Flaw In Beam And Groups Admitted By Sonos Support

  • 12 November 2019
  • 7 replies
  • 501 views

Userlevel 2
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I have a few different players around the house, plus a Beam with 2 IKEA Symfonisk rear surrounds. 

While I was part of the beta testing group I noticed that at times the surrounds were out of sync with the Beam, but only for music. 

For other reasons I went back to the stock setup and left the beta. 

A few days ago I was listening to some music in the kitchen but then went to do some housework so set Sonos to play everywhere. 

When I got to the living room, the rear speakers were out of sync with the Beam so there was essentially an echo. 

As I had done during the beta, I suited diagnostics then emailed Sonos support about the issue. 

The bottom line from Sonos is that this happened because the Beam wasn't the group leader, or originator. Playing the source via the Beam and then grouping the rest of the house will apparently stop this from happening. 

Now, is it just me or is that pretty poor? The whole point of Sonos is in part its ability to play synchronised music to whatever zones you want, without having to think where you should start the music and then group from. With this admission from Sonos they have essentially broken that USP. 

 

Sorry for the rant, but it's very disappointing that Sonos feel that is an appropriate solution. 


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7 replies

Userlevel 7
Badge +26

Hey @StephenOffice, if you’re using those two as surrounds for the Beam, you won’t have any echo at all, don’t worry about this thread. The title is a bit alarmist and on the misleading side.

 

If you’re using those speakers as separate rooms in the Sonos app, and having them grouped with the Beam, just make sure you have the Beam playing music first and group the speakers to it first, and you won’t have this echo either.

 

This issue (which is currently being fixed) happens only if you have music on and playing to other rooms that are then grouped with the Beam, sometimes they get out of sync.

Userlevel 7
Badge +26

Understood completely, I’ll look into that one to make sure the person you spoke with learns to include the full details. Sorry for the trouble!

I am a bit confused.  I have purchased a Sonos Beam and two Ikea bookshelf Symfonisk speakers to add to the Sonos beam I use for television.  I have not taken the speakers our of the box and installed them yet.  I do not want to install them if there is an echo.  Is there another speaker I should be buying if I do not want the echo?

 

Userlevel 7
Badge +26

Hey @chuckalicious,  beta discussion shouldn’t be taking place on the public community as we do try to keep all mention of being involved in beta tests confidential with the NDA everyone signs to be part of the program. For one reason, sometimes features are tested that will never make it into the product, and we don’t want anyone to feel left out. Sometimes during a beta test, a bug will surface that doesn’t have major enough impact to stop the release from going out as planned, assuming other features or software in it need to get shipped in a certain timeframe. We do a lot of work with other companies and software releases often are timed together, so depending on the severity of a bug, it may still ship. That doesn’t mean that a fix isn’t coming, and in fact, staying in the beta program is going to get you a fix faster than leaving it (assuming the bug is in the current production build). 

We’re working on that issue you described already,  as you said, if you make your Beam the group coordinator this echo won’t come up. It’s certainly frustrating to hear an echo, so rest assured that we’re on it. We don’t consider making the main speaker the coordinator is a solution, it’s a workaround while we get a fix prepared and launched.

Userlevel 2
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Thanks for the reply and Im glad the issue is being worked on. It would be worth your support team saying the same thing rather than "so hopefully that's your problem sorted". 

However, I didn't discuss any features from the beta testing (this echo can't be from the beta because it's happening on stock software). My mention of the beta was there for background information and where I first saw the issue. 

Userlevel 7
Badge +26

The team definitely should know about it, so if you worked with someone they should have been able to let you know what was happening and what the workaround is while we get a solution ready. There are a couple threads here on the community on the topic too, I think I’m in all of them already, having talked about it. In any case, hang tight, we’ll let you know when it’s resolved.

Userlevel 2
Badge +3

Thanks Ryan. The last communication I got from Sonos was:

 

"This issue should be resolved if you set the Beam up as the Group Coordinator i.e. the speaker you start the group from.

Please test the system for a while in this setup, and if you continue to experience issues, submit another diagnostic for review"

 

You can understand why I didn't get the impression there was any suggestion of it being a problem or that it was getting worked on.