Yes, I have experienced this strange vocal bass issue. But pretty sure it’s a different manifestation of the issue. When I have had drop outs before, I have left the film running and there has been no bass and no rears.

Just got off the phone with SONOS (escalation L2) and was asked to connect my Arc via ethernet cable instead of WIFI.  On a previous call with SONOS they asked that I hardwire any component besides the Arc…. Anyway, after being on the call for 58mins and 20mins of trying to “break the system” everything remained in tact without a drop. I will continue to monitor today/over the next couple days but explained that I bought this system as a wifi system, my Arc is mounted…. I had to pull it off the wall and just have it resting on my stand for now to run this test.  Her thought is that there’s an issue with the router and/or ISP - Broadcast vs Multicast.    Never had any issues with the entire system being connected via wifi until April 17th…. v14.6.  

@Frank Smith Just to warn you; There are lots of us with Arc’s on Ethernet that are suffering from the issue still

@Frank Smith - willhowe is correct, my Arc is connected directly to Ethernet and I have been experiencing the problem since 14.6.  Arc, Play 1 surrounds and Gen 2 Sub.  I have also filed support tickets and submitted diagnostics.  Turning off Earc has helped some with stability.  I do ok keeping the surrounds and subs for quite a while swapping between our cable box and our Apple TV but if I try using the X-box One I always lose them both.  I had a Playbar for six years with no problems.  I only upgraded to the Arc as a Christmas present to myself.  Have been regretting that choice a lot the past month and have actively started encouraging people not to buy Sonos.  This has really been a huge blow to my trust with the company.  Just filled out their recent survey and it’s the first time I’ve ever given a company a zero across the board.  And that’s saying something considering I have AT&T for Internet and deal with a cable company as well.

Hey, yes, I know this is only temporary - sadly.  I let her know that many have it wired and experience the same drop.  Just doing this to provide one more diagnostic report to them.  9th time the charm?  

@Corry P - this is what concerns me.

The L2 feels there is an issue with the ISP - Multicast or Broadcast. (Did the L2 mean Unicast rather than broadcast?). I am not sure what this really means, and with my experience of networking I am struggling to understand how an internet connection is involved in the sound drop-outs - after all, the video and other devices seems to work just fine when the drop outs occur. 

Logic would suggest that the same router that @Frank Smith is using, is the same router that was working in April. Also, there are affected users on this forum that are based in the US, Europe and United Kingdom. Again, logic would suggest that the different ISPs are not going to change how they deal with network transport all in the same month. And surely not everyone's routers are going to change behaviour in the same month without mass firmware updates across varying brands. 

This is not the first time I have heard its a local network issue, or its an ISP issue. However, there never seems to be any follow-on analysis of how and why this is the router or ISP. 

I second you , unsure why Sonos isn’t owning the problem. @Corry P there may be a few proportion of people reporting this on the forum, they might have contacted your support while still waiting on the fix. My issue started on 21st April, never before that and I am using the complete immersion set. Sonos can’t wash hands by running away from the problem. Please issue a recall as so many people on this forum aren’t crazy to try alternatives when your engineering team isn’t able to recreate a problem. Please ask your engineering team how long they run the systems? After a power cycle, my system works fine for 1-2 hours and once the issue occurs, it just becomes super frequent. I as a user was one of the first ones to experience and report the problem and while your team was focused on pointing it to the network, I tweaked but the issue regardless occurred. I have provided your Level 3 engineering team with good and bad diagnostics. Why do they need to recreate an issue at their end? What’s the purpose of submitting diagnostics when you want to recreate the issue at your end. I don’t want your updates, please provide a solution where I can rollback to 14.5 and permanently disable Auto updates. This isn’t acceptable by any standards

This may be a completely ridiculous thought, but is there anyone with this issue and is deep in this like us, that is from Santa Barbara or somewhere relatively close that they could send a top engineer over and diagnose that system and finally be done with this?

Yes, when this happened, there was no bass other than what sounded like the Arc trying to send the center/dialogue channel through the sub.

So is Sonos telling us we’re holding it wrong?

omg they are really the Apple of audio companies.  

No real surprise.  Was using the built in YouTube TV app and switched over to PS5.  The game I was playing didn't really require a lot of sound so had the volume on low.  After a while I turned it up to see and sure enough, nothing coming out of the rears.  Switched to Netflix, put on a movie I always test this against and yup, rears/subs dropped.

Disconnected the ethernet from the Arc, mounted it back on my wall and shut everything off.  Cant be bothered with this anymore today.  11 days short of 3 months since I first experienced this issue.  v14.6 is the cause, not our network, wifi signal vs ethernet cable, TV….. its the SONOS software we foisted with.  

Diagnostic sent - back to waiting for a fix.  

@Corry P - for reference, this is the email I was sent nearly two weeks ago after hours of testing on the call and many, many diagnostic reports sent. At one point, there was a CEC error that was noted but that was I last I heard after this on May 26th.

At this point based on the information provided so far and all the diagnostics and troubleshooting that has been done, I will have to escalate the case to our Level 3 engineers so they can look further into it. Once the case is escalated, they will be in touch with you for further instructions.

Without trying to inflame the situation, I am unsure why Sonos direct us to a process that does not seem to be producing solid communication or any results. 

Same problem here. Wired Sonos ARC + 2 PLAY 1. The surrounds drop out every time.
I have to plug out the play 1 one by one and then it all works again. (not for long)

Samsung QN93A + Ziggo next tv box. Thats all. (Holland).
 

And sonos diagnostic hangs :-(

Since before and after the issue started, I have used all the same hardware. The only change has been Sonos firmware updates and all the issues started after 14.6 rolled out. I find it hard to believe they can’t replicate the issues.

What type of HDMI cables do you use to connect your ARC to TV and - most of all - to connect source (eg. ATV) to TV?

I found a thread on the Apple support forum about a sound problem similar. A guy had a problem with fading and dropping sound on his Denon home theater system. The solution was simple: change the hdmi cable between the Apple TV 4K and the TV to one that supports 48 gbps.

I have now 18 gbps cable and I’m considering buying hdmi ver. 2.1 with 48 gbps. But I'm a little scared to test again. My system, connected wired and playing only from tv (ATV is disconnected) works perfectly. I don’t want to loose it. I’d rather sell ATV...

11 days short of 2 months*

I use 48Gbps HDMI cables and I’m experiencing the issue. Save your money. 

Ok. But I don’t have this problem when I cut off ATV and use only aps on my TV or sat decoder. I switch between formats, between sources (music from iPhone or iPad and than atmos from Netflix from TV...) and everything works properly. But when I connect my Apple TV 4K it take less than 1 min to kill the rear speakers and sometimes also sub. So in my case it is definitely problem with ATV → TV (Sony Bravia XR) → ARC connection.

Thank a lot. You save my money and time :)

It’s interesting that most are having issues with TV audio.

Has anyone had dropouts with music through the Sonos app (with connected TV off)? Or is that just me? 

I've the same issues by listening Sonos Radio (free) without any TV connected. (no surround, no sub an sometimes the echo-effect) 

Adding my voice to this - exactly the same issues after the initial update. Surrounds started lagging, now the Sub shows it’s there but nothing comes out. Wired the Arc instead, disconnected/added everything again (2xSL,1xSub), no resolution. Absolutely no changes to my network, setup or device updates - the only common theme was the last Sonos update.

What seemed to trip mine up was switching sources - more notably on the Sky box - seemingly where one channel was in one audio format, one another, then the echo appeared. The Arc also seems more sluggish at detecting the input type too - it could be 20 seconds before it would identify the audio type after changing channel or switching to Netflix/Disney/Kodi etc.

I know Sonos has a “Roll forward” attitude, but sometimes rolling back really is useful. Like now.

You say no changes to the local network setup, but you’re actually using SonosNet when you wired the Arc, we’re you using your local WiFi before that, as that would be quite a change in connectivity, if you were? 

Also what did you wire your Arc to?

Did you reboot/power-cycle your devices and remove the WiFi credentials when on SonosNet or set the wireless channels, so that they did not overlap? 

I guess more importantly did you submit diagnostic reports as requested and speak to Sonos Support about the issues you were seeing and (presumably) able to reproduce? 

I bought my arc and one SL pair from Costco. 18 months ago. It looks like I can still return them for refund. I’m doing that.  I’ll only have to sell my sub since I bought it elsewhere.  It’s a pity because every thing worked beautifully until it didn’t.  

Hoi, have the same issues with firmware 14.6 and 14.8. Disconnect with Music and Movies. Sometimes hickups with Movies. Also found the sound quality les. Its a mess. Setup Arc, 2 One SL, Sub Gen 3, Sony A80J. My netwerk is WM: 0. Nothing has changed in my setup even firmware other devices, its stil the same as before firmware 14.6 and 14.8. I’m from Holland.