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Hi everybody,

Well, I don't need to mention about the lates 2 patches and all the misery that brought with is. I decided to email the CEO, Patrick Spence, with a kind request.

Here’s what I wrote him (I’m not from the USA, so apologies to maybe not the totally correct language):

Dear Patrick Spence,

I’m a Sonos costumer, living in The Netherlands. The reason why I reach out to you directly is because there are some issue’s going on since patch 14.12 (and still in 14.14) where a lot of costumers who have the Arc and the Sub, are affected.
In the last few weeks, the community forums kinda explodes with complaints about the Trueplay which entirely flattens out the Sub. Me personally had to feel the drivers to make sure it was still participating in the setup.

From day one, the patch was released, I immediately concluded there was a problem and contacted Sonos-support about it. After hours spent with the technicians they decided to send my case to a higher level of support, which is still open. The case number is 04126532. 
Well… I can try to explain the whole problem in words, but that way this email would be tremendously long. Therefore, I kindly ask you to watch this video from Peter from Singapore: https://youtu.be/sUAGvoOQLFo 
He is testing a lot on Sonos equipment and this last video is wrapping the whole scenario together.

The main thing for me is, the lack of communication from Sonos, about what’s going on and what to expect. Not even the fact, that since patch 14.12 with Trueplay has made the Sub worthless to listen to. Things like that can happen, but your staff doesn’t even respond on the community’s to the people who are waiting for over 5 weeks now, to get their Sonos-experience back. The only action from Sonos, was a statement (https://en.community.sonos.com/announcements-228985/14-12-update-6872573) that advised us to turn off Trueplay till the next patch. Well….. After patch 14.14 it was still not fixed. That makes me wonder, where Sonos have their priorities, right?

I have tried everything I can to get the sound back from pre-14.12, but the only way is to disable Trueplay and at the cost of a very thin and poor vocal range, have at least some sound back from the Sub. It's a big compromise tho. If this is a “fix” for a few days, it’s fine, but this takes over 5 weeks now.
Can you at least talk to your staff about this big issue and prioritise this at #1? I also like a statement from Sonos to the public where they tell us exactly what’s going on and where they are with their progress. During this progress, keep the public informed with the most recent developments, so the public (your costumers, who paid a tremendously amount of money for their systems) knows what to expect and when. I know, Sonos never talks about future updates, but in this case, they really should.

Thank you for reading the above and I really hope, you get your employees together to solve this issue with the highest priority. You costumers kind of expect the issue to be fixed in the next upcoming patch. And if that’s takes another long time, give us at least the choice to revert back to version 14.10 to enjoy the system like it was ment to be.

With kind regards,

Jeroen van Ruler

 

Just about one hour ago I received this reply:

 

Hello Jeroen,


Thank you very much for reaching out to us and for sharing your important feedback and the video along with the community link.

Your initial email has been shared with our CEO. Patrick, however, cannot reply to all the contacts he receives and as such a case was created in our customer care system and escalated to a Senior Technician to assist.

My name is Edward and I am part of the Escalation team at Sonos. I will take the case over on my name and help you further from here.

I'm sorry to hear that the sound experience isn’t as you desired after the update and I deeply understand how frustrating this can be, especially when you cannot listen to music or watch TV with the desired audio. However, I will do my best to help you towards a solution.

To begin with, at this moment, the only workaround for this issue would be to turn off the Trueplay for the Arc Home Theatre setup and of course fine tune everything with the EQ settings. This isn’t the best, nor final solution, but it is the best that we have for now.

I can assure you that there is an ongoing matter that has a major priority in our system and as soon as there is a fix for it, it will be published.

As you also mentioned, we don’t disclose any information regarding updates. However, I hope that it will bring some rest if I share that this situation is, as mentioned, marked with “major priority”. Therefore, a rollback to a previous software isn’t really an option and will not be implemented.

Another point that I would like to mention is that our support page mentions the fact that in the 14.14 update there will be Bug fixes and performance enhancements. This doesn’t entirely focus on the issue that you mentioned. However, as stated previously, this audio quality issue that you encounter is tackled with the utmost priority.

I hope that this email brings some rest, even though it doesn’t yet bring your desired sound back. However, If you have any further questions feel free to reply this email so that I can personally answer your questions.


Best Regards,

Edward C.

Sonos | Customer Experience Specialist | Customer Experience Operations

 

This is what I came up with as a response:

Dear Edward,

 

Thank you for your quick response on this matter. I really do understand the fact Sonos isn’t disclose any information about future updates, but in this matter, an exception has to be made. Since patch 14.12 everyone with an Arc+Sub is affected. Sonos didn’t really thought it trough when releasing this patch out to the public. It feels like the public is now a kind of beta-testers and have to deal with the mess that the sonos-engineers have made. It’s really ridiculous that Sonos doesn’t even take the trouble of informing the costumers what’s going on. That’s also my main complain, besides the lack of audio quality from my Sonos-system.

 

You can tell me when there is a fix, it will be published, fair enough and appreciated, really. But this issue is known by your engineers for 5 weeks now. Meanwhile a lot of people who invested some serious money in your products are infected and therefore really disappointed in your company. The least Sonos can do is keep us informed and speed up the progress even more, so it gets resolved better yesterday than tomorrow.

We really have lost the trust in Sonos by now. Also with the patch 14.6, where we lost connections to the sub and surrounds, also toke too long to get solved. Then, at the end, Sonos was releasing 14.10, and everyone was happy. But not long after that, they destroyed our happiness with 14.12, and now the debacle start all over again.

 

For me, I have turned off the auto updates, and will never turn in on again. I have to be very careful and do a ton of research to decide if I want to update in the future again. What a loss, because the main reason for me to invest in Sonos, was the simplicity of the system. Now I have spend more time troubleshooting problems caused by your engineers that I could enjoy my system. It’s really a shame for your company!

 

As you can read I’m not happy and very disappointed. Never the less, I appreciate the fact you take the effort to reply to my email and want to thank you for that. Just think about get your engineers work harder on the fix, or roll back to 14.10 and most important, let your staff communicate correctly to the costumers on the community. Your costumers deserve it, period!

 

 

With kind regards,

 

Jeroen van Ruler

Now let’s hope and assume the fix is getting ready very quickly. If I do receive another respond to this I will post it here….If Sonos doesn't inform us about the progress, I will. What a joke, that we need to go this far to get our systems get working as it supposed to be. It’s ridiculous really. I’m very disappointed and angry for the fact, that Sonos lacks the decency to inform us about their progress of their mess.

Thank you Jeroen for sharing your communication with Sonos. 

I knew right away you weren’t getting a response from the CEO, because you always just get a reply from  an employee in customer service. And basically a generic response as it’s similar to what I had received. 

It is more than a general response:

With the quoted part of the Sonos response - I'm sorry to hear that the sound experience isn’t as you desired after the update and I deeply understand how frustrating this can be, especially when you cannot listen to music or watch TV with the desired audio. However, I will do my best to help you towards a solution.To begin with, at this moment, the only workaround for this issue would be to turn off the Trueplay for the Arc Home Theatre setup and of course fine tune everything with the EQ settings. This isn’t the best, nor final solution, but it is the best that we have for now, combined with the part at the end of the response about “ bring your desired sound back” put before the Consumer Protection Court in my city in India as one received from the manufacturer, I know I could get a full refund ordered from the official distributor in India, even if the product was not in warranty. Taking away the sound bought, especially if an earlier Sonos official admission I have seen that “ we could have handled the communication of this change better in the update”, is enough to obtain this ruling.

I suspect this would be the case in the EU too. Perhaps in the US as well.

And this would not cost me a penny in legal fees.

Further to the above - I don’t think any lawyer would be interested in a class action suit if there are no compensatory or punitive damages, just an order for full refund in exchange for return of the product. And I see no case for anything more here.

How will that fund his fees?

For me personally I’m not interested in a lawsuit. I just want to get it fixed, and soon. Although it’s taking way to long, I’m not interested in returning all my Sonos products and go for something else. By the time I’ve done my reviews on other products, this is (hopefully) fixed. And when that time comes I will never update it again until I know everything will work fine. I really don’t trust Sonos anymore for future updates. This is gone wrong to many times.  

It is your call to return the TV kit for a refund or not. 

And although I now use all my Sonos kits as dumb hardware in S1, driven by Echo tech that I prefer, I am sure there is no risk to any Sonos non TV products from any upgrade you do. 

I can only say this for products in the line up just now, because they are still closely related to the ones I run. The new audio ones in the pipeline? I can’t speak to those.

I just got this setup a few months now. I started with the Arc in April, then bought 2 One’SL’s as surrounds, a week later the Sub Gen3, 2 weeks later a One and oneSL as a stereopair in the kitchen and then a Roam for upstairs and in the garden. Now Im considering buying a couple one One’s/SL’s for upstairs in the bedroom and guest room. And maybe, if this problem get fixed a 2nd sub for the living room.

Besides the trouble with the updates, I still think it’s a great system. I see it a bit like the Apple eco-system, but then for the sound. I also own almost every product from Apple and I love the simplicity of it.

I’m not ready to get rid of it yet, because I just got it. Now let’s hope for a soon fix, and I think the pressure is high @ Sonos to fix this. Everything in the emails point out the fact it’s their top priority at this time.

Just got this reply back:

Dear Jeroen,


Thank you for your reply and your time invested!

I do understand your concern that users might not be informed about this issue and I thank you for that. However, the community page, that you shared, does refer to this and explains that we are working on a fix.

Furthermore, I do understand that this issue is ongoing for a while. Our team is totally aware of it. Hence, the priority of the issue. Hereby, I’d also like to add that this issue doesn’t have a really easy fix and needs a great deal of input from our engineers, which are, as we speak, busy with it. There is also no “ETA” for a fix just yet.

Technology is advancing at a rapid pace nowadays and updates are here to improve the system. That’s why our team is focused on fixing any issues that are present instead of rolling back and leaving the system as it is. New features will always be invented and probably added to already working and existing systems, especially for companies that focus on electronic devices.

We, as a company are trying to be as transparent as possible with the users of our products and therefore are present on the aforementioned community page. Moreover, as mentioned in the previous email, as you already knew, we also stated that the temporary workaround is to disable Airplay. Even though this might not be convenient, for now, it is the only fix, until our engineers manage to completely solve the issue.

Please feel free to reply this email if you have any further questions as I will be happy to personally answer them.


Best Regards,

Edward C.

Sonos | Customer Experience Specialist | Customer Experience Operations

Although it’s a bit of a standard message, I also realise they have to be careful about what they say. I think this whole drama is a bit delicate at the moment. (don't know if ‘delicate’ is the right word for this)

Maybe when this all is over, Sonos decides to earn their trust back, by giving the costumers who are affected, a big apologies and a discount for their next purchase. If that's the case, I will order a 2nd sub with a discount of 20-30%. Hoping for it, but as always, that sounds to good to be true LOL.

Nevertheless we have 2 options…. Sit it out or replace the whole system. So I choose the first option and I have a feeling that within 2 weeks from now, there is a fix…… 

Maybe when this all is over, Sonos decides to earn their trust back, by giving the costumers who are affected, a big apologies and a discount for their next purchase. If that's the case, I will order a 2nd sub with a discount of 20-30%. Hoping for it, but as always, that sounds to good to be true LOL.

 

 

Yea, I wouldn’t bank on that happening.    For one, getting discounts on future products doesn’t always make people happy.   I’ve several people complain on other issues that they do not want to buy another product.  Secondly, you can’t accurately identify who has this issue who who doesn’t.  You can’t just go by the people who have logged cases as some of the cases are misdiagnosed (like the people who claim they have the issue with their playbar?) and some people have not logged an issue with it.  And Sonos certainly isn’t going to give a discount to everyone who owns an Arc and Sub.

Stranger things have happened, but, I really doubt it.

 

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