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After update to version 14.12, subwoofer sound problem, sound volume is low


After updating to version 14.12, I re-tuned the trueplay tuning, the result is that the subwoofer sound is small, position, sub audio is 0, but the volume is low. I'm using a Gen 3 sub woofer.

Hopefully sonos will fix this bug soon thank you

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Best answer by Corry P 15 August 2022, 10:20

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41 replies

Userlevel 7
Badge +18

Hi @bej432 

To be clear, there is no reason to expect different rooms/devices to sound like they’re at the same volume just because the number on the volume slider is the same.

There was no volume issue - our engineers responded to criticism that the Arc volume was either too low or too high - by adjusting the volume curve, we allowed more volume steps to be in the lower range of volume, while not reducing the maximum volume of the device. This didn’t go down too well, and we adjusted the curve back to it’s original state.

If your Arc sounds muffled, please try adjusting the Treble control, or re-doing TruePlay tuning.

It may also help to reboot the Arc by unplugging it from power for a couple of moments.

I hope this helps.

Hi @Corry P,

 

I am trying to say that my volume level in the arc HT room still hasn’t been fully corrected since the one update cause an issue with the Arc. The sound in that room still sounds muffled and at a lower volume than other rooms.

Userlevel 7
Badge +18

Hi @bej432 

I’m not sure what you mean. There’s no reason to expect multiple speakers in multiple rooms to all sound like the same level of volume just because the number on the volume control is the same - the perceived volume depends on the speaker design, amplifier power and the size of the room, not to mention how much furniture or people there are in the room with it, what’s hanging on the walls and what the walls are made of.

 

Hello @Corry P,

 

I am following up again. I am still having the volume issue as described above where the room with Arc HT setup is still slightly lower volume at the same number as the rest of my adjacent rooms. Is there any update on this issue?

 

thank you,

Hello @Corry P,

As you suggested I rebooted and while it did improve, my room with arc is still lower. It’s better than before but still noticeable. When I have all rooms set to volume 8, I need to adjust the room with the arc home theater setup up to 11 to not notice any volume difference when transitioning from room to room. I did also try re-tune the Arc with TruePlay but no luck. Please advise? Thank you

Userlevel 7
Badge +18

Hi @bej432 

Have you tried rebooting the device in question? To do so, just unplug it from power for a short time.

I hope this helps.

Hello, I am still having the low volume issue with the 14.18 update. I went through Trueplay setup again as well. I can especially tell the volume difference walking into the room from another room at the same level. Please advise as to how to fix?

 

thank you,

 

Userlevel 7
Badge +18

Hi all,

Thank you for your continued discussion. We’re really happy to be able to tell you that today we’ll release an update that will include fixes to the issues that resulted from the 14.12 software update with Enhanced Clarity for Arc.In the 14.12 release, we made a change to Arc’s sound profile to improve dialogue clarity and the overall sound experience.  Since that update, some users whose configuration included a Sub have experienced two issues:

  1. Users of Arc would find the same volume settings resulted in lower output volume. Whilst the maximum volume and bass capabilities were unchanged, volume settings in the lower regions resulted in a quieter sound than before the update
  2. Users of Arc, Beam and Ray would find their Sub output is lower than desired after performing a new Trueplay tuning.

(Home theatre configurations without a Sub were unaffected, including standalone soundbars and those bonded with surrounds only)

With the 14.18 software update, both of these issues have been addressed, and the Enhanced Clarity for Arc adjustments are retained. There was a clear preference within our community for the previous volume settings, and these have been restored. This will be apparent immediately after updating to 14.18. The Trueplay issue has been fixed. Customers who experienced a lower Sub level after performing Trueplay after updating to 14.12 will need to update their systems and then perform a new Trueplay tuning in order to address these improvements in their system. Customers will hear a more powerful low end response, meaning any Sub level adjustments made after 14.12 should no longer be required.

Userlevel 1
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Any news yet in regards to this issue?

Judging by their consistent track record of releasing a software update on the 3rd Tuesday of each month, it won’t be until October the 18th at the earliest.

Userlevel 2
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Any news yet in regards to this issue?

Userlevel 1
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I was able to make my sub to work by connecting it to my playbar via network cable and disabling the wifi. I also have my playbar connected to my network via cable.

 

Interesting.  Has anyone else tried this while having the ARC & Sub?  So the sub is back alive after using true play tuning?  My understanding is that at least in the case of the Beam you can just increase the sub volume to compensate (even while using True Play) while this may not work for ARC users.  Perhaps the Playbar is not as affected as the ARC.  

I haven’t purchased my system yet (waiting to see if this is fixed) - so I can’t experiment - I intended to wire the connection to the ARC anyway given that my ethernet connection is there anyway.  

I was able to make my sub to work by connecting it to my playbar via network cable and disabling the wifi. I also have my playbar connected to my network via cable.

 

Userlevel 5
Badge +14

Considering the way that Sonos was promoting the sound bar with the new release of Mandalorian demonstrating its sound capabilities, its customers now have to deal to through this, Two firmware updates where released prior not one of those releases failed to rectify the issue. 

Previous update was not meant to fix current issues as stated by Sonos. They are still working on it.

Userlevel 2
Badge +3

Considering the way that Sonos was promoting the sound bar with the new release of Mandalorian demonstrating its sound capabilities, its customers now have to deal to through this, Two firmware updates where released prior not one of those releases failed to rectify the issue. 

Userlevel 5
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Its not affecting me but the typical profile is someone with an ARC, Sub Gen 3, and One SLs - exactly what I plan to purchase next (currently only have a pair of Ones) after I complete renovation.  I have no issues spending US$2k on a system if its good - but won’t if I know its sound terrible due to software that is sub optimal.

At least I have the luxury to wait for close to 2 months.  But if I had just purchased it and this happened I would be upset.  

But one question guys:  If you disable trueplay will the bass performance return to normal?  If that is the worst case scenario I would still be tempted to buy it hoping they fix the software by then.

Turning trueplay off does bring the sub back to life yes, but not as it used to. The main change is in the Arc itself and now sounds totally different. If you've based your decision on hearing the Arc in a store pre 14.12 release date then I would caution you buying it now. Now sounds nothing like it used to, but at least you'll be one of the lucky ones who can return it if you don't like it. The rest of us are trapped, now having something totally different than what we heard originally and paid a lot of money for.

Userlevel 1
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Its not affecting me but the typical profile is someone with an ARC, Sub Gen 3, and One SLs - exactly what I plan to purchase next (currently only have a pair of Ones) after I complete renovation.  I have no issues spending US$2k on a system if its good - but won’t if I know its sound terrible due to software that is sub optimal.

At least I have the luxury to wait for close to 2 months.  But if I had just purchased it and this happened I would be upset.  

But one question guys:  If you disable trueplay will the bass performance return to normal?  If that is the worst case scenario I would still be tempted to buy it hoping they fix the software by then.

100% affecting you, and most frustrating, I get it. I’m not ecstatic about the situation either.

But I recognize the issues around software development, having tangentially been involved in it for many, many years.

Nothing is a “simple” fix. There’s the research about what the actual issue is, what setups it affects, how the solution can be affected, actually writing the code to do so, then the inevitable testing of the “fix’, which takes time. My suspicion is that 14.14 was already locked in before 14.12 was released, it’s not an uncommon process in software development. So when they found the issue, likely based on the comments in the multiple threads about this, a discovery process was immediately initiated, and will take some time to resolve to a point where it’s feasible to release it to the rest of us. 

The problem tends to be that “rolling back” changes that may not be evident isn’t alway possible/easy. The code team would spend more time dealing with that, pulling in the other features that we may not be aware of,  then they would need to just fix a bug. By significant factors, in my experience. 

 

Not some people.   It affects anyone with an ARC and sub.  What other changes are there that is worth keeping vs having the sound profile deteriorate.  Speakers are speakers first and  foremost.  

 

Actually, it doesnt affect everyone with an Arc and Sub.  Sonos has stated it only affects certain configurations.  Also if it affected everyone, the threads would be hundreds of pages long in mere days, like they were when the Playbar had a bug.

Userlevel 1
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Not some people.   It affects anyone with an ARC and sub.  What other changes are there that is worth keeping vs having the sound profile deteriorate.  Speakers are speakers first and  foremost.  

So they just ‘throw away’ all the other changes that may be equally, or even more important, to ‘roll back’? Because some people are having an issue? Seems like an odd thought to me. 

Userlevel 1
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I have been involved with lots of different pieces of software that change over time. There’s likely thousands of lines of code change, each with multiple dependancies, that have nothing whatsoever to do with this particular issue, but are part of the newer builds. With evolving software, it’s not “easy” or “minutes” to move backwards, it would require herculean effort, most of which is probably tasked with figuring out what happened, and how to make it better. Once that gets released, you normally then have time to figure out “how” it happened. 

It’s extremely unlikely that there was only a single change in the code release past 14.10. I’ve never seen such a beast in my 37 years of software management, although I suppose it’s possible. I don’t, however, work for Sonos, so I’m only basing my opinions on previous experience, not direct knowledge. 

14.10 is already written / saved somewhere/ published so it's not a herculean effort in my opinion to re-release it on just Arc and Sub at least. But let's face it, it'll never happen. Just like myself buying another Sonos product.

Exactly my point.  The code is saved and written already.  They should fix this immediately

Userlevel 5
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I have been involved with lots of different pieces of software that change over time. There’s likely thousands of lines of code change, each with multiple dependancies, that have nothing whatsoever to do with this particular issue, but are part of the newer builds. With evolving software, it’s not “easy” or “minutes” to move backwards, it would require herculean effort, most of which is probably tasked with figuring out what happened, and how to make it better. Once that gets released, you normally then have time to figure out “how” it happened. 

It’s extremely unlikely that there was only a single change in the code release past 14.10. I’ve never seen such a beast in my 37 years of software management, although I suppose it’s possible. I don’t, however, work for Sonos, so I’m only basing my opinions on previous experience, not direct knowledge. 

14.10 is already written / saved somewhere/ published so it's not a herculean effort in my opinion to re-release it on just Arc and Sub at least. But let's face it, it'll never happen. Just like myself buying another Sonos product.

I have been involved with lots of different pieces of software that change over time. There’s likely thousands of lines of code change, each with multiple dependancies, that have nothing whatsoever to do with this particular issue, but are part of the newer builds. With evolving software, it’s not “easy” or “minutes” to move backwards, it would require herculean effort, most of which is probably tasked with figuring out what happened, and how to make it better. Once that gets released, you normally then have time to figure out “how” it happened. 

It’s extremely unlikely that there was only a single change in the code release past 14.10. I’ve never seen such a beast in my 37 years of software management, although I suppose it’s possible. I don’t, however, work for Sonos, so I’m only basing my opinions on previous experience, not direct knowledge. 

 

30 years for me, and I concur.

I have been involved with lots of different pieces of software that change over time. There’s likely thousands of lines of code change, each with multiple dependancies, that have nothing whatsoever to do with this particular issue, but are part of the newer builds. With evolving software, it’s not “easy” or “minutes” to move backwards, it would require herculean effort, most of which is probably tasked with figuring out what happened, and how to make it better. Once that gets released, you normally then have time to figure out “how” it happened. 

It’s extremely unlikely that there was only a single change in the code release past 14.10. I’ve never seen such a beast in my 37 years of software management, although I suppose it’s possible. I don’t, however, work for Sonos, so I’m only basing my opinions on previous experience, not direct knowledge. 

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Minutes?

 

Of course. They just need to move back to the old firmware while they find a long term fix  - more people seem to be unhappy about it than positive for sure otherwise you wouldn’t see hundreds of pages in numerous forums of customers venting their frustration.  No brainier.  Why they are being stubborn about it is beyond me. Not a good sign for potential buyers!