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 👍

I’m not sure whether I’m reading into this post too much, but it doesn’t instill much confidence on them fixing the issue anytime soon.

https://www.reddit.com/r/sonos/comments/1idvqfe/comment/ma9im2q/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

​@Corry P ​@stevetsanders has pointed out on Reddit that this has been notified, but nothing on the time line to fix.

I hope this means the fix is not yet public knowledge.

We are all (most of us) very frustrated with your flagship product when using rear speakers! To the point these are being returned…

Stevetsanders - I read through all those comments at the link you provided but I’m not sure I get any real perspective one way or the other regarding what Sonos will do about our specific Sonos Arc Ultra with Era 100s as Surrounds issues.  It looked to me like the discussion on that link dealt a lot more with User options being added to the overall Sonos App then more simply just making a 5.1 Source behave normally between the Sonos Arc Ultra and the rear Surrounds.  I remain hopeful that when Corry P gets back to us we will hear something specific about what actions are planned as well as some estimate of a timeframe.  

​@DaytonJohn this is the comment I linked to specifically

2 years ago all i wanted was to upgrade my Sonos amp to ARC get Atmos.
I was always worried about the loss of my tower speakers, but thought Ultra would be worth the trade off.

Now…… I seriously think that I should of just gotten a completely dumb AVR and just gone with wires.
At least I can plug what I want and adjust the volume however I want. 

Its crazy to be missing so much control just over volume……. I was asking for any fancy inovative feature. I just want individual volume control. 
 

“Nothing on the roadmap” is extremely discouraging. ​@Corry P is there no way to elevate this, or even have an official statement regarding the issue?

Hi ​@shivkhanna 

I am working on getting a statement out, but it needs to be approved by several departments before I can go public with it.

How long have we been waiting for this statement? I think it would be much easier to just fix this 5.1 sound bug, without an explanation. It can't be that difficult...

Just bought an arc ultra, came to this thread, and wish I hadn’t :\.

​@Corry P does Sonos have a single leader for the application?  Who is this person?  

​@Corry P can you tag tom conrad here as well?

I’d like this person to acknowledge that you cannot change the volume on the devices, that this isn’t on a roadmap, and he put the following statement out:

When it all works, it’s absolute magic.  It’s also true that when it doesn’t work, our customers are taken out of the moment and are right to feel that we’ve let them down. I think we’ll all agree that this year we’ve let far too many people down. As we’ve seen, getting some important things right (Arc Ultra and Ace are remarkable products!) is just not enough when our customers’ alarms don’t go off, their kids can’t hear their playlist during breakfast, their surrounds don’t fire, or they can’t pause the music in time to answer the buzzing doorbell.

Why does getting a confirmation statement take Sonos this long to put out? The issue has been verified and is repeatable. WTF?

As a second point why are we here three months later with NO resolution to the issue? I have an ARC Ultra, sub mini and e100’s and this is annoying beyond belief. 

I have recently bought the Arc Ultra and wondering if I should add two Era 100’s which seem to be on discount currently. Should we expect the fix anytime soon or resolution is months away? The lack of feedback and progress updates is very frustrating for such high-end products. 

​@Corry P

I have asked someone to do a 5.1 surround channel test with his Arc Ultra and Era 300 rears. He said that he could reproduce the issue also, but it is way less noticeble. He estimates that around 95% of the rear channel sound comes from the rears and 5% from the front. He wouldn’t notice it if I didn‘t have told him.
 

It‘s way worse with the Era 100. The most of the rear channel sound is coming from the front. The rears are barely noticable with 5.1 surround sound.

Sonos, we need a solution! Your behaviour is absolutely not acceptable. Or should we inform the media so that something is finally done?

Unfortunately, there are only two possible scenarios with regard to SONOS Product Development & Marketing considering the Arc Ultra with two Era 100s in a Surround configuration…

#1.  They never tested the configuration with 5.1 source media!

#2.  They have clearly known from the first configuration test that it does not work!

Continuing to Market and Sell the Era 100 Speaker as if it functions adequately as a Surround in a Home Theater configuration given the propensity of 5.1 media sources is beyond belief.  
 

When I purchased two Era 100s it was solely and expressly for use as Surrounds with the Arc Ultra.  I already had two Play 5s as a Stereo Pair but my Play 5s are of an earlier generation and thus not configurable as an integrated system with the Arc Ultra as Surrounds.  I also had several Bluetooth Speakers that can provide room-wide audio enjoyment beyond the capability of my cellphone.  Consequently my new Era 100s only have value to me when the media source is 7.1 or better, otherwise they are boat anchors.  Had I known what I now know I would have sprung for the costlier Era 300s although I really didn’t have the room space for the larger footprint Speakers, and also I wanted to place one of the rear Surrounds on a bookshelf which is not too appropriate for the Era 300.  Yes, I would have gained rear Dolby Atmos, but my interest was creating a more traditional Home Theater sound.  The Era 100s lend themselves more to a directional rear sound.  

I have found the Arc Ultra to be fantastic as a stand-alone soundbar and also extremely enjoyable when viewing and listening to 7.1 media or better.
 

​@Corry P
Many of us pre-ordered the Arc Ultra and are very loyal Sonos customers, but our latest experience is very frustrating. At the moment the most easy solution seems to be that we upgrade our rear speakers to the Era 300. Could you negotiate a special Era 300 upgrade offer for us with your team? We just want to enjoy the 5.1 rear channel sound and don‘t want to wait any much longer. Thanks for your help.