Contributor I

Question

Arc Ultra + Era 100 Surrounds

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Arc Ultra and Era 100’s

Anyone else have this setup and noticing that the Era 100’s as rears are doing less work with the Arc Ultra when compared to the standard Arc? I’m barely noticing any audio coming from the rears even with the surround volume turned up to maximum. I swapped my original Arc back with the Era 100 surrounds and tested the same Atmos movies on the Arc and the Arc Ultra, and there is a significant difference/reduction in the signals being sent to the Era 100’s in the rear channels with the Arc Ultra. Increasing the “TV Level” setting for Surround Audio in the Sonos app increases the front surround volume coming from the Arc Ultra but the signals coming out of the ERA 100 rears are almost non existent.

Is this behavior the result of how the Arc Ultra processes surround channels, and should be considered normal operation?

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Downsideup

Lyricist III

Hi @Downsideup

Thank you for this example, and with the comparison to Arc. I have a meeting with some engineers on Monday to discuss feedback like this that we are receiving. I’ll add this as an example to be discussed.

I would like to add another scene, which due to the error works much worse on the ARC Ultra than on the previous ARC. It is a music video by Lady Gaga - „hold my hands“ - this video can be found on the UHD Top Gun Maverick under extras.
At the end of the video, a plane flies through the picture from the back left. This also sounded much more precise on the ARC and is imprecise and washed out on the Ultra because the Ultra also plays the rears.

Papi133

Contributor I

Hello, I just bought an arc ultra and era 100 can you confirm that there is indeed a problem and that you will deal with it because we are still in doubt, it seems that this is a bug considered as perhaps normal by your teams... I plan to return everything unfortunately at this price it is not normal. the subject is still two months old and there is still no fix... sorry for my English and have a nice day

DaytonJohn

Lyricist III

It is so sad that this Customer will return the Sonos products primarily because there is no Sonos acknowledgment of this issue and commitment to mitigate!

Papi133

Contributor I

with all due respect to the sonos teams and especially those present on this forum: the problem will be discussed in a meeting, then we will talk about it to the sound engineers, then to management, then we will think about whether it is normal or not etc etc.. while waiting two months later after the publication of the problem nothing has changed.

Sorry if I am a little impatient but at this price it makes you think, you wonder if it is not better to use the legal withdrawal period because we have the impression that the problem is not recognized

Chagn

Lyricist III

I recommend to write email (eyerone with the issue) to ceo@sonos.com , in the past it was always very helpful.

Zorro88

Enthusiast II

I recommend to write email (eyerone with the issue) to ceo@sonos.com , in the past it was always very helpful.

I did this already in november with very detailed informations about this 5.1 soundtrack issue from my investigation and testing. They replied with this answer (part of it): „Thank you so much for this information and for testing with different TV settings as well. I have relayed this to the engineering teams here at Sonos in regard to this issue so that they can properly diagnose why this is happening and research a solution.“

They know about this issue already since a long time!

Gavalar

Enthusiast II

@Corry P many people here are annoyed here and many have been fobbed off by Sonos. Please can you take our comments seriously.

i have emailed ceo@sonos and they have told me this error is by design and immersive ‘lol’.

Can we have some recognition of the issue and a timeline to repair. We were guaranteed products would not be released unless they worked properly. The arc ultra is a joke to be fair. I am so disappointed.

It’s a shame as it should have been released when it was working properly. It will be great once the software is sorted.

Fennec104

Lyricist II

Following my previous message, here’s a few information that may help to diagnose the “Arc Ultra 5.1 sounds wrong but Atmos is OK” issue. I’ve found a few versions of the Dolby Atmos trailer “Amaze” with different audio encodings. All of them sounds great on my Arc “original” + Sub3 + Symfonisks.

At one point in this trailer, you can hear a bird flying around you. The bird is supposed to start at the back and should fly to the front, passing on your right. This is a simple but realistic spatialisation test.

When it sounds RIGHT, you can hear the bird flying all around you, and when it sounds WRONG, it only goes left and right in front of you. The difference is very easy to spot.

I play the files directly from my LG CX TV, using passthrough (should be no transcoding from the TV).

dolby-atmos-trailer_amaze_1080.mp4 : WRONG (shows “Dolby Surround Multichannel PCM 5.1” in the Sonos app)

Format                                   : AAC LC
Format/Info                              : Advanced Audio Codec Low Complexity
Codec ID                                 : mp4a-40-2
Duration                                 : 1 min 3 s
Source duration                          : 1 min 3 s
Bit rate mode                            : Constant
Bit rate                                 : 128 kb/s
Channel(s)                               : 6 channels
Channel layout                           : C L R Ls Rs LFE
Sampling rate                            : 48.0 kHz
Frame rate                               : 46.875 FPS (1024 SPF)
Compression mode                         : Lossy
Stream size                              : 993 KiB (3%)
Source stream size                       : 994 KiB (3%)
Default                                  : Yes
Alternate group                          : 1
mdhd_Duration                            : 63552

dolby-vision-amaze-(dolby-vision)-(www.demolandia.net).mp4 : RIGHT (shows “Dolby Atmos” in Sonos app)

Format                                   : E-AC-3 JOC
Format/Info                              : Enhanced AC-3 with Joint Object Coding
Commercial name                          : Dolby Digital Plus with Dolby Atmos
Format settings                          : Dolby Surround EX
Codec ID                                 : ec-3
Duration                                 : 56 s 192 ms
Bit rate mode                            : Constant
Bit rate                                 : 640 kb/s
Channel(s)                               : 6 channels
Channel layout                           : L R C LFE Ls Rs
Sampling rate                            : 48.0 kHz
Frame rate                               : 31.250 FPS (1536 SPF)
Compression mode                         : Lossy
Stream size                              : 4.29 MiB (2%)
Service kind                             : Complete Main
Encoded date                             : 2017-04-13 20:09:18 UTC
Tagged date                              : 2017-04-13 20:09:18 UTC
Complexity index                         : 14
Number of dynamic objects                : 13
Bed channel count                        : 1 channel
Bed channel configuration                : LFE
Dialog Normalization                     : -31 dB
compr                                    : 0.53 dB
dmixmod                                  : 3
ltrtcmixlev                              : -3.0 dB
ltrtsurmixlev                            : -3.0 dB
lorocmixlev                              : -3.0 dB
lorosurmixlev                            : -3.0 dB
dialnorm_Average                         : -31 dB
dialnorm_Minimum                         : -31 dB
dialnorm_Maximum                         : -31 dB

[LG] Amaze (4K Dolby Vision) {4K DoVi & Dolby Atmos Digital Plus}.mkv : RIGHT (shows “Dolby Atmos” in Sonos app)

Format                                   : E-AC-3 JOC
Format/Info                              : Enhanced AC-3 with Joint Object Coding
Commercial name                          : Dolby Digital Plus with Dolby Atmos
Format settings                          : Dolby Surround EX
Codec ID                                 : A_EAC3
Duration                                 : 56 s 192 ms
Bit rate mode                            : Constant
Bit rate                                 : 640 kb/s
Channel(s)                               : 6 channels
Channel layout                           : L R C LFE Ls Rs
Sampling rate                            : 48.0 kHz
Frame rate                               : 31.250 FPS (1536 SPF)
Compression mode                         : Lossy
Stream size                              : 4.29 MiB (2%)
Service kind                             : Complete Main
Default                                  : Yes
Forced                                   : No
Complexity index                         : 14
Number of dynamic objects                : 13
Bed channel count                        : 1 channel
Bed channel configuration                : LFE
Dialog Normalization                     : -31 dB
compr                                    : 0.53 dB
dmixmod                                  : 3
ltrtcmixlev                              : -3.0 dB
ltrtsurmixlev                            : -3.0 dB
lorocmixlev                              : -3.0 dB
lorosurmixlev                            : -3.0 dB
dialnorm_Average                         : -31 dB
dialnorm_Minimum                         : -31 dB
dialnorm_Maximum                         : -31 dB

I’ve found another file, named “[Dolby] Amaze (Widescreen) {FHD SDR & Dolby Atmos TrueHD}.mkv” with 4 audio tracks, but my TV does not show their real names, so I can’t known which is which (3 are WRONG, [shown as Dolby Digital 5.1 in Sonos app] and 1 is not shown by the TV)

Audio #1
ID                                       : 2
ID in the original source medium         : 4352 (0x1100)
Format                                   : MLP FBA 16-ch
Format/Info                              : Meridian Lossless Packing FBA with 16-channel presentation
Commercial name                          : Dolby TrueHD with Dolby Atmos
Codec ID                                 : A_TRUEHD
Duration                                 : 1 min 3 s
Bit rate mode                            : Variable
Bit rate                                 : 6 694 kb/s
Maximum bit rate                         : 9 096 kb/s
Channel(s)                               : 8 channels
Channel layout                           : L R C LFE Ls Rs Lb Rb
Sampling rate                            : 48.0 kHz
Frame rate                               : 1 200.000 FPS (40 SPF)
Bit depth                                : 24 bits
Compression mode                         : Lossless
Stream size                              : 50.7 MiB (20%)
Title                                    : Surround 7.1
Language                                 : English
Default                                  : Yes
Forced                                   : No
Original source medium                   : Blu-ray
Number of dynamic objects                : 15
Bed channel count                        : 1 channel
Bed channel configuration                : LFE

Audio #2
ID                                       : 3
ID in the original source medium         : 4352 (0x1100)
Format                                   : AC-3
Format/Info                              : Audio Coding 3
Commercial name                          : Dolby Digital
Codec ID                                 : A_AC3
Duration                                 : 1 min 3 s
Bit rate mode                            : Constant
Bit rate                                 : 640 kb/s
Channel(s)                               : 6 channels
Channel layout                           : L R C LFE Ls Rs
Sampling rate                            : 48.0 kHz
Frame rate                               : 31.250 FPS (1536 SPF)
Compression mode                         : Lossy
Stream size                              : 4.85 MiB (2%)
Title                                    : Surround 5.1
Language                                 : English
Service kind                             : Complete Main
Default                                  : No
Forced                                   : No
Original source medium                   : Blu-ray
Dialog Normalization                     : -31 dB
compr                                    : -0.28 dB
cmixlev                                  : -3.0 dB
surmixlev                                : -3 dB
dmixmod                                  : Lt/Rt
ltrtcmixlev                              : -3.0 dB
ltrtsurmixlev                            : -3.0 dB
lorocmixlev                              : -3.0 dB
lorosurmixlev                            : -3.0 dB
dialnorm_Average                         : -31 dB
dialnorm_Minimum                         : -31 dB
dialnorm_Maximum                         : -31 dB

Audio #3
ID                                       : 4
Format                                   : E-AC-3 JOC
Format/Info                              : Enhanced AC-3 with Joint Object Coding
Commercial name                          : Dolby Digital Plus with Dolby Atmos
Format profile                           : Blu-ray Disc
Codec ID                                 : A_EAC3
Duration                                 : 1 min 3 s
Bit rate mode                            : Constant
Bit rate                                 : 1 280 kb/s
Channel(s)                               : 8 channels
Channel layout                           : L R C LFE Ls Rs Lb Rb
Sampling rate                            : 48.0 kHz
Frame rate                               : 31.250 FPS (1536 SPF)
Compression mode                         : Lossy
Stream size                              : 9.69 MiB (4%)
Title                                    : Surround 7.1
Language                                 : English
Service kind                             : Complete Main
Default                                  : No
Forced                                   : No
Complexity index                         : 12
Number of dynamic objects                : 11
Bed channel count                        : 1 channel
Bed channel configuration                : LFE
Dialog Normalization                     : -31 dB
compr                                    : 0.53 dB
cmixlev                                  : -3.0 dB
surmixlev                                : -3 dB
dmixmod                                  : Lt/Rt
ltrtcmixlev                              : -3.0 dB
ltrtsurmixlev                            : -3.0 dB
lorocmixlev                              : -3.0 dB
lorosurmixlev                            : -3.0 dB
dialnorm_Average                         : -31 dB
dialnorm_Minimum                         : -31 dB
dialnorm_Maximum                         : -31 dB

Audio #4
ID                                       : 5
ID in the original source medium         : 4353 (0x1101)
Format                                   : AC-3
Format/Info                              : Audio Coding 3
Commercial name                          : Dolby Digital
Codec ID                                 : A_AC3
Duration                                 : 1 min 3 s
Bit rate mode                            : Constant
Bit rate                                 : 640 kb/s
Channel(s)                               : 6 channels
Channel layout                           : L R C LFE Ls Rs
Sampling rate                            : 48.0 kHz
Frame rate                               : 31.250 FPS (1536 SPF)
Compression mode                         : Lossy
Stream size                              : 4.84 MiB (2%)
Title                                    : Surround 5.1
Language                                 : English
Service kind                             : Complete Main
Default                                  : No
Forced                                   : No
Original source medium                   : Blu-ray
Dialog Normalization                     : -31 dB
compr                                    : 0.53 dB
dynrng                                   : 0.27 dB
cmixlev                                  : -3.0 dB
surmixlev                                : -3 dB
dmixmod                                  : Lt/Rt
ltrtcmixlev                              : -3.0 dB
ltrtsurmixlev                            : -3.0 dB
lorocmixlev                              : -3.0 dB
lorosurmixlev                            : -3.0 dB
dialnorm_Average                         : -31 dB
dialnorm_Minimum                         : -31 dB
dialnorm_Maximum                         : -31 dB

My 2 cents,

Julien.

Corry P

Sonos Staff

Hi @Gavalar

@Corry P many people here are annoyed here and many have been fobbed off by Sonos. Please can you take our comments seriously.

Yes - that is why I am having a meeting later today.

"Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen." - Albert Einstein

Corry P

Sonos Staff

Hi @Fennec104

Thank you for the examples. We do not perform any audio conversion, however - if the app reports “Dolby Surround Multichannel PCM 5.1”, then that is what is being supplied to the Arc Ultra’s HDMI port from the TV. As much as I would like it if Passthrough meant “untouched”, some TV manufacturers seem not to stick to this convention.

"Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen." - Albert Einstein

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Arc Ultra and Era 100’s

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