I’ve got a Beam 2, LG CX TV and Xbox Series X. The pop frequently occurs for me during Xbox Cloud Gaming. The Beam 2 reboots and the sound eventually returns. 

Does this damage the speaker at all? I believe the Sonos rep has said they haven’t seen any indications that it does, but Rios said that it does?

Having been experiencing pops for over a year, and having replaced the Arc as of last week, truthfully, I can’t tell if there is any difference.

That is exactly the case—if you have your Apple TV set to SDR, it will change to HDR or Dolby Vision depending on the content, and if supported by the TV (or vice versa, if you’re using HDR and the content is SDR).
I’m curious, now that you have it on Port 4 as “Enhanced”, do you still get the options for setting the Apple TV to Dolby Vision, or is it purely HDR and SDR options that are listed? This is more for my understanding of what the different options of “Enhanced” do on Port 3 and Port 4.

If you disable “Match Dynamic Range” — you’ll be locked at whatever you pick as the default format, in your case, 4K60 SDR.

Thank you for pointing out the fact that once I selected Enhanced, the Dolby Vision option no longer exists on the Apple TV settings. Now, only Enable HDR is an option on top (see pics). That answers my concern that the Apple TV would automatically enhance to DV due to the match content being set to on.  I understand that is now impossible. 

Which is why I’m stated a method to recreate the error. Which is what Sonos needs in order to address this issue.

None of my posts are intended to obfuscate the issues. They are intended to help Sonos understand how to recreate the error. 
 

Which is what QA Testers require in order to report a problem or error with software and hardware.

Specificity is necessary to avoid confusion.

I have a Sony 900H and replicated some of this testing today. For those unfamiliar with the TV, it has 4 possible settings for HDMI ports 3 and 4: Standard (HDMI 2.0), Enhanced (HDMI 2.1, No DV, No VRR), Enhanced (with DV, no VRR), Enhanced (with VRR, no DV). HDMI 3 is the eARC port, so where the Sonos Arc is plugged into.

I think this is partly where the confusion lays, and one of the issues with the language are on that screen. All ports support DV, but I don't get why 3 and 4 have a separate setting for it. My Apple TV is on HDMI 2, and between Dec 2020-Oct 2021, served both DV and DA without fail. There's been no hardware changes, either inclusions, removals, or reconfigures since Dec 2020. Only software changes. 

Just to confirm my own thoughts — this was the screenshot before the VRR update on the X900H around Oct 2021, and I think is why the language is used.  You have the option for either DV, or HDMI 2.1 features such as 120fps.

I guess the newer options on the 3 and 4 equate to being limited to the following feature sets depending on what you select.

• “Enhanced” i.e. high speed formats e.g 4K60 4:4:4/RGB or 120 4:2:2
• Dolby Vision
• VRR

Also worth noting that these seem to do little for Arc itself.  I believe mine is set to “Standard” as it outputs nothing more than 1080, but eARC works just fine (with it’s handshaking being controlled by the eARC option in Audio Output settings).

The reason why HDMI 3 and 4 have separate settings is because Only 3 and 4 support HDMI 2.1. 
 

The posts on here should be clear, detailed and simple to understand for Sonos Technicians only as they are the only ones that can address this issue. 
 

We are all customers waiting and waiting and waiting for a solution or some kind of acknowledgment, and update as to whether or not this issue is being addressed.

As I’ve said previously, none of my posts state how Xbox is the ONLY way to recreate the error. They state a proven method to recreate the error.

There should be no confusion in this. And I’m including all the “rebuttals” in this post to avoid compounding this thread with unnecessary posts that aren’t relevant to adding information required for Sonos to establish a solution. 
 

There are no moderators for this thread. Hence all these confused posts that would otherwise be omitted or culled.

We are all trying to understand and share our endeavours to help Sonos understand and recreate the error.

Thank you to everyone who has put all the effort to attempting to inform and support the Customers of Sonos. Something that it is becoming clear that Sonos does not have the staff or resources to address their customer base.

As I’ve said previously, considering this error is 2 years old. This must be a hardware design issue. Otherwise a software update would have been implemented. Once error occurs it is permanent. And replacing the unit does not solve the issue.

Once there is either a new unit or a Ver 2 which I highly doubt due to this issue. Can we, the customer spend another chunk of cash for something that may or may not function as advertised.

Suffice it to say this will be the last time I purchase Sonos. Switching systems is something all audiophiles do in time. It’s just a shame that in this day in age, you don’t get what you pay for.

Clarification, Sonos reps are not technicians. Neither am I. My theory (which is all it is) is based off of my experience as a Quality Assurance Tester for a hardware and software company.

I am alluding to the fact that there has been zero update, fix, acknowledgment or announcement of this known issue that is 2 years old. And no software update to address this issue.

And when I’ve stated multiple times over how I and many others are able to play Dolby Atmos on the Sonos Arc as long as Dolby Vision is disabled from all sources. After the popping error has occurred. 

Meaning, there is nothing wrong with the actual speakers. I have previously stated that it MIGHT be a component that is “fried” and is no longer able to process the signal.

My posts are long to specify exactly what I mentioned to avoid confusion or misinterpretation. 

Anything we say as customers are speculation. The purpose of this thread is to help us the customer understand the issue and whether or not this issue has been or will be addressed by Sonos. 

We all know the answer to this.

I tend to agree with this view. They were aware of it when I reported the issue a week ago. It is a bit of a concern that they have an Atmos product out there that cannot reliably play this format. It seems there are a number of different configurations/sources that I think eliminate anything upstream of the ARC. 

I hadn't experienced this before as my previous TV only had ARC and not EARC so could not pass lossless atmos. It surprised me how long this issue has been going and I wonder how many others have not experienced it due to their TV not being able to pass through a full Atmos signal.

Sonos Staff have mentioned they are aware of this issue in the community here and stated they were investigating, but that the matter was also an issue with other manufacturers products too and that’s certainly reported online, as links were provided to other soundbars having the issue. So it appears that it’s an issue where the ball is not in Sonos’ court - but I agree it needs an urgent fix, (if possible) by whoever is responsible - the last I saw, was to switch off using Atmos transcoded to multichannel LPCM (uncompressed) and use DD+ (Atmos) or DD TrueHD (Atmos) codecs instead. So perhaps try that.

These were some of the links where other manufacturers had the popping issue…(I haven’t tested if they’re still valid)…

• https://www.reddit.com/r/Soundbars/comments/eth60q/lg_sl10yg_making_loud_popping_noise/
• https://www.reddit.com/r/Soundbars/comments/jcyf5l/cracklingpopping_sound_on_jbl_91_soundbar/
• https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/xbox/forum/all/xbox-one-made-a-loud-pop-noise-and-shut-down/40a59613-caec-4655-a3f0-ea71588cdcb8
• https://www.avforums.com/threads/strange-audio-popping-clicks-with-my-surround-sound-only-with-xbox.1548227/

This is the link where I saw the Sonos Staff comment about the issue too…

I cannot find anything recent that relates to this particular issue with other soundbars. The latest one (2 years ago) relates to a JBL soundbar. I cannot see any mention anywhere of other premium soundbars having this kind of issue. 

A lot of those reports talk about popping/crackling noise whereas the Sonos is a loud bang - probably the term popping is not the right description in this case.

Well it was from an old thread - I did find these in a quick search;

https://www.cinemaequip.com/why-is-my-samsung-soundbar-making-crackling-noise/

https://www.theaudiocritic.com/why-does-my-soundbar-make-popping-noises-n25

If I find others, when I have more time, I will post them. 

It’s not an issue I’ve personally encountered with my Arc or Beam, but then again I don’t use MC LPCM as I don’t have an Xbox or Apple TV 4K etc. (however I do use Dolby Vision FWIW?)

This is one involving LG soundbar making ‘horrendous’ popping noise… 

https://forums.audioholics.com/forums/threads/horrendously-loud-and-random-popping-noise-from-lg-sl8yg-soundbar-paired-with-lg-c9-oled-after-lastest-04-71-05-software-update.116791/

It seems to me to have been going on for a while - so I (still) wonder if it’s a codec problem?

Hi Ken, I cannot see anything recent on other soundbars whereas you can find lots of reports on the Arc. When this first happened on mine it was a really loud bang so not crackling/popping.

It’s not a topic that I’ve greatly researched personally, so forgive me, but I know the ‘popping’ sound on soundbars has been around for a while, and it was (is?) affecting other manufacturers products too - I assume everyone switched to Sonos at the time the issue was first encountered ..ha ha (just joking of course).

I haven’t gone looking/found recent reports, but will post here if I come across any, but I was merely mentioning that this ‘popping’ sound has been around a while - whether that be loud, or otherwise, on manufacturers soundbars and in that other thread I linked to earlier, it shows Sonos Staff are aware and mentioned other brands were affected with the same/similar issue and so were investigating. 

It was the case that someone earlier in the thread here, was inferring Staff had not commented and didn’t mention that other brands were having the same issue. That’s why I made mention of that other thread and Staff comment.

Also I jumped in here to say that it may not be a Dolby Vision issue, as I use that video format often with my TV, but when most (maybe not all) people seem to encounter the ‘popping’ sound, they are/have mostly been using the MC LPCM codec playing Atmos audio from either an Xbox, Apple TV 4K or similar device, so if that is ‘perhaps’ widely connected to the ‘popping’ sound and a possible culprit here, it makes more sense to me to switch off MC LPCM transcoding and switch (if possible) to using DD+ (Atmos) instead or Dolby True HD (Atmos), as I’ve not ‘yet’ seen a report of those codecs causing the ‘popping’ sound. I use those codecs almost every day with an Arc, or Beam (gen2) and not seen an issue so far and I’ve had both products since they were first released.

That's not to say that this matter should not be fixed of course, by whoever is responsible, (it may or may not be on Sonos to fix this), but at least see if not using MC LPCM becomes one way to avoid the issue until the matter is ‘perhaps’ resolved.

I completely disagree with this statement. Simply because other manufacturers also have a defective product does not alleviate the responsibility Sonos has to its customer base and it’s reputed reputation as a premium quality sound system company.

While it is true, being a smaller company they do not have the resources that major manufacturers do when it comes to technical support or call centres. Being a smaller company, one would expect that when a large contingent of your customer base has the same defect with your product, the company would have a more hands on approach to a solution. One can argue this point all day.

My theory is derived from working for large Japanese corporation. Where deadlines for software and hardware forced releases of defective product. Deadlines caused by contracts with major retailers for shelf space.

Sonos does not have this issue. They have the time and freedom to address defects and errors. I’ve searched for this issue in other products. So far none have the same mitigating factors that this error has. 

As I’ve already stated, if this was an easy software fix, it would have been implemented. Granted at the time the Sonos Arc was introduced, eARC TVs were few and far between ,due to the limited number of models and the excessive cost of premium TVs released to the consumer market, obviously the Sonos engineers designed the Sonos while testing their units on the current eArc TVs at the time, and possibly never tested them with an Xbox Series X during development. Considering how old the Sonos Arc is, there has been more then enough opportunity to address the error.

When a company released a product that is advertised to be one of the best Dolby Atmos sound bars on the market, and then said product has a defect that prohibits the Dolby Atmos product to play Dolby Atmos. Do I really have to spell this out?

And if you’re saying that Sonos Reps have told you that “Oh this is a known issue and other companies have the same issue, here’s some links to other posts talking about how other companies have the same problem” I call nonsense. That does not sound like a PR statement or a statement any representative of a company would make. Unless they either have no idea what they’re talking about, or were trained to tell the customer nonsense to… ‘nuff said. 

I agree this might be a codec issue, however I have tried to look for articles of other sound bars from other manufacturers, however I have not been able to find this issue with the same mitigating factors.
 

As of now I do not see a correlation. As you mentioned in jest, other sound bars may have had popping issues and Sonos came out with the Arc and then people jumped to buy a new product that supposedly is superior without that problem.

I gave up my 7.1 traditional sound system for minimalistic ideals. My point is, when a company is establishing a reputation, releases and advertises a product that has been sold to a consumer, and the product has been found by the customer to have a defect.

That company has the responsibility to address the issue and provide a solution in a timely manner. Two years is more than enough time to address the issue. 

As I’ve clearly stated, there is a sure fire way to recreate the error. I’ve read your links, and I’ve searched other articles when I initially encountered this error. NONE of these links including the ones you’ve mentioned are relevant as they are not the same error and do not have the same mitigating factors that cause the issue. We have all tried looking for solutions and reasons, hence discovering this thread. 

Do you have a vested interest in Sonos stock? 🧐 All joking aside. I’ve thoroughly tried to find other links of other sound bars that have the same factors that result in the exact same kind of error. Nothing. Which is how I ended up on this thread. 
 

On every product I own, I personally take them apart and fix them if I can find a solution. If it is not too costly. So I spend a lot of time on message boards and Reddit. I have not found anything on other sound bars that are relevant to this issue. 
 

Well (hopefully) you can see exactly what the Staff said, as I posted the link to the comment in the earlier post above.

I truly didn’t say anything about it alleviating the responsibility of any manufacturer, including Sonos, so not sure where you are coming from with that remark?

I was merely highlighting, other branded hardware had the same/similar issue and that the instances of the ‘popping’ that I’ve personally seen reported, seemed to be linked with playing MC LPCM ‘Atmos’ audio from devices such as XBox, Apple TV 4K etc. …and was suggesting to perhaps set that codec aside and use DD+ (Atmos) or Dolby TrueHD (Atmos) instead, at least until the matter is ‘perhaps’ resolved.

I really can’t say if it’s Sonos, or some other manufacturer, who needs to resolve the issue. The fact it affected other brands of soundbar just has me thinking that the ball may not be entirely in Sonos’ court to actually fix it. 

Hi @Corry P ,

FYI, I have not yet been contacted by Sonos. I continue to be interested in providing replication data in devmode.

Reading that reply only solidifies my decision not to buy Sonos products going forward. Anyone remember Cambridge Soundworks? 

Thank you for your efforts. You have far more patience and faith then I do.

I understand your point. And I agree with and appreciate your statement regarding the MP LPCM ‘Atmos’ audio. However to the average consumer, this means nothing. You may not be able to say Sonos or other manufacturers  may or may not be responsible to actually fix it. But I will. This is all semantics at this point.

To the average person who spends an exorbitant amount of money to purchase a premium product this is unacceptable. And the response from Sonos Staff is unacceptable. 
 

I’ve dealt with this kind of issue in work and in other products. At this point. The only we can do is choose what we buy.  If there is a fix or the next generation does not have this issue. It will take a lot of research and convincing for me to try Sonos again much less ever recommending Sonos to anyone.