Contributor I

Sonos Arc loud pop then audio loss

1202 replies
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I was playing on my Xbox when the arc suddenly made an extremely loud pop sound and then lost audio completely. The app wouldn’t let me adjust the volume and Alexa wake up didn’t emit its usual tone. I had to remove the power from the arc and reapply which resumed the audio. I’m concerned that one of the speakers in the arc may have been damaged when this happened. Has anyone had this issue?

We have had no issues with the arc since purchasing it earlier this year.

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Pinned Reply By Corry P

Hi Everyone!

Good news! We are pleased to share that our team has identified a fix for the popping sound on Arc and it will be shipped to all customers as part of a software release today, Thursday Nov 16 at 09:30 ET, 14:30 GMT, 15:30 CET. Please note that some app stores may take an extra hour or two for it to become available.

During our investigation we uncovered a rare bug that impacts how Sonos Arc and Beam (Gen 2) in certain home theater configurations process Dolby MAT, a streaming technology which is used to deliver Dolby Atmos audio over HDMI. Occasionally a Sonos product will receive a corrupted audio segment from an external source and needs to filter out unwanted audio data. The bug we identified was allowing our Dolby decoder to play audible errors on certain home theater setups rather than concealing them. The solution we’ve built and tested improves our Dolby decoder so it better filters out corrupt audio data that can manifest as a popping sound. We’ll continue to monitor customer feedback closely after the fix has been released and ship additional updates if necessary.

We strive to deliver the best listening experience possible and work to address major issues that impact our customers. We apologize for the disruption this bug has caused and want to thank you for your patience while our team developed a fix.

We would also like to thank our community users for their detailed setup information and steps to reproduce the issue, which were helpful to us in uncovering the cause of the bug.

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Bumper

Sell it. After 2 years IMO a fix may not come. Arc has very good value used currently (at least where I live). Probably will for a while. But eventually gen2 comes. Life is too short, best to get rid of the headache.

P

ProfessorFrag

Enthusiast II

For sure, straight quality wise I would barely be able to tell the difference between Dolby MAT and DD+, even when listening to Apple Lossless Music.

No, the downside with turning off eARC is that you get lipsync issues in some media. I’m sensitive to lipsync so turning off eARC is a no go for me.

I’m living with the CEC-off solution at the moment. The least annoying compromise for me.

I still expect Sonos to acknowledge the issue in an FAQ or disclaimer though. New customers should be warned about the potential problem so that they can make an informed decision.

Ken_Griffiths

For sure, straight quality wise I would barely be able to tell the difference between Dolby MAT and DD+, even when listening to Apple Lossless Music.

No, the downside with turning off eARC is that you get lipsync issues in some media. I’m sensitive to lipsync so turning off eARC is a no go for me.

I’m living with the CEC-off solution at the moment. The least annoying compromise for me.

I still expect Sonos to acknowledge the issue in an FAQ or disclaimer though. New customers should be warned about the potential problem so that they can make an informed decision.

You would not need to switch off eARC - just switch the audio output on the connected devices instead - just leave the TV as it is.

T

tomwarren

Enthusiast I

i wonder what happened with tom warren set, did they fixed it for him, tried to ask him in twitter but he didn't respond

its shame that sonos don't have anything to say about this issue, no ETA for fix

If I understand it correctly, @tomwarren disabled eARC (thereby dropping from Dolby MAT to DD+ Almos) to avoid the issue. I think his attention shifted to other topics once he was no longer affected.

Or you can hop on the conspiracy crazy-train and speculate that Sonos let Chris Welch etc know that they will lose their preferred access to Sonos execs and upcoming products if they keep on this issue. :)

Don’t worry Sonos haven’t locked us up or bullied us into silence :)

I have good news from Sonos though:

“Our team has identified a possible fix and is quickly working to field test the solution. While we aren’t able to share a specific timeframe for deployment, we can confirm that progress has been made.”

No timeframe just yet, but it’s encouraging that they’ve identified a potential fix now instead of having issues replicating the problem.

B

blunderdome

Enthusiast I

@tomwarren Great to hear! Can you give us an idea of how recent this was?

Y

yusuflimz

Lyricist III

Not great for such an easily repeatable issue that affects so many users is being pushed under the carpet, and for almost 3 years.

I think maybe getting more exposure might help getting this issue fast tracked as we’ve heard “we’re working on it” for far too long now.

Linus Tech Tips have reviewed Sonos products (which were provided by Sonos) previously and they have a forum thread for complaints about sponsors.

I’ve added a post summarising frustrations here: https://linustechtips.com/topic/1428939-lmg-sponsor-complaints/?do=findComment&comment=16165444

Perhaps if we get enough upvotes they may at least have a WAN show segment and prompt more action.

A

Abo116

Lyricist III

I’m living with the CEC-off solution at the moment. The least annoying compromise for me.

I still expect Sonos to acknowledge the issue in an FAQ or disclaimer though. New customers should be warned about the potential problem so that they can make an informed decision.

I really wonder why this problem occurs with so many different patterns. For me, for example, it doesn't do any good to turn off CEC. I turned it off on the Xbox and the TV and the bang still comes with Dolby Atmos. The only thing that works for me is switching to Dolby Digital 5.1

D

Darkii89

Lyricist III

I’m living with the CEC-off solution at the moment. The least annoying compromise for me.

I still expect Sonos to acknowledge the issue in an FAQ or disclaimer though. New customers should be warned about the potential problem so that they can make an informed decision.

I really wonder why this problem occurs with so many different patterns. For me, for example, it doesn't do any good to turn off CEC. I turned it off on the Xbox and the TV and the bang still comes with Dolby Atmos. The only thing that works for me is switching to Dolby Digital 5.1

Have you tried factory reset and not to trueplay?

A

Abo116

Lyricist III

I’m living with the CEC-off solution at the moment. The least annoying compromise for me.

I still expect Sonos to acknowledge the issue in an FAQ or disclaimer though. New customers should be warned about the potential problem so that they can make an informed decision.

I really wonder why this problem occurs with so many different patterns. For me, for example, it doesn't do any good to turn off CEC. I turned it off on the Xbox and the TV and the bang still comes with Dolby Atmos. The only thing that works for me is switching to Dolby Digital 5.1

Have you tried factory reset and not to trueplay?

trueplay off, yes
factory reset before trueplay off, no

But I don't really feel like doing factory settings either, then I have to re-connect my surround speakers and the sub and if it doesn't work, then it's for nothing.

HobeSoundDarryl

Lyricist III

I’m living with the CEC-off solution at the moment. The least annoying compromise for me.

I still expect Sonos to acknowledge the issue in an FAQ or disclaimer though. New customers should be warned about the potential problem so that they can make an informed decision.

I really wonder why this problem occurs with so many different patterns. For me, for example, it doesn't do any good to turn off CEC. I turned it off on the Xbox and the TV and the bang still comes with Dolby Atmos. The only thing that works for me is switching to Dolby Digital 5.1

Have you tried factory reset and not to trueplay?

FYI: now many weeks later since prior posts and this (reset to factory but don’t run Trueplay when setting back up) completely solved the problem with Arc + twin 300s.

Nutshell version: executed initial setup to the “run Trueplay” step but couldn’t Trueplay for a few hours due to uncontrollable noise in the environment. Enjoyed the speakers for those few hours: they sounded as great as we all expect of Sonos speakers. When the noise ceased, ran Trueplay and the Pop-fest immediately followed (only variable changed was running Trueplay)… not just from ATMOS sources but even Sonos HD Radio and when touching the buttons on top of the Arc. Any source whether simple stereo to ATMOS was popping in a way that made us worry about the speaker. We initially believed it was blown speaker(s).

Reset to factory but bailed on the setup process again at the “set up Trueplay” step. No pops since. No other variables changed (same source, same cables, same kinds of content). CEC is on and ATMOS playback, Dolby playback, Stereo & Mono playback, sounds from the interface (button pushes on Arc) yield NO pops at all.

Gut says that if we ran Trueplay again, the pops would return… which would be a verifying step if we repeated it and got the same (popping) results. But they play and sound great now and we don’t want to re-stir this pot.

While only a single instance and thus not ideal from which to draw broad conclusions, those frustrated with no other remedy may want to give this one a try. Given the variety of hardware sources, cables, audio types, etc in play, it seems common ground variables like internal software would be much more likely to be the cause than select implementations of ATMOS, CEC, Dolby MAT, cables, AppleTV, Xbox, et all. Since Trueplay is something most people automatically run soon after pulling these out of their boxes, if it is the cause or plays a role, obviously most/all(?) of the speakers with the problem likely ran Trueplay.

If it’s everybody else that must change their tech to work with Sonos, it seems this will NEVER get resolved. But if it’s internal software, that could be a bug(s) for Sonos to find & fix. Those willing: test & report. If there is something here, it will give Sonos an area on which to focus and maybe a fix for up to everyone.

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