Skip to main content

Sonos Ace - Mic issues with Slack

  • June 10, 2024
  • 32 replies
  • 1637 views

Show first post
This topic has been closed for further comments. You can use the search bar to find a similar topic, or create a new one by clicking Create Topic at the top of the page.

32 replies

  • Lyricist II
  • September 13, 2024

I think I found the issue on Mac. I just received my headphones today and attempted to use them during a few meetings and noticed the same issue. I’m running a mac, using Chime, and saw that after a few minutes the input volume on the headphones went to “zero”. You can see this in the sound setting of the mac under the output & input section. Select Input and then the headphones and you’ll see the slider incrementally move left to where there is no input volume. When this happens people can’t hear you speaking but if you increase the input volume people start to hear you again. However, this continues to happen again and again which you have to constantly adjust the input volume for people to hear you. 

I tested this by my old bose headphones and this issue did not happen. Also tested it with airpods and the issue didn’t happen. So, it’s clearly something between the Sonos headphones and the OS. 

 

Hope this helps and that a fix is made quickly. Without a fix these headphones are useless to me and I’ll just go buy another pair from bose or sony. 


  • Lyricist I
  • September 16, 2024

I think I found the issue on Mac. I just received my headphones today and attempted to use them during a few meetings and noticed the same issue. I’m running a mac, using Chime, and saw that after a few minutes the input volume on the headphones went to “zero”. You can see this in the sound setting of the mac under the output & input section. Select Input and then the headphones and you’ll see the slider incrementally move left to where there is no input volume. When this happens people can’t hear you speaking but if you increase the input volume people start to hear you again. However, this continues to happen again and again which you have to constantly adjust the input volume for people to hear you. 

I tested this by my old bose headphones and this issue did not happen. Also tested it with airpods and the issue didn’t happen. So, it’s clearly something between the Sonos headphones and the OS. 

 

Hope this helps and that a fix is made quickly. Without a fix these headphones are useless to me and I’ll just go buy another pair from bose or sony. 

 

This is a good catch! I just looked at my Mac OS volume settings too, confirmed, this is the exact issue at hand. I started a Chime call with the Sonos Ace, the OS level “Input volume” is randomly decreasing a little at a time whenever I talk through the microphone. Slowly decreasing till it hits 0 volume.

+1 to this needing to be fixed, else these headphones are useless. This has not been an issue with my previous Bose headphones either. I’ve been switching to my AirPods because of how unreliable the Ace is in meetings.


Corry P
Forum|alt.badge.img+19
  • Sonos Staff
  • September 17, 2024

Hi @dfarm3r 

That’s interesting! Could I ask you to please record a video demonstrating this behaviour, submit a support diagnostic from the Sonos app running on the Mac afterwards and get in touch with our technical support team? Thanks.


Corry P
Forum|alt.badge.img+19
  • Sonos Staff
  • September 20, 2024

Hi @Andre17 et al

Thanks to your reporting we have identified an issue affecting the system volume setting of Ace’s microphone when connected to macOS and are investigating.

Please be aware of the following workarounds:

  • Use a USB-C cable for line-in (not the 3.5mm cable, which doesn't carry microphone audio)
  • Configure the macOS sound settings input to use the built-in Mac microphone while using Sonos Ace for output

I hope this helps.


  • Lyricist II
  • September 27, 2024

Tried the USB and had an experience where after joining a call I removed the usb connection and then reconnected which caused the same behavior to occur. If I left it connected then the workaround worked. 
 

At any rate, this isn’t sustainable and I am looking for an update on when this will be fixed. 


Corry P
Forum|alt.badge.img+19
  • Sonos Staff
  • September 30, 2024

Hi @Andre17 et al

I have come across some more information regarding this issue.

For Slack in particular, there is a Slack setting called “Enable automatic gain control” - please ensure this setting is disabled when using Ace headphones.

(“Duke” is Ace’s pre-release name - you would see “Ace” here)

Please be aware that we are working on a long-term fix for this issue.

Anyone seeing a similar issue with software other than Slack should check for similar settings.

I hope this helps.


  • Lyricist II
  • October 1, 2024

Can confirm that this works for Chime where it has a setting called “Auto- adjust audio levels”. I unchecked this and it seems to be working. Only one data point thus far but the volume isn’t decreasing as I speak.