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I appear to have a slight humming noise coming from my new Gen 3 Sub. It is most noticeable when the sub is awake, but I have noticed that there is a much quieter hum when the sub is asleep. There is also a very slight ?crackle? noise with the hum.

The hum is present when audio is playing, paused, or muted. The sub is paired with an Arc.

The hum doesn’t get louder when I turn up the volume slider.

Here is an example, recorded on an iPhone with the microphone placed about 1cm away from the hole on the Sub. Sub was awake, with a music source on pause:

Example 1 - Sub with Hum

And so you can see the background noise that is generally in the room, this is with the Sub asleep:

Example 2 - Sub asleep (natural background noise only)

You may need to crank your volume up to hear the hum example… I think the iPhone tries to eliminate background noise (which doesn’t help when you are trying to record a hum!)

Should I expect this?

I can only really hear it when I get my head close to the sub… but having read a few other threads from people with a humming sub, those who haven’t been affected have said their sub is completely quiet.

 

Hi @danieldurrans, thank you for reaching out to the Sonos community and for letting u know about your concern. We really appreciate your feedback and sharing it with us. Let me help you with this. 

Have you tried removing the Sub from the Sonos Arc and pair it with another Sonos device? Do you still get the humming noise? If so, the next step is to factory reset your Sub. This process will delete registration information, content saved to My Sonos, and music services from a Sonos product.

  1. Unplug the power cord.
  2. Press and hold the  JoinButtonSub-28px.png Join button while you reconnect the power cord.
  3. Continue holding the button until the light flashes orange and white.
  4. The light will flash green when the process is complete and the product is ready to be set up.
  5. Re-add your Sub to your existing system and observe if you will get the humming sound.

If you're still having the same issue, please contact our Sonos Customer Care support to continue working with us over the phone to remotely access your device and perform some tests to isolate the issue. Please feel free to reach out in the future if you have any other questions. You're always welcome here.

I have followed the troubleshooting instructions with the following results:

  1. Removed Sub from Arc - Sub not assigned - Hum is still present
  2. Paired Sub with Sonos Play:1 - Hum is still present
  3. Removed Sub from Sonos Play:1 - Sub not assigned - Hum is still present
  4. Unplugged power cord - Hum stopped (good… I would be worried if it was there without power!)
  5. Plugged in power cord and held down join button until light flashed orange and white - Hum is still present
  6. Re-added Sub to Arc - Hum is still present
    1. This step proved challenging.
    2. The Sub had reset and the light was flashing green, however the app didn’t want to connect to the sub to add it back to the system
    3. I had to turn the sub off and on again before it would successfully re-add.

While I won’t claim to be an expert, the hum sounds like it is from inside the Sub rather than coming from the speakers… I wonder if it is the PSU.

Diagnostic confirmation number is 152934703

I shall contact customer care.

My issue is very similar or possibly the same as this thread:

https://en.community.sonos.com/troubleshooting-228999/sonos-sub-gen-3-crackling-static-sound-6842907

Hi @danieldurrans, thank you for your response and for updating us. We appreciate you for all the time and effort you have done to address the issue. I would recommend reaching out to our Sonos Customer Care for a more in-depth troubleshooting step or possible product replacement of your Sonos Sub. If you have any questions, feel free to reach back.

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