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I received my Sonos Ace and spent a few hours playing with settings to try to get a good sound from them.  I read in another thread someone recommending disabling volume normalisation within Spotify.  That vastly improved the sound quality for me.

Unfortunately in my testing, I identified a buzzing noise.  It is more obvious on some tracks.  I wonder if others can replicate it.  On “Shout” by Tears for Fears, the opening bars feature some metallic percussion.  This is in the first ten seconds of the track.

Listening through the Aces, there is a noticeable and pronounced buzz/noise at the end of each of these percussive clusters.  The buzz increases at the end of each cluster.  I have tried the track on multiple devices and this is only apparent on the Aces.  It should not be there.

I spent two hours - the first hour on hold - with Sonos support.  The person I eventually spoke to was helpful enough, but all of the troubleshooting steps he suggested I had already done.  He escalated the matter to a more senior staffer who apparently authorised a replacement.

He wasn’t able (for some reason, which was unusual for him and he couldn’t understand) process the replacement on the phone, but explained that it would be picked up after the call and I would be email.

I have since received one follow up email confirming the replacement would be carried out.  But no promises detail as to how this would be effected.  I have emailed in reply, but not heard further.  I have sent several chasers, they have been unanswered.

I am a loyal Sonos customer, but this whole experience is leaving a really sour taste.  The Aces are apparently faulty, and don’t match the high quality of hardware which I generally expect from Sonos.  The customer service I have received from a company which pitches its products at the premium end of the consumer market (and charges prices accordingly) is atrocious.

I am disappointed to have to post here.  Has anyone experienced similar?

What firmware/software version were you using with the Sonos Ace? Have you since checked for any further updates from within the Ace property settings in the Sonos App? 

I don’t currently use a Spotify lossy audio subscription, but when I get chance, I’ll checkout the ‘shout’ track from Tears for Fears from Amazon Music Ultimate over both a Bluetooth and a wired lossless connection to an iPad and see if I can hear the buzz/noise you refer to and will report back.

So far the Ace here has sounded great …and with a wired DAC I have been able to get the Ace to play up-to 24/192 quality audio (allegedly) - that’s according to the Amazon Music App label. (I just can’t prove it’s that high quality, but it sounds v/good to my ears). There’s not that much streaming-audio out there though with that level of quality.

At a glance the Tears for Fears ‘shout’ track on Amazon is 24/96 quality audio so it’s likely going to outstrip the Spotify audio quality  - but I’ll just see how it sounds anyway with a wired lossless connection to begin with and then try the playback over a 320 AAC Bluetooth lossy connection and try to see if either reveals the buzz/noise on the Ace.


Thanks - firmware is up to date - 2.9.4-ce71a082d.  Noise is apparent with/without noise cancelling.
Looking forward to hearing the result of your testing(!).


Definitely no issue here with that track and that’s with playback to the Ace over both a wired and Bluetooth connection to the iPad - I don’t hear a buzz noise at all - I’ve tested the first 10 seconds repeatedly.

I’m just going to quickly try it on the Spotify App ‘free’ version aswell over Bluetooth and just see what I hear there (just in case that App may make a difference). 


It still sounds fine with playback of the track from the free version of Spotify too. It must be an issue with your Ace, there’s no buzzing, not even in the slightest …and I’m really listening out trying to see if I can hear a noise.


Just to briefly add fyi, I tried the playback of the track several times with ANC ‘ON’ and then with Aware Mode too. I left the Ace EQ at its default ‘flat’ settings with ‘Loudness’ enabled.


Thank you for this - I have now downloaded Amazon music and have tried listening to the song on the highest quality setting available.

The buzzing remains - so I appear to have a hardware fault.

To be fair to Sonos they concluded the same, but I am now in some sort of weird support lacuna in terms of the repair/replacement.


Thank you for this - I have now downloaded Amazon music and have tried listening to the song on the highest quality setting available.

The buzzing remains - so I appear to have a hardware fault.

To be fair to Sonos they concluded the same, but I am now in some sort of weird support lacuna in terms of the repair/replacement.

You can always contact Sonos Global Sales - they tend to resolve any product replacement issues. Here is their link: 

https://support.sonos.com/s/global-sales-help

Hope you’re able to get it sorted.👍


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