Multichannel PCM 5.1 dropping out since 14.10 update

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M
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But what do I lose if I just move the Sonos Beam to HDMI 3 or 4 and lose the eArc. Does that just mean I can’t talk to my TV?! 

The audio return is on HDMI 2 only. You can’t connect it to any other port. The optical cable should fix the issues for you though. 

T
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Okay, thanks. I just ordered this one from Amazon:

FIBBR 8K HDMI Fiber Optic Cable, FIBBR 48Gbps Ultra High Speed Gaming HDMI 2.1 Cable 8K60Hz 4K120Hz 144Hz Dynamic HDR/eARC Active Optical HDMI Cable Compatible with PS5, Xbox Series X, PC, TV(6.56ft)

Had to order from a vendor in China. I couldn’t find any options in Canada/USA that were in stock.

S

Had the same issue with audio occasionally dropping for a second every few minutes in av amplifier 5.1 setting from ps5.

Setup: ps5 + sonos beam 2 with 2 sonos one surrounds+ lg c2.

Sound input from ps5 - bitstream (for surround)

eARC enabled

Sound output - passthrou 

Quick fix worked for me: switch hdmi port for your ps5 to an previously unused one (or hard reset current one). Do not set your ps5 hdmi input type to PC. Check if audio don't drop in av amplifier 5.1 and that your sonos system get 5.1 PCM.

I suspect doing PC input type for ps5 hdmi port is the case, cause it's literally the only difference between working and problematic setup.

T
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But what do I lose if I just move the Sonos Beam to HDMI 3 or 4 and lose the eArc. Does that just mean I can’t talk to my TV?! 

The audio return is on HDMI 2 only. You can’t connect it to any other port. The optical cable should fix the issues for you though. 

Can also confirm that this “fix” worked. Thanks!

M

LG C2 + Beam Gen 2 + PS5 (watching Blu-ray)

Audio dropping 2-3 seconds every few mins whilst watching multichannel PCM 5.1. Sometimes audio comes back funny, like a vocal track missing. Restarting the Blu-ray brings it back. 

I tried moving the PS5 from HDMI port 3 to port 1. So far so good, but only 30 mins into a movie.

Will update..

Airgetlam

Have you updated the software on your TV? It really shouldn’t make a difference if the blue ray player is connected to HDMI 1 or HDMI 3, they both *should* be acting the same.

Bruce
M

Have you updated the software on your TV? It really shouldn’t make a difference if the blue ray player is connected to HDMI 1 or HDMI 3, they both *should* be acting the same.

Nope no update, I swapped the HDMI port 20 mins into a movie after it was dropping every few mins, and the rest of the movie played with no drops. Very strange.. 

We'll see if it's a long term fix.

Beardalorian
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But what do I lose if I just move the Sonos Beam to HDMI 3 or 4 and lose the eArc. Does that just mean I can’t talk to my TV?! 

The audio return is on HDMI 2 only. You can’t connect it to any other port. The optical cable should fix the issues for you though. 

Hey fam. I just signed up to comment. I saw your link to the cable. Sadly it's unavailable. I'm in the USA. Can you help me on a cord that is literally the same or similar so I can get when purchasing the Arc? I don't want to get something wrong. I found this one. Is it good?

RUIPRO 8k Fiber Optic

Feeding my Entertainment high 💉
M
Userlevel 3
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Any one way 2.1 HDMI optical cable should be fine. 

D
Userlevel 1
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Seeing as there are no new replies I think this still hasn’t been fixed?

 

we have bought a Samsung wh-q930c for the bedroom (also lg c1) and there’s no issue on that system at all. 

using the optical hdmi still fixes the problem luckily. But lately the screen has been flickering black for 4 seconds before coming back on, as if earc is reapplying.
 

Also have some audio delay issues on live TV lately; only on Dolby digital streams. Channels that use PCM work just fine, but I think thisnactually is an LG issue since the Samsung had the same thing. 

S
Userlevel 3
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So after seeing the Verge story about the audio popping issue being fixed I wondered whether this ever got resolved. I can’t easily swap my cable out but may try it seeing as there have been a few firmware updates for the LG CX recently, as well as the Beam obviously.

 

Anybody still monitoring this?

Y
Userlevel 3
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So after seeing the Verge story about the audio popping issue being fixed I wondered whether this ever got resolved. I can’t easily swap my cable out but may try it seeing as there have been a few firmware updates for the LG CX recently, as well as the Beam obviously.

 

Anybody still monitoring this?

 

I guess everyone already gave in and bought the one way cable lol. As for my case, I am still experiencing periodic dropouts on HDMI1 so I think it’s still not yet fixed. Sonos did mention that they specifically addressed an issue with Dolby MAT Atmos.

Remember, Sonos denied the Atmos pop issue for years until that The Verge article came out. Then all of a sudden Sonos investigated and fixed a “non-existent” issue that was previously “caused by your TV / PC / Console / Bluray player / HDMI cable / CEC / Atmos / anything but Sonos’ product.” It would take a The Verge article-level of miracle to get Sonos to fix this issue.

D

Coming to this late but wanna add my experience here. LG G2, Beam Gen 2 via e-Arc, 4K Firestick in HDMI 1, PS5 in 3 and Nintendo Switch in 4.

Firestick works FLAWLESSLY. No drop outs, 5.1, 7.1, Atmos all work great. PS5 works perfectly when playing games, but trying to watch a Blu Ray is a lottery whether it will play (only after TV hardware reset) drop out intermittently (sometimes not coming back at all) or just no sound from the off. Nintendo Switch audio drops out for a second every couple of minutes.

With the Blu Ray issue being fixed by a TV hard reset I initially thought it might be a TV issue, but I used a SONY soundbar via e-Arc before with absolutely no issues. I thought the Sonos would be an upgrade but this issue is making me strongly consider returning it. This is not budget equipment, I shouldn’t have to lose my evenings trying to get it to work properly…

Y
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Firestick works FLAWLESSLY. No drop outs, 5.1, 7.1, Atmos all work great.

The HDMI 1 workaround is not perfect as I’ve always gotten around one or two dropouts every hour with PCM 5.1. Perhaps you just haven’t noticed or you’re lucky that yours hasn’t bugged out yet.

With the Blu Ray issue being fixed by a TV hard reset I initially thought it might be a TV issue, but I used a SONY soundbar via e-Arc before with absolutely no issues. I thought the Sonos would be an upgrade but this issue is making me strongly consider returning it. This is not budget equipment, I shouldn’t have to lose my evenings trying to get it to work properly…

I also used a Sony earc soundbar with no issues before “upgrading” to the Beam. Since you have multiple devices that make use of PCM 5.1, I suggest that you either buy the fiber optic cable or simply return your Beam. Personally, I’d go with the latter as Sonos has already lost my trust. From what we’d seen from the Atmos pop (and this) issue , they’d just sweep things under the rug and deny any wrongdoing unless it has garnered widespread media attention.

D

The HDMI 1 workaround is not perfect as I’ve always gotten around one or two dropouts every hour with PCM 5.1. Perhaps you just haven’t noticed or you’re lucky that yours hasn’t bugged out yet.

Don’t know if it’s even an HDMI 1 workaround, tried the PS5 in HDMI 1 and it didn’t solve the issue. The Firestick just seems to deal with issues better than any other device. It’s by far what I’ve used most since I got the Beam so I think I would’ve noticed dropouts, but as you say it just might not have bugged out yet. I’ve also experienced some other weird quirks with it - If I have the Firestick set to “best audio possible” I get no sound when I set the Nintendo Switch to surround, full audio on stereo, but if I set the Firestick to PCM, I get surround on the Switch, but it regularly drops out. There was a brief moment where everything worked perfectly (Switch and PS5) if I disconnected the Firestick completely, but then that seemed to stop working too…

I also used a Sony earc soundbar with no issues before “upgrading” to the Beam. Since you have multiple devices that make use of PCM 5.1, I suggest that you either buy the fiber optic cable or simply return your Beam. Personally, I’d go with the latter as Sonos has already lost my trust. From what we’d seen from the Atmos pop (and this) issue , they’d just sweep things under the rug and deny any wrongdoing unless it has garnered widespread media attention.

I’m gonna try the cable as I get get one for £11 on Amazon in the UK, more out of curiosity than anything, but maintain that it’s unacceptable for a product to come with a cable and for me to still have to purchase one separately to get it to work properly. Was looking into alternatives if I do choose to refund and the closest comparable device seems to be the Bose 600, but the more I look into that the more I see pages and pages of people complaining that it doesn’t work properly with LG TVs! Starting to think my basic SONY soundbar worked so flawlessly because that’s all it was - just a decent soundbar, no bells or whistles. While I don’t think it is a TV issue, it seems that some of the blame has to lie with LG here - there are too many variables for this to simply be “the Beam can’t do 5.1”

 

D
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Yeah it’s pretty annoying. Sometimes the screen goes black for a bit and then comes back, it restarts the connection to the beam when this happens. This is on the optical cable. Normal cable doesn’t do that but I can’t live with the dropout every minute. 
 

lots of the gaming I do is in 5.1 LPCM. The switch doesn’t have any other surround mode and Xbox has a huge delay on Dolby related stuff, and 7.1 is nice and all for movies, but it messes up some positional stuff in games. 
 

the Apple TV is just fine, as long as inputting everything in Dolby digital instead of atmos with fallback to lpcm, but then I miss atmos AND I get the delay the lg c1 adds to Dolby. 
 

live TV same thing; Dolby sources are delayed. 100 percent the TV that does this sadly. Except when I plug in my PC; that just works fine on atmos and Dolby digital. Super weird, but at least a workaround for the lpcm issue (and being able to set atmos to 5.1 instead of 7.1 is a nice touch as well since windows messes up the rear tracks by not sending them at all)

Y
Userlevel 3
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Don’t know if it’s even an HDMI 1 workaround

If you backread, a couple of folks did some tests and found HDMI 1 alone to be somewhat resistant to this bug for some reason. My experience coincide with their findings but as I said it hasn’t been flawless.

Was looking into alternatives if I do choose to refund and the closest comparable device seems to be the Bose 600, but the more I look into that the more I see pages and pages of people complaining that it doesn’t work properly with LG TVs!

I looked into the Bose 600 awhile back and found that there was an issue upon launch where it didn’t work with LGs. But Bose acknowledged the issue and released a fix via software update. Not sure though if you’re referring to new issues that came up since then.

 

Yeah it’s pretty annoying. Sometimes the screen goes black for a bit and then comes back, it restarts the connection to the beam when this happens. This is on the optical cable. Normal cable doesn’t do that but I can’t live with the dropout every minute. 

Do you have a broken fiber optic cable or is the cable “fix” bugged as well? Was just considering to finally purchase one as I currently have a good offer from Amazon lol.

W
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so glad i found this thread as i was starting to lose the plot.  Same as everyone else, Gen2 <> LgC2 intermittent sounds drops when PCM 5.1  which is very annoying.  Just ordered the cable from Amazon Uk that the OP links too and it was 25% off so if a £13.50 spend fixes it that will make me happy.   Just annoying having to spend more to get things to work.   Will post back once cable has arrived and I have done some tests

M
Userlevel 3
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Just ordered the cable from Amazon Uk that the OP links too and it was 25% off so if a £13.50 spend fixes it that will make me happy. 

It was the OP that posted the fix. 😉

Make sure you have the TV at the source end and the Beam at the other end of the cable when you connect it up otherwise it won’t work. 
Fingers crossed a fix will come as I’m sure there are many Beam owners with this issue that haven’t seen this thread. 

W
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Ok let's say mixed results.  Got the cable all hooked up and then popped a disk in that I knew I had the issue with.  Sonos app shows multi channel 5.1 pcm and seemed to play ok, no sound drops. Then we've watched netflix, 4k Atmos and that played fine which was expected.  Now we went back to watching the disk again and there was no sound at all from the main film.  The menu had background music but nothing when watching the film.  Did a full power off and back on and managed to get some sound but now Sonos is only saying stereo pcm.   Confused 

M
Userlevel 3
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Ok let's say mixed results.  Got the cable all hooked up and then popped a disk in that I knew I had the issue with.  Sonos app shows multi channel 5.1 pcm and seemed to play ok, no sound drops. Then we've watched netflix, 4k Atmos and that played fine which was expected.  Now we went back to watching the disk again and there was no sound at all from the main film.  The menu had background music but nothing when watching the film.  Did a full power off and back on and managed to get some sound but now Sonos is only saying stereo pcm.   Confused 

I believe this is a different issue. I get this too occasionally - always after switching HDMI input.

Anyone else get this?

W
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Should have said I've never had this problem before, first time tonight since using the new cable 

F

Seeing as there are no new replies I think this still hasn’t been fixed?

 

we have bought a Samsung wh-q930c for the bedroom (also lg c1) and there’s no issue on that system at all. 

using the optical hdmi still fixes the problem luckily. But lately the screen has been flickering black for 4 seconds before coming back on, as if earc is reapplying.
 

Also have some audio delay issues on live TV lately; only on Dolby digital streams. Channels that use PCM work just fine, but I think thisnactually is an LG issue since the Samsung had the same thing. 

Unfortunately I have the black screen issue as well. I’m using a fiber 2.1 HDMI cable between the Beam Gen 2 and my LG C1. I was playing my Series X and all of a sudden after 10 minutes, I had a short black screen for like 5 seconds, after that the picture and sound came back. It wasnt a one time thing, the black screen issue is there and comes random while playing games, regardless the console I’m using.

I’m sick of dealing with this, sending my Beam Gen 2 back, replacing it with the Arc that apparently doesn’t have this issue at all.

Y
Userlevel 3
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I’m sick of dealing with this, sending my Beam Gen 2 back, replacing it with the Arc that apparently doesn’t have this issue at all.

Sonos: Just as planned. 😆

F

I’m sick of dealing with this, sending my Beam Gen 2 back, replacing it with the Arc that apparently doesn’t have this issue at all.

Sonos: Just as planned. 😆

Exactly, I wish I could laugh about it. I already have a sonos eco system, sub mini and surrounds as well. There's no going back. The Arc is the only choice at this point, fortunately it's on sale right now.

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