Metallic, tinny, resonant and distorted sound from the Sonos Beam gen 2 in voices / talking

  • 29 November 2023
  • 21 replies
  • 662 views
J

I bought a Beam 2 seven month ago, and the last couple of months the Beam is developing a tinny metalic sound in talking/voice sounds (playing music is still fine, but I think other frequencies are used there,  I am sure there is technical / scientific explanation for it). Here is a sound sample example of it:

Sonos- donderdag om 19-33.m4a

This is a clip/fragment from youtube: Sonos Era 300 + Arc & Sub: Ultimate Home Audio Experience? - YouTube

So I found my self more or less forced to buy another new soundbar from Sonos (Why not another brand?; it was black Friday and I already invested in two subs and 2 Sonos surround boxes which are 1500 euro worth, and I hope it is a rare defect) which does not has that problem (and I did not also perceive that distorted effect at other cheap desktop speakers and other (Sonos) speakers, that I possess ).

The distortion was less when I placed the sound bar on soft fabric tissues, but unfortunately that did not solve it enough. Anyone an idea what kind of defect it is?

21 replies

Stanley_4
Userlevel 7
Badge +22

I’d call Sonos Support and let them look into the issue, at 7 months you are still in the full warranty period and could get a replacement at no cost if it is defective.

J

Thx for your reaction,  I already contacted Sonos; the helpdesk employee says ‘it is just a normal little hum...’  and gave me a tip to lower the volume a little bit.  Maybe well meant but not very helpful advise ,if you can imagine. Of course the clip is recorded at normal/low volume.

I already returned the Beam2 now to the shop and they will ship it off to Sonos, so they can investigate it further.  For now I expect that Sonos will handle it correctly and replace it was a working Beam 2 ( so I can sell it, to lower the cost a little bit of my new Arc Sonos, which I needed to buy to get a fine/normal sound again). Just curious what the problem could be. Together I own a total of 4000 euro\dollar in Sonos devices (2 Subs gen3, Era 100, etc..), This Beam 2 issue and the response of the Sonos helpdesk makes me pretty sceptical if I invested in the right brand though at this moment. 

 

 

J

We are 6 weeks further, and I got the Sonos soundbar back again from the shop (who send it to Sonos for a repair, which took more than 5 weeks). But Sonos did not repair anything (they only installed a software update, because Sonos could not determine/notice any defect themself, but did not bother to contact me or the shop for more information as I understand from these facts). The shop employees checked the soundbar and noticed the defect themself before sending it to Sonos for repair, so they were surprised too and had no explanation why the soundbar was not repaired.  Of course I retourned the soundbar again and the shop will send the soundbar again to Sonos for the seconds time.   

My new Soundar Arc is doing still OK (see top message),  but I hope you guys will never have to contact Sonos support, because until now they are not very helpful, to say the least.

T

I have also the same issue, awful tinny noise coming from the recently purchased Beam gen2 and two era's.  I have tried everything that the first and second Sonos support advised and nothing resolved the issue.

I now have to call Sonos support engineers with a reference number as the first lot of Sonos support couldn’t fix the issue.

I’m at the stage of just sending the whole lot back and get refunded for what is a faulted product, I have seen on the web many other similar issues.   Therefore Sonos must know that there is a fault with the products and are doing nothing to resolve them.

Coming from a Bose system to Sonos has been a massive mistake and

i must have lost endless hours trying to resolve this fault, not including if I do call the second support system which will no doubt make me do everything I have already tried.

Awful experience.😤😤😤

 

T

I have spent a long time on the phone with Sonos help desk, which should be renamed the unhelpful couldn’t give a * desk.  I know childish but they are as much use as a chocolate fireguard.

After the umpteenth time of contacting them I yet again went through all the same blah blah! They checked everything (very thorough I hear you say) so there’s nothing wrong with my network,nothing wrong with the TV,nothing wrong my set up.

leaving the Sonos beam being the only fault.

”could they fix?
no was the answer,  

ok can you replace it?

no was the answer

product is only 30 days old and I’ve spent most of that talking to you!

Why not it’s new?

 because we haven’t tried the optical cable.  
it didn’t come with one?

I can’t authorise a replacement until that’s been checked!

your kidding me I didn’t buy it for an optical cable use I bought it for the earc connection?

sorry!

So hear I am stuck with a beam2 with 2 Eros surrounds and a * crackly system.

Buyer beware avoid Sonos like the plague the Beam2 has an inherrent fault, just google it! 
 

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

A

I've also got this issue. 

I sent the 1st beam gen 2 back and got it replaced and the replacement does the same. 

I think it's something to do with how it decides some TVs. 

I've seen 100s of these complaints on 100s of sites/pages all related to the gen2. 

The shop won't return it. Have spent about 3 hours with customer services at Sonos going through diagnosis and resetting but no joy. 

I tried my mates Samsung bar and it sounded great. 

So unfortunately and gonna lose a few 100 having to sell this useless thing on eBay and get another brand. Very disappointed to be honest and has lost them a customer 

B

Someone from Sonos acknowledged that this is a known issue but there is no eta on the fix or a way to determine the current status of a resolution. In reading dozens of threads on various forums it sounds like there was a firmware update in the past that broke the TV sound output. Not sure why they just don’t roll the firmware back. 

 

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

Airgetlam

As far as I’m aware, the only comments that are ‘moderated out’ are the ones that don’t conform to Terms of Service. 

Evidenced by your posts here not being ‘moderated out’. 
 

@Anotherjames , there’s some supposition, based on many threads of complaints, that Samsung has made small modifications to ARC (CEC) to favor their own soundbars. Sonos, to my knowledge, follows the CEC specs completely, so that they can play from the maximum amount of TV sets. If you’re unable to get your Samsung to work properly with Sonos, it’s more likely a Samsung issue than a Sonos one, and you should be complaining to Samsung directly. If it was a Sonos issue, you’d see tons of complaints from owners of TVs from other TV manufacturers as well. 

Bruce
A

There are tons of users out there with issues though. Just spend a couple minutes on a Google search and it'll give you an indication of the scale of the issue. 

I don't have a Samsung TV. I've got a TCL.  

I meant I used my mates Samsung bar. 

Thanks for responding though. Any insight is appreciated 👍🏻

B

I don’t have Samsung. I have two different LG models. 

  • Airgetlam - Do you get compensation or discounts from Sonos to contribute to the forum? I see you frequently jump into threads and claim it’s not their issue. 



     
Airgetlam

No, I don’t. 
 

If it’s working in my two systems (Vizio and Samsung) without issue, along with the knowledge I have regarding networking, CEC, and other related technical issues, it’s fairly clear to me the problem isn’t with Sonos….generally speaking. In a large portion of my posts, however, I do caveat with a suggestion to submit a diagnostic, and a call to Sonos, the only way that I’m aware of to be certain it isn’t a hardware, or for that matter, software failure. When a grand majority of people are not posting that they’re experiencing the problem, but a handful are… logic dictates the issue is somewhere else.
 

What I’m not doing is denying that these folks are having an issue…that would be presumptuous. I am, however, trying to suggest that they may need to look further up the process line, rather than the Sonos, which is really pretty much a dumb device that does a little amount of processing. Nothing against the Sonos folks, but it’s just a speaker. If it works in 99% of cases, you do have to wonder what is different. 

Bruce
B

That’s not correct. There is significant tech and processing that occurs on the Sonos and when there are dozens of threads with the same issue with the largest tv makers in the US (samsung, LG, TCL)  the issue points back to them. Also many have reported this started occurring AFTER a firmware update. I just wish Sonos would actually reply to these posts themselves with ticket numbers and issue updates instead of just ignoring these threads and leaving it up to the community to quibble amongst themselves without any actual data from the Sonos engineers. What’s the point of this community if Sonos never gets involved in the discussion. 

Stanley_4
Userlevel 7
Badge +22

This is a community forum, user to user communication is the entire purpose. A few Sonos folks visit from time to time and we see some limited official support offered on a few topics.

Sonos support is handled by the Support department.

J

Has anyone had hope fixing this error? If this is a firmware update I’m not sure why Sonos does not roll it back it’s a shocking metallic sound it’s so obvious too. 
 

feels like they intentionally released it like this 

J

@Airgetlam it happens on Sony TVs, apple V boxes, virgin boxes, games consoles….the lot and there are many forums just like this speaking of the same issue. 
 

it’s a fundamental Sonos fault which they choose not to fix. 

F

I have the beam for almost a year now and had this issue start a couple of months ago. I spoke to Sonos support and they acknowledged this issue. Like someone else above said, they don’t have a fix or timeline for this.

They are sending me an optical adapter to see it still happens.

J

@fyrie its an issue with the left and right outmost speakers and optical adaptor/cable wont fix the issue. Also why spend 500 quid on something that does not utilise eArc capability?

 

Sonos I don't think will fix the issue. Its not in their best interests to do so…..they’ll give you a 30% voucher for your next purchase instead and leave you be….seems to be the sonos way 

F

@Jason.Ekwueme Unfortunately, I bought this beam over a year ago. The optical adapter came and the issue is still there.

Called support again and they told me there’s nothing they can do and that their engineers are looking into it with no timeline. Unfortunately, I have the whole surround sound with bass set up and would need to replace the whole system since I don’t feel confident in spending so much on Sonos again.

F

I wanna give an update. The issue seems to be resolved. I haven't noticed it in a week or so now.

H

I bought a pair of Eras to use as surrounds to sync with my beam. I had read online that this helps reduce the interference coming from the beam. This has helped improve things but has not solved the issue entirely. It definitely went against my better judgement to give Sonos more money to try solve for an issue they refuse to resolve themselves. Disappointed it hasn't been a 100% success. 

The one thing I find strange is that not all beam users are experiencing this issue, despite it being a result of a firmware update. Why the inconsistency?

K
Userlevel 2
Badge +1

I can confirm it is NOT yet fixed.

 

Opened a thread myself quite some time ago [1]… and I still feel it is much more recognizable with “nightsound” enabled. (NOTE: contrary to what I wrote back then, it is not limited to night sound though, only makes it easier to hear if for me)

 

@fyrie maybe that is worth a test on your end?

 

[1]

 

Reply


Terms & ConditionsCookie settings