Enthusiast II

Era 300 rear driver is silent (with Arc Ultra)

393 replies
24998 views

First things first. This is not a rant. This is an expalation of a problem, which reduces the experience in 3D audio a lot. For background: I'm a sound engineer and music producer and I don't wanna sound arrogant, but I know what I'm talking about. (I'm a really nice and funny guy :D)

So lets get to the problem then :D

NO I'M NOT TALKING ABOUT THE FRONT FACING DRIVER

for better understanding watch this VIDEO

This bug appeared the moment I switched the Arc with the Arc Ultra. Before I made the switch I was on the 16.1 app and firmware. So I don't know if the Ultra causes the problem or the app/firmware. Before the switch everything was running as it should.

So, since there is not much of a topic around this, I'm curious if I am still one of a few who have this bug or one of a few who noticed it.

I made this post in Reddit, but not everyone is on Reddit and the more people know, the faster Sonos can work on it. Reddit discussion

I didn't saw any review which mentioned it.
As you can see in the video, the rear driver is completly silenent when the Era 300's are paired with the Arc Ultra. Also Truplay isn't "sweeping" the driver either. (Timestamp 0:44)
So the mesurement isn't right.
First I thought it could be a feature instead of a bug, but it doens't fit the Dolby Atmos recommendations like this. You won't get sound from "behind" your seating position.
And I remember Sonos self promoted it how it should work, where the rear driver is playing.

DOLBY ATMOS LAYOUT

Sound from side driver/channel should boucing off your side walls, rear driver/channel bouncing off the back wall of your seating position and height channel obviosly bouncing off your ceiling. Thats why you should position them facing forward. At the moment you don't get the immersion that sound is coming from behind you, since the driver is silent.

I tested every setting, played the Dolby Atmos testfile (MKV [TrueHD Atmos] and MP4 [EAC3 + joc Atmos]) from different sources (TV Plex app, Nvidia Shield, from a USB through TV) Same result everytime.

If someone could test this behavior and can confirm this, it would be very nice. Sonos can't fix something they don't know and if most people doens't recognize doens't mean something isn't wrong.

Currently I'm running app version 80.12.04 (Android) and 80.12.03 (iPhone) and firmware version 81.1-58210.
If you don't have this problem, what version are you running?

And last but not least: IF this ever getting fixed, the experience with Arc Ultra and Era 300 will be much better! I love my Sonos products soundwise and Arc Ultra is sounding really good, but it could be much better.

Have a nice day

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Pinned Reply By Jamie A

Hi all, thank you all for your patience.

I was going to post at the same time as Keith on Reddit, however I wasn’t able to. I see that the link to the reddit post has already been copied here, but just to confirm what you've already discovered, this is expected behaviour as explained by our audio team.

I’m happy to forward any questions and feedback you have, as well as forward this as a feature request.

The side tweeters on the Arc Ultra are “overpowering” the bonded rear surrounds.
Side channels are virtualized by both the Arc Ultra and Era 300’s. While you can use “Surround Audio” features to dial in the sound level of your preference there are a few important things to keep in mind:

Surround TV Level and Music Level Slider Behavior: The surround level sliders adjust the sound level for both the Arc Ultra and the surround channels equally. This is the intended behavior.

Using Surround Distance Setting to Adjust Rear Sound Levels: The surround distance setting can be modified to influence the output level from the rear speakers relative to the sound bar:

Setting it to “Less than 2 feet (0.6m)” reduces the volume from the rear speakers.
Setting it to “More than 10 feet (3m)” increases the volume from the rear speakers.

Perceptible Differences: While the surround distance slider adjusts the levels equally for both the Arc Ultra and the surround speakers, testing has indicated that listeners may perceive differences in the sound from the listening position, as described above.

Impact of Trueplay: The surround distance setting is disabled when Trueplay is active, as Trueplay automatically corrects for this. To adjust the surround distance, Trueplay must first be disabled.

There is no audible output from inner woofers when Era 300 is bonded as rear surrounds.
This is by design. The rear speakers are designed to disperse sound throughout the room, rather than directing it to the listener exclusively.

The Era 300 plays rear channel audio through its height array.
This, too, is by design. The Era 300’s DSP (Digital Signal Processing) leverages either the rear height tweeter OR the outward-facing tweeter/woofer to create the intended sound experience. Because of this, when you play the Dolby test track, you might notice that rear height channel as being active during rear-channel playback. This is expected.

Edit: Modified the wording on the 2nd and 3rd bolded points to closer match the wording in the app.

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Patriekvg

Enthusiast I

Sorry Jamie, the last part (The Era 300 plays rear channel audio through its height array.) is such a BS reply.

Here’s a Sonos Era 300 Q&A YouTube video from last year:

Pay attention to Product Manager Ryan Moore’s answer to the very first question. The rear channel audio is SUPPOSED to be playing from the other inward-firing side tweeter/woofer. What we have now is clearly a bug that’s being dismissed as a “feature”.

Thank you! And saying it wasn't like that (this is what the audio team said) is just a lie.

im at a standstill to return the system or not………...

Return it while you can… it's too late for me. I regret giving Sonos time to solve it, now it seems they are telling the issue is “as designed”.

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Aidyb

Trending Lyricist I

I feel robbed now, if only the outside woofer and tweeter along with the upward firing tweeter are working in surround mode, how much different are these Era 300’s in surround mode than if I just faced my old One sl’s facing the wall, absolute farce...

A

aprajs

Lyricist II

I am not familiar with this environment - is there any online place where we could make more noise about it, so other the message reaches a wider audience?

J

Jshylo

Lyricist I

I feel robbed now, if only the outside woofer and tweeter along with the upward firing tweeter are working in surround mode, how much different are these Era 300’s in surround mode than if I just faced my old One sl’s facing the wall, absolute farce...

Why would a new SONOS Arc Ultra owner want to add 300’s to a system as rears when woofers and tweeters are being shut off? Waste of space and money, give us a purpose build surround speaker not extra woofers and tweeters we will never use. I understood shutting off the front facing tweeter for but this new behavior does not make any sense.

A

aprajs

Lyricist II

The sooner they come back to the office, the better

https://www.theverge.com/2024/12/11/24314934/sonos-return-to-office-mandate

dominikleiAuthor

Enthusiast II

I am not familiar with this environment - is there any online place where we could make more noise about it, so other the message reaches a wider audience?

I don't know. Maybe some YouTube reviewer?

If Sonos just said: "Yes its a bug and we fix it" it would be not that bad as it now is. Telling it was always like that, trying to delete their old statements and stuff is so suspect. AND telling it would sound better like it is now is just not right for every room and doens't fit the Dolby Atmos specification either. I used my old system (Arc, Era 300 and dual sub) within a day when I made the switch to my new system (Arc Ultra, Era 300 and dual Sub) and I noticed it immediately in a bad way. Yes the Ultra sounds much better but the Era 300 sounds much worse.

Most people saying: "My system sounds good". Sure it does, but it could be much MUCH better and more precise and detailed.

Again: IT WAS LIKE THIS! Even if Sonos deny it. I am a sound engineer and know what I'm talking about!

Why Sonos holding performance back and giving weird lying statements? Come on.…

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aprajs

Lyricist II

That would need to be an independent reviewer. Most of them are incentivized by the manufacturer. I think...

dominikleiAuthor

Enthusiast II

That would need to be an independent reviewer. Most of them are incentivized by the manufacturer. I think...

I wouldn't say that tbh.

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AR_S34

Trending Lyricist I

Sooo…..something is quite clearly not working as it’s supposed to and maybe it’s too much of a headache to fix so…..let’s just say it’s meant to be like that and leave it as it is?

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AR_S34

Trending Lyricist I

Going to be great when in the future the audio plays exclusively from the top driver only and Sonos tells us that it’s all by design and it’s the way things are meant to be on a £750 pair of speakers that have 4 directional drivers.

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