Beam Gen 2 - sudden full volume hammering sound

There is no calm in a house with 4 dogs and a 100 decibel speaker blaring. I suggest the place to test Sonos products is in their lab and not my living room.

I had this happen multiple times. At first I couldn’t figure it out and since I bought a new TV at the same time wasn’t sure which product to blame. (It never happened to me at any time other than watching TV. Not during music or when quiet. Also, I did not find this thread until after the issue was resolved.) I finally called SONOS tech support. (FYI: I’ve called them several times over the years and have always been very happy with the service.)

After asking a few questions tech support told me they would replace the speaker and send me a pre-paid label to send back the old one in the box from the new one. I called on a Monday morning and the replacement speaker arrived Tuesday afternoon, e.g. the next day! The simple swap required me to go through the setup process again. It has been a few weeks and the replacement speaker is performing exactly as it should.

I currently own 15 SONOS speakers and have given about that many again as gifts. This is the first time one required replacement and the service was outstanding.

Sure, I would have preferred my speaker never exhibited that loud hammering noise. And I wish SONOS had sent out some sort of alert indicating it could happen and explaining they would fix it. But overall, the my experience with customer service/tech support is far ahead of the vast majority of companies producing tech products. End result: I still love my SONOS system.

Isn't it time for a Twitter *** storm? They had over a year to fix this heart attack time bomb and the best they come up with is "working on a fix but we don't have a timeline yet”??

From a business perspective I totally understand them ignoring it, for a month or two but not a year. This is one of the best reviewed products in its class if not the best. But with an issue that bad it's really undeserved. 
A recall like this is scary expensive but the longer they wait, the more expensive it's gonna get.

*Moderator Note: Modified in accordance with the Community Code of Conduct.*

Same thing happen to me just now and it scared the crap out of me and my family(including a 2 month old baby sitting on a swing right next to the beam and a 3 yr old watching TV). This is outrageous! I only wish the kids don’t get PTSD from the blasting machine gun sound. I’m not keeping this faulty product. Not worth it. I fear it’s going to happen again and I won’t even try to troubleshoot it. I’m using beam 2 with samsung frame tv. 

I had this issue today for the first time after having my Sonos Beam for 10 months. We were watching something on YouTube through my Samsung TV and suddenly this machine gun firing sound started. We were so scared for a moment and took time to realize it is from the speaker. We immediately unplugged the power and the sound stopped.  

The sound impact was so horrifying that we didnt dare to turn ON the sonos again. After reading all the updates from everyone in this forum, I am thinking to call Sonos tomorrow. 

But since I had purchased it from Costco,  not sure if Sonos will attain my problem or will they ask me to contact the retailer directly.  With Costco, not sure if thet will provide a replacement or refund now after crossing the 90 days return policy. Keeping fingers crossed. 

Almost three weeks now and no occurrences with the replacement. Fingers crossed.

Wow I didn’t know a speaker would be capable of causing so much chaos. Mine just erupted with what can only be described as deafening machine gun firing sounds. Already boxed it up and sending it back. I can’t have a product in the house that has the capability of doing that. It terrified my dogs. My blind dog was so scared she ran into a wall. I damn near torn my ACL trying to get to the thing to unplug it. This thing is going to spark a class action lawsuit. A speaker that can actually cause physical harm to living things in your house! Quite the accomplishment.

Another instance of the issue here - brand new Beam 2 arrived and installed today with the supplied cables.

No issue with the connected surround speakers (Play 1s), just the Beam 2. As with the previous poster, the dogs went absolutely crazy. 

To me, it seems widely enough reported for support to know about it (as acknowledged above), to have received and tested returned faulty models, and for customers not to need to kill their pets or deafen themselves trying to diagnose themselves. Sounds like a known issue and a simple RMA / replacement - and hope the replacement doesn't suffer the same issue. 

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Don’t forget to also take a Sonos system diagnostic report. It’s probably best to contact Sonos Support Staff via this LINK and send them your video / describe the steps that led up-to the issue.

Hi! I replaced my Beam2 today, what about your Beam2? Still having the issue?

Just finally found this thread after having the exact same issue 4 times with my Beam. Twice today. Is there no fix?!

Thank you, Ken_Griffiths. The issue does seem similar at least. I followed the instructions and hope it will not happen again.

Just wondering what might be triggering this behavior and how I can make sure this is not happening again...

Same problem here. The first time it happened, I was streaming HBO on my Samsung TV at 12:30am -- it woke and terrified the whole family. I unplugged the HDMI, but it continued, so I unplugged the power. I figured a reset would fix it, and for weeks afterwards things were going fine. But then last week, it happened to my 13-year-old while playing on the PlayStation 5. She cried, it was so awful. That time, we caught it on video to send to support.

Thanks to everyone here for sharing their experiences. This should really be an urgent priority for Sonos.

I spoke too soon. I had the noisy version of the issue today.

Hi @SubmarinePilot 

I recommend you follow @Airgetlam’s advice above:

You can get in touch with our technical support team via this link.

I had the issue occur multiple times this weekend already. I’ve submitted diagnostics twice in the past 24 hours (although the issue occurred far more than just the twice) - but have not reached out to support yet as the timing was not great for sitting on the phone.

I have a “case #” that I was given the last time I actually reported it to support - It would be great if there was a mechanism so that I could attach the # that the app reports when I submit diagnostics to my case # so that support could look at the diagnostics without needing to be prompted by a call.

Update from email I sent to Sonos CEO:

I received a reply from Jake (not the Jake from State Farm lol) but from Sonos Cusomer Experience. Here’s his response … 

Patrick forwarded your note along to me as I am a supervisor here at Sonos. Your case has been assigned to our team here at Sonos Customer Experience.

Thanks for bringing it up. We would like to apologize for the inconvenience. As of now, we are actively investigating this matter and working on a fix but we don't have a timeline yet. I will make sure to let the Engineering Team know about the feedback

And of course another case id.

If Engineering is only now investigating this what with all the complaints over a year ago they must have a low priority for this problem. I’m not taking a chance on another Beam 2 and will move on from Sonos. An interesting option is the Bose 600  introduced in October which has upward firing speakers. 

2nd time it happened now. Ive purchased this thru the military base; had it for 6 months now.  Great sound when watching shows and movies. 

Then the deafening MACHINE GUN sounds;

1st time was at 3am, I woke up running out of the bedroom trying to figure out whats going on.  Woke up our 6yr and 3yr old kids, crying and horrified.

2nd time is today, both kids ran to the bedroom  terrified and the 3yr old ran so fast he couldn't control himself and hit the door knob on his head.  

The sound was deafening machine gun sounds, FULL BLAST even though volume of movie being watched was only 30%.

I do have PTSD from the war and I hate that feeling.  

Sonos need to fix this asap! 

Yes it’s a difficult one - but see my post in the other thread that you posted to earlier, about trying to capture more information about the issue for Sonos engineers to then look at all the data and perhaps get to the root cause and hopefully a quick solution to this issue too.

I’m following this board on all the reported issues with the Beam 2 unexpected LOUD HAMMERING noise. Purchased a Beam 2 from Costco and within a day the same booming explosive hammer/machine gun noise occurred. This happened randomly when watching TV or streaming music. Followed up with Sonos Support and after several calls they offered to send me a replacement. However the replacement is a refurb or open box unit.

The problem with this is I just purchased a new unit that is a week old and I am not swapping it for a refurb. Since Sonos is aware of this hardware issue for over a year and not addressing it I have absolutely no confidence in their product. I was so looking forward to the Beam as my soundbar. This is going back to Costco. (One less Sonos customer).

As someone that this just happened to I can tell you, you can't be calm about it, it just woke us up, we thought we were being attacked,y wife had a panic attack, it was the fist night we e were able to sleep since the baby, so no, being calm during this wouldn't be easy, I also see this being a lawsuit 

I reverted back to my Beam Gen 1 for now as I don't want to risk this happening again. Luckily, I have not given it away yet. I hope Sonos comes up with a reliable solution for this one quickly. If this is not the case within the next couple of weeks the Beam Gen 2 goes back. I sent a diagnostic in the very moment of one of these occurences, so Sonos should have helpful input from my side.

The replacement Beam 2 Sonos sent me still has this problem, but it’s no longer happening at volumes that would give you a heart attack. 
 

In fact mine just did it again today after 3 months of not doing it, doing something entirely different than either of the previous situations. Sonos still hasn’t fixed this and it sucks. 

Glad I found this thread. 

I’ve had the exact same experience with my Beam (gen 2). It has happened seven times in three months of usage.

Is the consensus that this is a hardware issue, only fixed with a replacement?

Yes, also happens when playing music. With airplay and with the Sonos app.

I have two Sonos beams gen 2, one with 2 ikea sym as surround 

and one setup with the beam gen 2, sub mini and 2 one’s. Just occurred / experienced the hammering sound with this last set-up