Enthusiast II

Era 300 rear driver is silent (with Arc Ultra)

393 replies
24997 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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106rallye

If you really want to do this much yourself, I'm not sure Sonos is the right product for you.

In my opinion, Sonos means ease of use for mostly sound-illiterate users. That does mean Sonos makes the choices and not the user. More choices clutters upo the app and gives most clienst a bigger chance to screw their sound up.

S

superlollo

Enthusiast II

If you really want to do this much yourself, I'm not sure Sonos is the right product for you.

In my opinion, Sonos means ease of use for mostly sound-illiterate users. That does mean Sonos makes the choices and not the user. More choices clutters upo the app and gives most clienst a bigger chance to screw their sound up.

it’d be really really difficult for the user to screw up more than Sonos did

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superlollo

Enthusiast II

@Corry P do we have any updates on the situation? Is this “feature request” being worked on?

Corry P

Sonos Staff

Hi @superlollo

I have recently been conversing with a senior engineer in order to compile feedback received about the Arc Ultra’s sound mixing and we will be reporting it back to the audio team - you are being heard!

However, the “issue” mentioned in this thread with the inward-facing drivers not playing is as intended, as mentioned in the pinned post:

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.

So, I cannot say that this will change, but I also cannot say that there won’t be a setting added in the future - I just don’t know. In my own opinion, I think it unlikely.

I hope this helps.

"Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen." - Albert Einstein

S

superlollo

Enthusiast II

Hi @superlollo

I have recently been conversing with a senior engineer in order to compile feedback received about the Arc Ultra’s sound mixing and we will be reporting it back to the audio team - you are being heard!

However, the “issue” mentioned in this thread with the inward-facing drivers not playing is as intended, as mentioned in the pinned post:

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.

So, I cannot say that this will change, but I also cannot say that there won’t be a setting added in the future - I just don’t know. In my own opinion, I think it unlikely.

I hope this helps.

It helps, although it’s not what I wanted to hear. The inner drivers did work, so it’s quite baffling that they were disabled recently. I mean ERA 300s are sold as 6 driver speakers and currently only 3 are working….sounds like deceiving marketing to me

it’s especially bad for all of us who have an open plan room. My left surround is quite close to a wall, the right one is more than 12ft from the closest wall. Because of this, even after advanced trueplay, the sound from the left surround is always much louder than the right one. This could be solved if we had the option to have sound come from the inward facing drivers, or at least a way to manually control the left/right surround volume. I’m sure a lot of people have similar room layouts

Corry P

Sonos Staff

Hi @superlollo

I do get your point, though I have a single Era 300 and all of it’s drivers are working (when playing spatial content), as would they if had a stereo pair of 300s. The Era 300 is not designed to solely be a surround speaker.

Certain drivers are disabled when a pair of Era 300s are added as surrounds, but that is to optimise the sound stage - would you prefer it if we enabled all the drivers and it sounded much worse as a result?

The inner drivers did work, so it’s quite baffling that they were disabled recently.

As far as I am aware, the behaviour of these drivers has not been changed. I am currently seeking clarification on the behaviour of the inner drivers, however, as someone on the Audio team said the following on Reddit, which disagrees with the above quoted text in blue from my documentation:

The inner speaker (tweeter + woofer) IS NOT disabled on an Era 300 surround when bonded to any Sonos soundbars with Dolby Atmos support (Arc Ultra, Arc, and Beam Gen 2). The inner speaker is primarily responsible for rear surround channel content, however, the rear surround channel is also mixed into the up-firing tweeter with the rear height channel.

The inner speaker is notably lower [in] volume than the up-firing speaker due to the direct path of sound propagation to the main listening position compared to the indirect path from the up-firing tweeter. The choice to share rear surround content between the inner speaker and up-firing speaker was made to improve the immersive and environmental quality of the rear surround sound stage.

I shall update you here when I hear more, but it seems most likely that the documentation will be altered (so please don’t take the parts in blue above as gospel).

it’s especially bad for all of us who have an open plan room. My left surround is quite close to a wall, the right one is more than 12ft from the closest wall. Because of this, even after advanced trueplay, the sound from the left surround is always much louder than the right one. This could be solved if we had the option to have sound come from the inward facing drivers, or at least a way to manually control the left/right surround volume. I’m sure a lot of people have similar room layouts

I think this is a fair point, and I have already passed on some suggestions to this effect. There are definitely recommended ideals for a Home Theatre setup, and only rarely will all of them be met.

Please note, as hinted to in the Reddit post, that some drivers - especially those that rely upon reflections, will be too easy to accurately locate (something you don’t want to do) if their levels are too high. I noticed being able to hear height channel content played by the Arc Ultra no longer sound as if it were coming from above once I set the height channel setting too high (more than about +6).

I hope this helps.

"Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen." - Albert Einstein

M

Mark91

Lyricist III

Hi @superlollo

you are being heard!

I don't want be rude but after reading the message it seems like the sonos still didn't hear us..

D

da3wilson

Lyricist III

Hi @superlollo

I do get your point, though I have a single Era 300 and all of it’s drivers are working (when playing spatial content), as would they if had a stereo pair of 300s. The Era 300 is not designed to solely be a surround speaker.

Certain drivers are disabled when a pair of Era 300s are added as surrounds, but that is to optimise the sound stage - would you prefer it if we enabled all the drivers and it sounded much worse as a result?

The inner drivers did work, so it’s quite baffling that they were disabled recently.

As far as I am aware, the behaviour of these drivers has not been changed. I am currently seeking clarification on the behaviour of the inner drivers, however, as someone on the Audio team said the following on Reddit, which disagrees with the above quoted text in blue from my documentation:

The inner speaker (tweeter + woofer) IS NOT disabled on an Era 300 surround when bonded to any Sonos soundbars with Dolby Atmos support (Arc Ultra, Arc, and Beam Gen 2). The inner speaker is primarily responsible for rear surround channel content, however, the rear surround channel is also mixed into the up-firing tweeter with the rear height channel.

The inner speaker is notably lower [in] volume than the up-firing speaker due to the direct path of sound propagation to the main listening position compared to the indirect path from the up-firing tweeter. The choice to share rear surround content between the inner speaker and up-firing speaker was made to improve the immersive and environmental quality of the rear surround sound stage.

I shall update you here when I hear more, but it seems most likely that the documentation will be altered (so please don’t take the parts in blue above as gospel).

it’s especially bad for all of us who have an open plan room. My left surround is quite close to a wall, the right one is more than 12ft from the closest wall. Because of this, even after advanced trueplay, the sound from the left surround is always much louder than the right one. This could be solved if we had the option to have sound come from the inward facing drivers, or at least a way to manually control the left/right surround volume. I’m sure a lot of people have similar room layouts

I think this is a fair point, and I have already passed on some suggestions to this effect. There are definitely recommended ideals for a Home Theatre setup, and only rarely will all of them be met.

Please note, as hinted to in the Reddit post, that some drivers - especially those that rely upon reflections, will be too easy to accurately locate (something you don’t want to do) if their levels are too high. I noticed being able to hear height channel content played by the Arc Ultra no longer sound as if it were coming from above once I set the height channel setting too high (more than about +6).

I hope this helps.

I have a large room setup where outward firing speakers reflecting off a wall works well on one side but on the other side the wall is 30 feet away so I really don’t get any reflections.This makes the outward firing speaker on that side sound totally different. I understand this may not match what the sound engineers think is optimal but it sounded great before (even with just an arc instead of an arc ultra). Luckily I had enough space behind me to move the 300s more directly behind the listening position (because the 300s farther outside/beside the seating due to expecting the inward drivers to sound the same as they did wouldn’t make sense anymore). This is why when I called support I asked if I could revert the firmware to a prior version from October - not allowed even though that flexibility seems like it should be possible.

It seems that there is some miscommunication between the engineers and other staff -- was it a bug, purposeful change, or not change at all. For those of us that have spent a lot of money on these systems it would be nice to get more than a one sentence answer from you or Keith. Honestly a video explaining and physically showing where sounds are coming from in different scenes/audio tests would be much more useful in explaining why the system is doing what it is doing currently.

Realistically if you just allowed us to enable/change some basic settings with the speakers (individual tweeter and woofer enable/disable and volume settings). Or if you gave us a way to select our room layout/spacing to enable/disable certain expected reflections and then the software enabled/disabled certain drivers. This could allow the user to clearly see what changes would happen by selecting a certain room layout. In my example above it make more sense to have the 300s off to the side and angled toward the seating arrangement to bounce off a back wall - instead of now having the 300s directly behind the seats. With the rear surround ‘mostly’ going from the upper driver now I might as well just have them come from the front firing driver for certain sounds directly behind and this would allow that flexibility.

I understand many of the users are fine with just using trueplay and assuming that it is the best sound that the system can do. From the sound of it many of us in this thread would be interesting in tinkering or even testing the system with different options.

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

P

Peter_254

Prodigy II

Maybe the new update has something to offer..
Just updated to 82.3-60160 without any problems, but haven't noticed any improvements/changes yet.

S

Snoomuffin

Enthusiast II

Maybe the new update has something to offer..
Just updated to 82.3-60160 without any problems, but haven't noticed any improvements/changes yet.

If the era 300’s still sound the same as what this thread describes then clearly it’s not the update we’re waiting for.

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