It would appear that 100% of everyone who purchased an Arc Ultra as well as Era 100s configured as Surrounds has this long discussed 5.1 issue.  It also appears that this issue only occurs with the Arc Ultra and not with your other Soundbars.  It seams therefore that Sonos by now is in a position to have duplicated this issue and as such verified it to be completely pervasive and consequently acknowledged the User-wide Fault.  The issue as to when it will be addressed is another matter but it is very hard to understand why a Corporate acknowledgment has not been forthcoming.  

​@DaytonJohn it is because everyone at Sonos apart from ​@Corry P Is too bullish to listen to customers.

I’m so glad we have ​@Corry P on board!

I do hope it gets solved soon. The wheels turn far too slowly at Sonos…

I received an answer from German Sonos Support on this topic and the key message is: This behavior is not an issue but was deliberately developed this way and is what Sonos wanted and expected. It was also said that the ARC behaves 100% the same and that it doesn't just affect the ARC Ultra. Can someone please recreate this with an ARC and ERA100 and confirm that the ARC also plays the sound from the rears with DD/DTS 5.1 content?

​@Downsideup Sonos have lost the plot and have completed misunderstood the problem. ‘Support’ are telling people this without understanding the problem.

In no situation should the rears not play, with this sound coming from the side drivers on the arc ultra only. This is not immersive, this is nonsense and it means you are drastically losing sales…

Hopefully the mindset of the company will change now that Spence has been given the boot.

​@Corry P thank you for helping us. It’s a shame you’re the only person at Sonos that understands this basic issue. I dread to think how hard your day to day work is working at a company that has gone from very progressive, to not being able to listen to customers anymore…

Hi All

Please be assured that the relevant teams are listening, and that a response - and actions - will be coming. I just can’t estimate as to when, precisely.

Reading between the lines, “and actions” implies more than just words. A change is coming…

Just literally make it a user choice. It doesn’t seem crazy to just have the default output setup in whatever crazy way Sonos thinks is ‘best’, but then have the user option to adjust how the rear channels are handled:

Default (whatever that is, let’s say rear channels blended between arc ultra and surrounds)

Prefer Rear Speakers (all side surround data sent to rear speakers if present + atmos if rears have upfacing drivers -  only front LR, centre and overhead atmos handled by Arc Ultra)

That way everyone is happy?

​@TripleBobatron great idea.

The options could be…

’Sonos Immersive’ where the Arc Ultra side channels contribute to rear surround sound effects (sounds wild when you type it out)

or;

‘Native Audio’ where all channels will play correctly and independently…

I personally used my right of withdrawal to return the Sonos equipment. The problem mentioned in this topic + the problem of the central channel being too loud made me return all the equipment.

It's sad because I was looking forward to discovering the Sonos universe.

Corry does everything possible to answer our questions and thanks to him, however the Sonos teams several months after the opening of this topic have not even officially acknowledged the problem and this gives the impression that the product was released quickly without being tested in depth.

This may also be Sonos' way of seeing things and perhaps for them this is normal operation, it's their right.

In any case, I'm surprised that the company doesn't do more to retain its customers.

Let's imagine that only 20 people who come across this topic return their product, that quickly adds up to thousands of euros of profit in months, an astonishing strategy...

​@Papi133 welcome to the world of Sonos…

Hopefully it will improve now Patrick has been given the boot…

To be fair, 6 months from now when the app hopefully works better, and they listen to customers with issues like this, we should be in a much better place!

​@Corry P look forward to the updates when you can provide them 👍