Enthusiast II

Era 300 rear driver is silent (with Arc Ultra)

393 replies
24994 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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S

superlollo

Enthusiast II

Hi @Snoomuffin

I have prepared a response, but it is awaiting editing and approval - this may take some time yet, but it is in progress.

Hi @Corry P

Do you have any updates for us?

Corry P

Sonos Staff

Hi @superlollo

Nope - If I did, you’d be reading it already.

Please assume that remains the case until I do say something. Thanks.

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

P

Priest51

Lyricist I

This thread is a bummer. I was planning to replace my rears and literally had a pair of 300 ready for checkout when I came across this thread. Hopefully it gets resolved because as of now, I will not be making that purchase.

M

MEvW

Lyricist II

It’s time for un update!

L

Lozbass

Lyricist II

Thanks to all for the contributions - this thread explains a lot - Dolby Atmos music has been a real disappointment on an immersive set (arc ultra, sub 4, and two era 300). At present, I’ve simply split the system to (a) arc ultra for television, and (b) era 300s and sub 4 for music. A much better experience for music but entirely sub optimal overall. Had I read this thread earlier, I wouldn’t have made the purchase. I feel we all need a rapid and stable resolution. At present, I really couldn’t recommend Sonos to anybody

R

rboard

Lyricist III

Thanks to all for the contributions - this thread explains a lot - Dolby Atmos music has been a real disappointment on an immersive set (arc ultra, sub 4, and two era 300). At present, I’ve simply split the system to (a) arc ultra for television, and (b) era 300s and sub 4 for music. A much better experience for music but entirely sub optimal overall. Had I read this thread earlier, I wouldn’t have made the purchase. I feel we all need a rapid and stable resolution. At present, I really couldn’t recommend Sonos to anybody

Hey Lozbass. since you’re new to Sonos. I wanted to make sure that you knew that you can disable Spatial Music (Atmos) in the settings for the room with your immersive set if it’s just Atmos songs that are bothering you. It forces the stereo version of the song when disabled. I’ve turned off spatial music because the quality of Atmos music is just too variable track to track.

I also recommend checking out “full” vs “ambient” in the surround audio setting. Switching it to “full” only impacts music and plays stereo music through the 300’s vs some iffy sounding fake surround version of a stereo song.

Also, I wanted to add that I found this thread trying to figure out why my the rear left and right channels weren’t playing correctly for Atmos content and am hoping for a better response from Sonos. The 300’s cost too much to disable half the speaker. Firing the height driver to represent the rear channel makes no sense when you have a pair of drivers pointing in the direction of the rear channel. Using the height driver for rear channel effects also take away from the actual height effects.

L

Lozbass

Lyricist II

Thanks to all for the contributions - this thread explains a lot - Dolby Atmos music has been a real disappointment on an immersive set (arc ultra, sub 4, and two era 300). At present, I’ve simply split the system to (a) arc ultra for television, and (b) era 300s and sub 4 for music. A much better experience for music but entirely sub optimal overall. Had I read this thread earlier, I wouldn’t have made the purchase. I feel we all need a rapid and stable resolution. At present, I really couldn’t recommend Sonos to anybody

Hey Lozbass. since you’re new to Sonos. I wanted to make sure that you knew that you can disable Spatial Music (Atmos) in the settings for the room with your immersive set if it’s just Atmos songs that are bothering you. It forces the stereo version of the song when disabled. I’ve turned off spatial music because the quality of Atmos music is just too variable track to track.

I also recommend checking out “full” vs “ambient” in the surround audio setting. Switching it to “full” only impacts music and plays stereo music through the 300’s vs some iffy sounding fake surround version of a stereo song.

Also, I wanted to add that I found this thread trying to figure out why my the rear left and right channels weren’t playing correctly for Atmos content and am hoping for a better response from Sonos. The 300’s cost too much to disable half the speaker. Firing the height driver to represent the rear channel makes no sense when you have a pair of drivers pointing in the direction of the rear channel. Using the height driver for rear channel effects also take away from the actual height effects.

Thanks rboard for taking the time to respond in detail to my comments - this is really helpful. As I’m still acquainting myself with the system, I hadn’t thought of disabling Spatial but will do so this evening. I’d been using the ‘full’ setting for music too as I’d agree entirely re: the ‘ambient’ fake surround rendering (‘iffy’ is a polite way to describe such output!). I’d also agree entirely re: the cost-performance relationship - I’m somewhat baffled with respect to how a mistake of this magnitude (mis-implementation of Dolby Atmos) could escape unnoticed to market release. That said, mistakes happen - I’ve made plenty - and its the way that a company/individual handles resolution that’s really important. I’m waiting and hoping for something fast… thanks again rboard, really helpful and it’s clear that I’m one of many experiencing disappointment