Beam (Gen 2) disorted / metallic sound w/ TV (eARC) and Night Sound Mode

I’ve got an LG C9 OLED TV with Arc and another (older) LG TV with a Feintech VAX04101A audio extractor to provide DD+ Atmos, used with the Beam (gen2).

Both have Surrounds/Sub (gen3) and am happy to try to see if I can hear the metallic audio issue, but not sure what I’m looking for?

Are there any examples (Netflix/Amazon sources perhaps?) that you could post and state a place in the movie/show where (and what) to listen for and the settings you have in place in the Sonos HT room (just need those outside of the HT default settings). 

Always happy to try to test these things, whenever I get a chance that is - so please supply the detail and I will happily test and report back if I hear it.

I assume what you’re hearing is something ‘similar’ to Auto-Tune as used in the late 90’s by Cher on her ‘Believe’ track, but please correct me if I am perhaps misunderstanding things here.

Hi Ken,

would be great if you could try to reproduce it.

That said, I am glad I can say that it is in no way similar to that song nor reproducible using Cher.

For a moment I was really afraid I that I would have to listen to it over and over again. ;-)

I think Elton John’s farewell Show on Disney+ is what Benny mentioned earlier in this conversation.

As I do not have Disney+, I cannot confirm from my end but will look for something on Amazon or NetFlix.

Also, I have posted a link to an actual recording of the issue here.

But in general, anything with a crowd in the background seems a good choice. For me the effect is most audible when enabling “night sound” in scenes with low overall volume/density and a crowd (e.g. background clapping or chatting). It is clearly coming from the two outwards pointing speakers on the Beam.

It only seems to happen with audio input from the TV.

Will let you know as soon as I have identified a sample to reproduce from my side.

This clip will reproduce the sound. You can search 'Superman Game Unreal Engine' in YouTube on the TV. It was uploaded by TJATOMICA.

Turn the volume up and listen for the city sounds at the start of the video when the Superman character is on the ground. It sound like the city noise is out of phase or low bitrate. 

I recommend doing it with just the TVs and the beams on their own, without the sub or surrounds. A few posts online have said the issue disappears when surrounds are added. 

I don’t use Disney+ either, but I haven’t noticed it whilst watching the World Cup football - would that be a good option to listen to the crowd, perhaps🤔? I’m still not exactly sure what to listen-out for, but in fairness I have been watching things here with the surrounds and Sub enabled.

I will try the posted YouTube video after the Wife has finished watching her programmes (Coronation Street etc.) but that’s going to just be in PCM stereo anyway, I assume? (does that matter?) ..and I’ll see if I notice anything. I will post back later.

Oh, and I will switch the surrounds and Sub off too and Trueplay aswell.

@Shnakey : i can confirm I can reproduce the issue with the Superman YouTube video you posted.

I have to add though that while clearly noticeable, there is other material that exposes the issue more prominently. I hope I find some time myself to search for additional material.

@Ken : I posted a recording of the issue here in this forum. You can check what it sounds like there.

I posted the links, quoting myself (second recording of the issue):

“

I have captured it very clearly on the sidewards pointing speaker this time:

http://sndup.net/vnwz

…

“

Im that recoding the issue is less prominent in second 0..5, very obvious 5..10.

I think the issue could be described also a low pitch circular saw in the background -or- a swarm of metal cicadas -or- as others said, a robot army.

Can you hear it in the recording?

That said, if you cannot reproduce it in your setup - it will be interesting to identify any differences in setup.

Mine is: Beam directly connected to LG TV via eARC HDMI. Lg audio configured as pass-through.

Update: in my LG i have a setting 

Sound / Advanced Settings / Digital Sound Output

If I set this to „pass through“ the issue is there.
The Sonos app is showing audio to be of format: „Dolbly Multichannel PCM 2.0“.

if I set this to „PCM“, the issue is not/hardly noticable. Sonos app is reporting audio to be „Stereo PCM“ on this case.

@Ken_Griffiths: what is the audio format being reported as in the Sonos app when you do your tests?

I’ll check the audio and let you know what audio format the Sonos App shows when playing the YT Superman video. My LG TV’s are both set to ‘pass-through’, just to confirm that.

In the uploaded audio recording I can hear what was described as a circular saw, but what might have helped would have been to post a link to the actual video and to then listen to that on other devices to see how it sounds, just in case it’s a noise recorded in the source audio itself.

if there is an issue just with the Beam, I would have thought the sound mentioned would be present on a good many audio sources such as movies/shows on Netflix, or Amazon etc; and it perhaps might help if it’s able to be shown that the audio issue is only present on the Beam and not present on other playback devices belonging to other device manufacturers. As I say the Spider-Man YT video sounds the same on an iPad and headphones as my Beam, particularly when playing it back at higher volume levels.

Anyhow if there are more examples please post those too as I will happily continue to try to test things here with my Home setup.

I will report back on the audio format the App shows when I return home. I’m out and about at the moment.