmware in the past, but it never solved the crossfade issue. I have reported this multiple times. So, I gave up and I just keep crossfade off all the time. From time to time, I give it a try to check whether it has been addressed, without any luck so far. 😐 

     

      furacaopr
      Prodigy III
      June 14, 2024

      P.S. I guess it's simply not technically feasible/possible to crossfade tracks so differently encoded 🤔

      Paparoxx
      Lyricist I
      June 28, 2024

      I also have crossfading issue. Was advised by sonos they were working on this about 3 months ago March 24.i have latest update but unfortunately still not working.  

      RhonnyAuthor
      Prodigy III
      July 22, 2024

      @Corry P 

      Can I please just re-raise my thread again? Crossfading is a fundamental part of Sonos, but as detailed by me and others above, higher resolution files (like Apple Music Spacial and also Lossless, and Amazon Music HD) do not crossfade. The first track plays until the end and the next track starts c.10 seconds in, instead of the first track fading out for 10” and the second facing in for 10”. 

      I appreciate there are big fish to fry at the moment, but it would be great to know that this is at least on the list to be looked into...

        Jamie A
        Jamie A
        Sonos Staff
        July 22, 2024

        Hi @Rhonny, 

        I asked for an update regarding this issue and our engineers told me that, while it’s not as high of a priority at the moment, it’s still on their list and being looked into. 

        I have tagged this thread has having this issue so I can update if there are any further updates but I have nothing to share at the moment. 

        Issues raised won’t get de-listed unless they have been resolved in some way, so it’s safe to assume that this will be moved further up once the new app stops being the focus.

          RhonnyAuthor
          Prodigy III
          July 22, 2024

          Hi @Rhonny, 

          I asked for an update regarding this issue and our engineers told me that, while it’s not as high of a priority at the moment, it’s still on their list and being looked into. 

          I have tagged this thread has having this issue so I can update if there are any further updates but I have nothing to share at the moment. 

          Issues raised won’t get de-listed unless they have been resolved in some way, so it’s safe to assume that this will be moved further up once the new app stops being the focus.

          Thanks, @Jamie A. Appreciate the confirmation. 

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