Audio dropping on Roam when grouped to Arc for TV audio

It really is odd. I’ve done some more troubleshooting as I had some time yesterday. I note that in the Sonos App, the wireless connection for the Roam is listed as ‘Excellent’… yet the issue persists. I have tried:

Creating a new network SSID just for Sonos and moved everything over to that. I have tried making it 2.4GHz only. Still get audio drops.

Disconnecting the network cable from the Arc, which disables SonosNet. 

Reconnecting the Arc, and changing the channel for Sonosnet (defaulted to 11, tried 6 &1)

Moving the Roam closer to the Arc (and also the AP). Less frequent drops I think but still not great.

I’ll do as you suggest and contact support after the holidays. 

I have now spoken to Sonos Support, submitted diagnostics and had the response, which is bad news...

Apparently, the audio drops are ‘expected behaviour’ for the Roam when the audio is multichannel (Dolby Digital 5.1 etc). So basically I cannot use my Roam in the way that I want to, grouped to my Arc to provide audio in my kitchen.  It will only work acceptably if the TV audio source is Stereo PCM. 

This is contrary to what I understood and really disappointing for me as I bought the Roam specifically to work in this way when watching TV. The additional function as a music speaker is secondary for me. I am not certain if this is a Roam specific issue (maybe because it is at the lower end of the range feature wise) but from what I was told I suspect it might affect all models.

Jesus. So, I’m having the exact same issue and I can tell you that either you mistook what the rep meant (or they weren’t aware it was wrong) when you say the issue only applies to multi-channel source audio. For me, exactly the same use case as you with the kitchen and with all devices within a 20ft line-of-sight of each other and the WiFi router, I still get audio dropout with Stereo PCM sources. Perhaps they meant “when paired with a multi-channel Sonos home theater” full stop?

Also, it sounds like from the way you phrased things that you are relatively new to Sonos, or at least the Roam, since you got it for that use and discovered the issue. I can with certainty tell you that it must be a software issue because this exact same setup worked flawlessly for over a year with zero audio drop outs, even when playing Dolby Atmos content. So I really hope they are dedicating some developer time to this. It started perhaps 4-6 months ago for me.

I am having exactly the same issue. System is rock solid when playing grouped TV audio except for my Roam and Era speakers. This is even after trying three different routers!

Also hoping Sonos addresses the issue 

Have you supplied Sonos with a system diagnostic, and called in, to be sure your experience is the same issue?

Yes. Tier 1 support hasn’t found any obvious issues. They’ve escalated to Tier 2. Will update once that’s been worked through.