Sonos beam lip sync issue

Right the issue is fixed completely if I set sky q box to pcm or normal and not Dolby digital, using hdmi arc. Sonos customer service told me that there is no difference in the quality of the sound from DD and PCM, can anyone confirm if this is true. If PCM is worse quality than DD then I will be returning my Beam as £400 for inferior sound is a joke. Hopefully someone can put my mind at rest as I really love the beam!!! What a joke. PCM on Sonos is stereo. Dolby Digital is surround sound. Dolby Digital is far superior to PCM Stereo.

But a Sonos Beam doesn’t play surround sound does it? With other speakers added it can form surround, but on its own it’s not, so wouldn’t it just be the same? I have no clue so looking for guidance.
Beam will play all surround channels, assuming there are the channels to be played. It doesn't discard any audio, but if you don't have surrounds then rear audio may not be noticed much. For most TV content, stereo will be just as good. For movies that are recorded for surround sound, Dolby Digital is a big improvement.

That said, we're looking into some trouble with Sky Q content being played on certain TVs. We've been seeing that some models aren't sending the audio through right, causing the delay. We're investigating the situation.

Right the issue is fixed completely if I set sky q box to pcm or normal and not Dolby digital, using hdmi arc. Sonos customer service told me that there is no difference in the quality of the sound from DD and PCM, can anyone confirm if this is true. If PCM is worse quality than DD then I will be returning my Beam as £400 for inferior sound is a joke. Hopefully someone can put my mind at rest as I really love the beam!!! What a joke. PCM on Sonos is stereo. Dolby Digital is surround sound. Dolby Digital is far superior to PCM Stereo.

But a Sonos Beam doesn’t play surround sound does it? With other speakers added it can form surround, but on its own it’s not, so wouldn’t it just be the same? I have no clue so looking for guidance.
Beam will play all surround channels, assuming there are the channels to be played. It doesn't discard any audio, but if you don't have surrounds then rear audio may not be noticed much. For most TV content, stereo will be just as good. For movies that are recorded for surround sound, Dolby Digital is a big improvement.

That said, we're looking into some trouble with Sky Q content being played on certain TVs. We've been seeing that some models aren't sending the audio through right, causing the delay. We're investigating the situation.

Confused here; Ryan, are you saying I am losing sound quality by setting my Apple 4K TV to stereo as opposed to Dolby Digital? Look forward to your reply.

So you have apple TV 4K and your experiencing audio delay? Hmmm that's interesting I have apple TV 4K the beam the sub 2 play 1s and the surround is so immersive. Sadly though my Xbox one x has audio delay in bitstream with Dolby digital selected but it's not because of the Sonos as even when I changed it to that before I set it up I was experiencing audio delay through my TV speakers.. it's just tough to figure out if it's my LG OLED B7 or the Xbox as there is multiple posts that blame both.

I have a Philips 4K TV on latest Android (8 I think) and had the same issues. Mine has a setting (options -> all options -> sound) which is called “digital audio delay” and it’s set to “on” by default. After setting it to “off” everything is in sync again, no matter what compression is used.

Hi guys, I’m having exactly the same issue. I have the beam connected to my Samsung UE40NU7120 running the latest software, with the Beam connected via HDMI-ARC. My two input devices are sky Q and Apple TV 4K, also running the latest software versions.

I’ve currently got my TV settings to:

HDMI Input Audio Format = Bitstream
Digital Output Audio Format = Dolby Digital.

Note, if I change the output format to PCM the sound quality drops to a level where there’s no point having a sound bar, and if I set it to Dolby Digital+ I get no sound at all.

I’ve tried all of the various audio delay options but the reality is that the audio needs to be advanced and not delayed. I need the picture to be delayed but have no option to do this.

I don’t have the sync issue when I use the tv speakers. I have the same challenge whether using Apple TV or Sky.

Help please!
Obviously you have Ryan’s answer above, but there is one further thing to perhaps try... just switch the Beam connection over to the TV optical port and see if that port is faster at handling the DD Signal. You will lose the few voice commands, but it’s quite possible it may solve your lip-sync issues.

Hello everyone ...(Lip Sync fixed? So far so good) I’m new to SONOS... just got my Sonos Play Bar and 2 Play 1s yesterday and the Lip Sync issue was driving me insane, just a few milliseconds off with the video being slightly ahead of the sound.....I’ve read many post and in one post I feel was overlooked it was suggested the sound be completely turned down with the TV remote and then be turned up with the SONOS APP...this has so far FIXED the problem for me both for watching television cable channels as well as a movie played from my Apple TV I could barely watch last night because of the lip sync issue.....I hope this helps

GOOD NEWS (for once) regarding lip sync! I have now spent days trying to get Dolby 5.1 sound to work without lip sync problems from Apple TV 4 via HDMI to my new Philips 55PUS8303, and through ARC to Sonos Beam (with Sub and to Play:1 as rear speakers). It works fine when I set Apple TV to send stereo sound, but I want surround! However, I just realized that the Apple TV can send audio over Airplay in stead, and the Beam is now a valid Airplay 2 speaker. And it seems to work; I can’t notice any lip sync problems now!! Hoping this will be stable and that I can finally rent a movie and enjoy full 5.1.

On my TV box though, I still need to use stereo to avoid quite massive delay in the sound. But I guess I can get by with watching the news and weather forecast in stereo...

I'm having the same issues with the Picture being ahead of the Sound. My setup is the Beam connected via HDMI to a Samsung UE40NU7120 which in turn is connected to Sky Q and an Xbox one. The problems come when you have Dolby outputting to the TV then the Beam. I've been online with technicians at Sonos and Samsung to no avail. The only workaround is connect the SkyQ directly to the Beam via the optical cable. Not as convenient as the ARC system should be. A software update from either Sonos or Samsung would be greatly appreciated.

I just bought the Beam and have an old Samsung TV without ARC so connected using the optical adapter. I have Sky Q connected to the TV with HDMI and had sync issue, only slightly but it was there. There is a setting on the Sky Q where you can change the delay and this cured my problem. I have set the Sky to DD too, not sure what I'm getting but it sounds great.

I have just bought a beam and two play:1s as a surround system. I have connected the beam to my panasonic tx-40dx700b tv using the hdmi-arc connection. I have a skyQ 2tb box connected to the TV using HDMI.

I am seeing this exact same lip sync issue. With the setup as above, when I watch to dolby 5.1 from the sky Q, I get fantastic sound from the beam, but with a delay of about half a second. No additional amount of delay can fix this! When the sky Q is set to output stereo, there is no delay.

I get exactly the same when I connect the beam to the TV's optical output.

If I connect the beam to directly to the sky-Q optical output, the lip-sync issue goes away, but I can then only control the volume via the sonos app on my phone, and I get no surround sound when

Interestingly, if I watch from an app on the TV i.e. amazon prime, 5.1 on the beam works flawlessly.

As others have said, the issue goes away when not in 5.1 mode, but then what's the point of having bought an expensive surround sound system?

Has anyone found a solution?

I have just bought a beam and two play:1s as a surround system. I have connected the beam to my panasonic tx-40dx700b tv using the hdmi-arc connection. I have a skyQ 2tb box connected to the TV using HDMI.

I am seeing this exact same lip sync issue. With the setup as above, when I watch to dolby 5.1 from the sky Q, I get fantastic sound from the beam, but with a delay of about half a second. No additional amount of delay can fix this! When the sky Q is set to output stereo, there is no delay.

I get exactly the same when I connect the beam to the TV's optical output.

If I connect the beam to directly to the sky-Q optical output, the lip-sync issue goes away, but I can then only control the volume via the sonos app on my phone, and I get no surround sound when

Interestingly, if I watch from an app on the TV i.e. amazon prime, 5.1 on the beam works flawlessly.

As others have said, the issue goes away when not in 5.1 mode, but then what's the point of having bought an expensive surround sound system?

Has anyone found a solution?


I’ve set mine up exactly the same way in the absence of a HDMI Arc port or an optical out on my old TV. I don’t get any lip sync issues but I do have the faff of having to control the volume through the app. Getting a new TV with both optical audio and HDMI arc on Wednesday so will find out if I too get the same issue.

That's fascinating. Which LG model do you have? I have to wonder if "full advanced" is a synonym for "least delayed".