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I always upgrade to the newest app the day it comes out but I already had the current one at that time which was the one before 80.17.09 and 80.17.07, and it did a system update to my new Arc Ultra.  The rear speaker balance sounded fine after I ran a full TruePlay on my system with two Era 300 rears and two Sub (Gen 3)s.

(But why with the Arc Ultra is the option not allowed, greyed out, to adjust distance between surrounds which I never had different before anyway but previously I had it on 2ft to 10ft, and now it is greyed out on more than 10ft, or not allowed to change the phase of my subs, which should be independent by the way — as should volume, balance, bass, treble, and height controls be SEPARATE for Arc Ultra/Subs and SEPARATE for the Era 300 surrounds?)

But once I did the system update to my hardware in 80.17.07 came the problem of the left era 300 being 10x louder than the right era 300 surround speaker!!!!  This is worse with TV Video than with music, as with music the left rear is only 4x louder than the right which is still horrible!  AND THIS MAKES NO DIFFERENCE IF TRUEPLAY IS TURNED ON OR OFF (but I’m glad you restored the option to turn it off and a separate option to retune like it used to be with the Arc, BEFORE YOU CHANGED TO THE NEW STYLE APP LIKE 10 MONTHS AGO OR WHENEVER IT WAS)!

I have begging for this to be fixed along with another problem THAT DID NOT EXIST WITH THE ARC!  I had zero issues with the Arc in my system, and the Arc had a wider soundstage due to its midwoofers and a fuller but not taller height.  The stereo speaker sound is obviously better with the Arc Ultra, but I now have to turn my bass up higher than before for better dialogue.

The other problem is that now when I change TV channels or stop/start a DVR program recorded in my Xfinity XG1v4 4K cable box, it makes a distortion sound like tearing paper at 20x the actual volume level which will eventually destroy the drivers and it does this in all the speakers!!!!  This never happened once with the Arc!!!  The ONLY CHANGE WAS PUTTING THE ARC ULTRA IN PLACE OF THE ARC!!!  And also when I need to switch certain settings on my TV for other reasons than sound, my screen will go black for 5 seconds before it comes back on and again THIS NEVER HAPPENED WITH THE ARC AND THE SAME OTHER SPEAKERS IN THE SYSTEM!!!  Oh, and now 3 TV channels are much lower volume than the rest, and I notice in the app that it tells you if it’s Dolby multichannel 2.0, 5.1, DD+, or Dolby Atmos.

On my AppleTV, it only seems to be playing Dolby Atmos from the AppleTV+ area, and none of my movie apps that are broadcast in Dolby Atmos!!  This never happened once with the Arc, and there is a very audible difference and you can easily hear when Atmos is on, without needing to read it under TV Source window in the Sonos app.

There are other issues as well but these are the most pressing ones.  For example, now I need to turn my volume higher on my TV channels than with the Arc and much lower than on YouTube app built into my TV which formerly the volume was at 12-14 (as the volume only moves in levels of two numbers at a time; you can choose 1-99 or 2-100, but only 50 options with TV remote).

THESE NEEDS TO BE FIXED IMMEDIATELY OR I WILL BE RETURNING MY ARC ULTRA BACK FOR A REFUND!!!

Hi ​@Bellatone I have the same issues where the rear right hand side era300 plays very loudly in compared to the rear of the system. The right hand side of the arc ultra plays very loud as well. I think I have figured out the issue…

This only happens when I turn the Apple TV or PS5 on. This sends a command to wake the arc ultra up, I am assuming through earc here.

 

The sound signal going to the arc ultra upon wake up is DD5.1 as far as I am aware.

It sounds like all of the sound is being ‘panned’ far right, or the right hand channels are at max volume. With the rest of the channels very quiet. The era300 also seems to play what should clearly be the centre channel.

 

The temporary fix for this is to go onto Netflix, play Dolby Atmos content and then watch that, or turn the ATV box off and play PS5. This corrects the issue temporarily.

 

After the arc ultra goes to sleep, you turn the TV back on, usually the day after if I use it and the issue repeats.

It’s an absolute joke and the ‘support’, more like email admin, say this is by design.

luckily ​@Corry P seems to be the only person @ Sonos fighting our case.

 

I am almost at the point of asking for a refund due to the issues since launch, Sonos’ lack to rectify this and because the Beosound Stage I had before just worked, and for 3.0 sounded miles better:

 

The arc ultra, with dual subs and 300’s will be a great product once all of the bugs have sorted, but I’ve absolutely lost faith with Sonos and their lack of ability to listen to customers and rectify issues…

 

I cannot believe I go through this process every time I use it!

 

likely because that’s their business model, by design…

I figured out the problem through lots of trial and error.  It has to do with a combination of the TruePlay (which I was able to compensate for by angling my right Era 300 a tiny bit) but mainly the issue resides with the Speech Enhancement feature in the app and the system firmware for it on the Arc Ultra.

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