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LG C9 and Sonos Beam and Sub. Inconsistent audio volumes

  • 15 March 2022
  • 8 replies
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M
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I recently bought a sonos beam and sub after viewing in store I was very impressed.

 

However when using with a LG C9, i am having issues. Basically the volume level is not consistent at all. I used a sound db app to get a rough level playing field across apps and this is what i found.

Normal TV Freeview = 50% volume via app.

You Tube (inbuilt app) = 23% volume via app. « this is the level i was expecting based on what i normally set the internal TV speakers to.  

Spotify (inbuilt app) =  14% volume via app. 

Spotify (airplay) = 47% volume via app. 

 

I haven’t gone through all apps and content yet but this is really noticeable. 

 

TV settings are passthrough (not difference on PCM or Auto on normal TV viewing) and eARC is on. HDMI CEC is on as well. 

 

 

Any advice would be greatly appreciated!! 

 

Thanks,

 

Matthew

 

 

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Best answer by Matthew.L 23 March 2022, 12:32

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8 replies

Ken_Griffiths

Are you using a Beam, or a Sonos Arc, with your TV, only you mention here (see link below) you’ve had problems with the Sonos ARC and your C9 TV for over a year and thinking of returning it?

How come you’ve not posted anything here before about your Arc issues and have now only just joined the forum?

M
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Are you using a Beam, or a Sonos Arc, with your TV, only you mention here (see link below) you’ve had problems with the Sonos ARC and your C9 TV for over a year and thinking of returning it?

How come you’ve not posted anything here before about your Arc issues and have now only just joined the forum?

What are you on about, i clearly have stated I have a beam and responses in the topic are about beam as well as the arc.

 

I poking for help not people trying to claim there is nothing wrong when clearly I’m not alone with this issue. that does help the brand to bury heads in sand

M
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been messing around, trying to resolve this.
 

So far found that Dolby digital 1.0, Dolby digital 2.0,  Dolby digital 5.1 are all working as expected and fairly consistent. 

 

Anything that reports PCM stereo or PCM 5.1 or airplay is noticeably quieter, this is the same on TV, TV apps, pass through from a PS4 or streaming from an iPhone 13 via spotify / airplay.

 

Difference scale can be illustrated on PCM stereo I get 80dB peaks at 100%, while on Dolby digital 2.0 I get 80db at 37%. 
 

any way to improve the volume for PCM stereo in the sonos settings, there’s nothing in the LG audio menus that appear to help on this front.

 

 

Ken_Griffiths

been messing around, trying to resolve this.
 

So far found that Dolby digital 1.0, Dolby digital 2.0,  Dolby digital 5.1 are all working as expected and fairly consistent. 

 

Anything that reports PCM stereo or PCM 5.1 or airplay is noticeably quieter, this is the same on TV, TV apps, pass through from a PS4 or streaming from an iPhone 13 via spotify / airplay.

 

Difference scale can be illustrated on PCM stereo I get 80dB peaks at 100%, while on Dolby digital 2.0 I get 80db at 37%. 
 

any way to improve the volume for PCM stereo in the sonos settings, there’s nothing in the LG audio menus that appear to help on this front.

Isn’t it for the source/player to change these things? Why have a Sonos speaker process/change the audio it receives. Otherwise every brand of speaker/headphones would also need to also level-out the audio. I would rather see the A/V industry deal with these things ‘at source’ and perhaps have an agreed standard instead.

I have a cable TV box that has different volume levels depending on whether it’s playing PCM stereo audio or DTS/Dolby 5.1audio and often the same Shows or Movies from that box can be louder (or quieter in some instances) when played from an App on a Nvidia Shield TV or Fire TV (just as examples) and I’m talking here when using a different brand of Home Theatre (Sony) and not Sonos. I don’t want the connected speaker processing the audio and perhaps delaying it slightly and likely causing lip-sync issues, I much prefer the ‘source’ to sort these things before they ever get to the speaker.

 

M
Badge

been messing around, trying to resolve this.
 

So far found that Dolby digital 1.0, Dolby digital 2.0,  Dolby digital 5.1 are all working as expected and fairly consistent. 

 

Anything that reports PCM stereo or PCM 5.1 or airplay is noticeably quieter, this is the same on TV, TV apps, pass through from a PS4 or streaming from an iPhone 13 via spotify / airplay.

 

Difference scale can be illustrated on PCM stereo I get 80dB peaks at 100%, while on Dolby digital 2.0 I get 80db at 37%. 
 

any way to improve the volume for PCM stereo in the sonos settings, there’s nothing in the LG audio menus that appear to help on this front.

Isn’t it for the source/player to change these things? Why have a Sonos speaker process/change the audio it receives. Otherwise every brand of speaker/headphones would also need to also level-out the audio. I would rather see the A/V industry deal with these things ‘at source’ and perhaps have an agreed standard instead.

I have a cable TV box that has different volume levels depending on whether it’s playing PCM stereo audio or DTS/Dolby 5.1audio and often the same Shows or Movies from that box can be louder (or quieter in some instances) when played from an App on a Nvidia Shield TV or Fire TV (just as examples) and I’m talking here when using a different brand of Home Theatre (Sony) and not Sonos. I don’t want the connected speaker processing the audio and perhaps delaying it slightly and likely causing lip-sync issues, I much prefer the ‘source’ to sort these things before they ever get to the speaker.

 

you statement doesn’t answer why AirPlay is so quieter as well,  pass through of PS4 content it’s night and day when you go from Dolby to pcm for the same content. I don’t think the sources are the issue it’s how the beam processes formats for example HD Channels appear on the beam as Dolby 2.0 but non hd as stereo PCM

 

I had no syncing issues it’s the volume issue only. Most posts I’ve read that the format should be passed through the TV and not processed.

 

And I’ve already tried various setting on my sources and tv. hence why I noticed the PCM format seemed to be the root of the issue. looking in the PS4 settings there appears to be sub types of PCM content at different frequencies.

 

I really need a sonos engineer to respond as to why. rather than have stabs in the dark.

 

 


 


 

Airgetlam

Sonos engineering doesn’t, to my knowledge,  read this forum, much less respond here. The best you’d get in this forum is a statement from a forum moderator that they would pass the information on to the relevant team. 
 

Bruce
Ken_Griffiths

@Matthew.L,
As far as I’m aware, the Sonos speakers just play the audio they receive as soon as they get it, in a timely manner - A TV may pass-through the audio if it’s set to pass-through in its settings (not all TV’s have that feature), but in that case where pass-through is not used,  the processing is done on the source device (Nvidia Shield/Cable TV/Fire TV etc.) in fact it is possible to change the audio output on those connected devices, so in some cases you can switch the audio between stereo or Dolby/DTS surround sound. 

To contact Sonos about your issues, you might be best to speak to their Support Staff via this LINK 

M
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@Matthew.L,
As far as I’m aware, the Sonos speakers just play the audio they receive as soon as they get it, in a timely manner - A TV may pass-through the audio if it’s set to pass-through in its settings (not all TV’s have that feature), but in that case where pass-through is not used,  the processing is done on the source device (Nvidia Shield/Cable TV/Fire TV etc.) in fact it is possible to change the audio output on those connected devices, so in some cases you can switch the audio between stereo or Dolby/DTS surround sound. 

To contact Sonos about your issues, you might be best to speak to their Support Staff via this LINK 

Spoken to the sonos support on the phone, to a really nice guy. They confirmed they can see errors on the system and air play and radio through the app should be unaffected by the tv. so there is something wrong with my beam and the volume.

 

Currently the are escalating the case to senior engineers as the errors suggest something is wrong but not obvious to the first level and done the basic trouble shooting.

 

So not mad.

 

Been impressed with the customer supports attitude so far. Let’s hope it’s doesn’t require a hardware swap and something they can fix via software.

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