Enthusiast II

Era 300 rear driver is silent (with Arc Ultra)

393 replies
25030 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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A

AR_S34

Trending Lyricist I

Hi everyone this rears issue had me curious so I downloaded the Dolby 7.1.4 demo and tried it out was hoping someone could confirm if I was indeed also affected by this issue.

I’ve annotated my findings on how everything sounds when I play the demo and like to hear back from anyone who has more knowledge on the subject than me.

UPDATE

Sorry everyone it’s my fault, the red drivers are indeed working correctly and it’s the two speakers at the back which should be firing out of the inner rears of the 300’s that are instead firing out from the top and a little from the inside pretty much like everyone else. Apologies again for the confusion.

dominikleiAuthor

Enthusiast II

Hi everyone this rears issue had me curious so I downloaded the Dolby 7.1.4 demo and tried it out was hoping someone could confirm if I was indeed also affected by this issue.

I’ve annotated my findings on how everything sounds when I play the demo and like to hear back from anyone who has more knowledge on the subject than me.

Seems like its the opposite way in your case? Whats in red is playing correctly on my system, the speaker on the image in the back are playing wrong trought the height drivers

A

AR_S34

Trending Lyricist I

Hi everyone this rears issue had me curious so I downloaded the Dolby 7.1.4 demo and tried it out was hoping someone could confirm if I was indeed also affected by this issue.

I’ve annotated my findings on how everything sounds when I play the demo and like to hear back from anyone who has more knowledge on the subject than me.

Seems like its the opposite way in your case? Whats in red is playing correctly on my system, the speaker on the image in the back are playing wrong trought the height drivers

Very strange! I do know that those red highlighted speakers (which I assumed are meant to play from the inside drivers of the Era 300’s?) seems to be playing through the height channel rears.

dominikleiAuthor

Enthusiast II

Hi everyone this rears issue had me curious so I downloaded the Dolby 7.1.4 demo and tried it out was hoping someone could confirm if I was indeed also affected by this issue.

I’ve annotated my findings on how everything sounds when I play the demo and like to hear back from anyone who has more knowledge on the subject than me.

Seems like its the opposite way in your case? Whats in red is playing correctly on my system, the speaker on the image in the back are playing wrong trought the height drivers

Very strange! I do know that those red highlighted speakers (which I assumed are meant to play from the inside drivers of the Era 300’s?) seems to be playing through the height channel rears.

The red highlighted are playing outside of the Era 300.

S

Snoomuffin

Enthusiast II

Hi everyone this rears issue had me curious so I downloaded the Dolby 7.1.4 demo and tried it out was hoping someone could confirm if I was indeed also affected by this issue.

I’ve annotated my findings on how everything sounds when I play the demo and like to hear back from anyone who has more knowledge on the subject than me.

Seems like its the opposite way in your case? Whats in red is playing correctly on my system, the speaker on the image in the back are playing wrong trought the height drivers

Very strange! I do know that those red highlighted speakers (which I assumed are meant to play from the inside drivers of the Era 300’s?) seems to be playing through the height channel rears.

Double check again. The rears should be firing from the top. The side channels are working fine. The issue is rear channels on the era 300’s. If you have the opposite problem, that is an isolated incident at this point.

L

Lewdog129

Lyricist III

Hi everyone this rears issue had me curious so I downloaded the Dolby 7.1.4 demo and tried it out was hoping someone could confirm if I was indeed also affected by this issue.

I’ve annotated my findings on how everything sounds when I play the demo and like to hear back from anyone who has more knowledge on the subject than me.

Seems like its the opposite way in your case? Whats in red is playing correctly on my system, the speaker on the image in the back are playing wrong trought the height drivers

Very strange! I do know that those red highlighted speakers (which I assumed are meant to play from the inside drivers of the Era 300’s?) seems to be playing through the height channel rears.

For me it’s the other way round. The ones you have highlighted in red are playing as they should for me. That being the outside of the Era 300 unit in tandem with the side firing driver for the Arc Ultra. It’s the rear two speakers I have an issue with. Theses play from the hight driver on both units instead of the inner facing side of the speaker.

A

AR_S34

Trending Lyricist I

Hi everyone this rears issue had me curious so I downloaded the Dolby 7.1.4 demo and tried it out was hoping someone could confirm if I was indeed also affected by this issue.

I’ve annotated my findings on how everything sounds when I play the demo and like to hear back from anyone who has more knowledge on the subject than me.

Seems like its the opposite way in your case? Whats in red is playing correctly on my system, the speaker on the image in the back are playing wrong trought the height drivers

Very strange! I do know that those red highlighted speakers (which I assumed are meant to play from the inside drivers of the Era 300’s?) seems to be playing through the height channel rears.

For me it’s the other way round. The ones you have highlighted in red are playing as they should for me. That being the outside of the Era 300 unit in tandem with the side firing driver for the Arc Ultra. It’s the rear two speakers I have an issue with. Theses play from the hight driver on both units instead of the inner facing side of the speaker.

Apologies I’ve just had a brainfart, you are correct I checked them again and yes it’s how you describe it. The back surrounds which are meant to play from inner channels for the Era 300’s seem to play from the top and inner channels? The channels I highlighted in red are working fine as they should.

S

Snoomuffin

Enthusiast II

“Guys I think the issue has been acknowledged: https://techissuestoday.com/sonos-era-300-silent-with-arc-ultra-bug/“

dnt know how popular this tech journal site is, but hey at least it’s something.

A

AR_S34

Trending Lyricist I

Aslong as it has been acknowledged and Sonos are working on a fix (sooner rather than later) I’m content for now, I don’t want to be getting all upset straight away as long as a fix is due some time soon.

L

lacerate

Contributor I

I’ve added a bit of noise on Twitter (X) to make sure it’s acknowledged and dealt with.

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