Just bought a Beam Gen 2 that arrived Thursday. I don’t have an X-Box, but I am connected to an Apple TV 4K. I turned on Atmos tonight. Just a few minutes into a show, there was a  pop that scared the crap out of us. It was so loud we expected sparks and fire and smoke. That brought me to this thread.

After reading almost all of this 2 year old thread, I’m shocked that Sonos is sending these out to unsuspecting customers with no warning or recommendations. If I had any faith that Sonos was really doing something, I’d keep it and wait for a fix. But it’s pretty clear after reading this thread that they’re just jerking us around. The sticking point for me is that I don’t believe for a second that they are unable to reproduce this.

Mr. Spence, I’d suggest you read this entire thread and get into the conversation with an honest report of exactly where you are on this issue. Because this is a class action waiting to happen.

Can reproduce this at will flicking between an atmos title on xbox series x and home - vid here: https://1drv.ms/v/s!At6Mgf3ymchZhJBUhmqLsqwM54sik. Fifth time to support today, they said to switch to Dolby 5.1!

“I have checked this and we are aware of this behavior and are investigating it, but we do not have any additional information to share at this time.

Workaround: Disable Dolby Atmos and use Dolby Digital 5.1 instead.”

Beyond a joke, this is a company knowingly selling a product that has issues performing what it’s advertised to do to consumers without warning them. After the whole S1 to S2 forced obsolescence debacle, I should have learnt my lesson.

Avoid.

So long as the Fire TV doesn't use the MAT container, you’ll be fine.  Test would be to briefly enable Atmos on the Fire TV, initiate playback of Atmos content and see if the Line In for the Arc shows as just “Dolby Atmos” (not “Dolby Atmos (DD+)” or “Dolby Atmos (TrueHD)”) under Settings > About My System

If it’s just “Dolby Atmos”, quit out and disable Atmos on the Fire TV, as it’s Dolby MAT.

Hello. I am experiencing this issue. I previously had the Beam (Gen2) which worked perfectly. Since upgrading to the Arc, when using the XBOX Series X there is a regular loud popping / cracking noise and the LED flashes Amber, followed by loss of sound. If I change the source back to Sky, then back to XBOX the sound returns for a short while then rinse and repeat. I thought it maybe heat related as the XBOX is directly underneath the Arc and emits quite a bit of heat. So moved it, and the problem still persists. Next step, is a new 4K HDMI cable… Just to add, no sound issues exist with Sky Q or any TV apps like Prime or Netflix. Just the XBOX connection. 

I might as well add my experience here too.

Been using Sonos products for > 10 years.

I have an Arc, with two Play:1s and a sub hooked up to an LG TV via eARC and use the latest 4K AppleTV for all streaming.

This set up has worked flawlessly for ages. Suddenly about 2 weeks ago I started getting intermittent very loud and increasingly frequent electrical sounding bangs and then loss of audio that was only restored with a reboot.

I disabled Atmos on the AppleTV so it only outputs Dolby 5.1 and the bangs have stopped.

Whilst this is a workaround it’s absolutely unacceptable. Why should I settle for suboptimal Dolby 5.1? I paid extra for an Arc (and upgraded my TV to get eARC also) so I could experience the best quality sound.

This is a massive issue and Sonos need to figure this out as a matter of urgency.

Update. I swapped both HDMI cables from XBOX to TV and Arc to TV with brand new 4K versions. At first I thought it had cured iit, but alas no - about 45 mins in and crack/pop sound gone. However it did come back without having to change source input. So I went to XBOX settings and changed audio output form Atmos to DTS and hey presto it’s stopped. However the Atmos sound is far superior and, I agree unacceptable it is an issue

Hi

I have an Arc, with Sub (3rd Gen) and two One SL setup hooked up to an LG G2 77 via eARC and use the latest 4K AppleTV for all streaming. The system is brand new, so its been in use for just a week.

I experienced the very loud electrical sounding bang yesterday night although at first it didn’t lost the sound as I was able to continue watching the movie till the end but once I finished I switched to watch another app using the Apple TV 4K and that’s when I bumped into the loss of audio that was only restored with a reboot and several changes on the HDMI configurations till I got the sound bar back to normal.

Before attempting to reboot I checked that the soundbar was functioning perfectly ok with Airplay music from my iPhone, so apparently nothing was “broken” still I struggled to get it back to work with the sound from the TV.

I started to look into this issue and as soon as I discovered this thread, I have decided to put everything back in the boxes (which I still have) an return the whole SONOS Sound System back to the dealer as this definitely NOT acceptable and it looks like there is no feasible solution available in the short period of time.

Just throwing my hat in the ring. Haven’t had this loud pop in a few months, but tonight when pulling up the info during a movie I got a loud pop and loss of audio. This is on the Xbox Series S.  Clearly this is still an issue years later. 

Also, previous setup with Beam was with a Samsung TV. I now have a Sony Bravia with the Arc Whether that makes any difference I don’t know 

Are your XBOX audio settings set to Atmos? 

Ridiculous. As I’ve said before it’s time to switch. And never look back.

Switch to what? …It happens on other makes of soundbar too, by all accounts.. I would rather ditch the Xbox or Apple TV 4K, but I’m happy to use DD5.1 anyway, personally speaking, until the matter is resolved. I still think the issue lies with the Mc LPCM codec, but that’s just a guess on my part.

@Ken_Griffiths , I thought you didn’t have an Apple TV or Xbox and that you had never been affected by the pop. 
Has your situation changed? Are you now also affected?

I don’t have XBox, but I do have Apple TV (running tvOS 16.3 public beta), but I don’t have the ‘popping’ issue. I have however changed the ATV audio format to disable Mc LPCM and use Dolby 5.1 instead, as a precautionary measure… I do have Atmos compressed (DD+) audio options though, both on my TV (in-built Apps) and via a Nvidia Shield - I am just personally convinced that the popping issue spoken about here (albeit I’m not experiencing it personally) lies with the Mc LPCM codec - so it’s staying disabled here on my ATV. I hope that assists to clarify my earlier post.

We all get it, you are a huge fan boy, but this exact issue does NOT happen with another manufacturer and lies solely with Sonos.  We are all happy you are happy to cripple your expensive soundbar by removing atmos but the rest of us are wanting our product to function as advertised, and that's why we are working with Sonos to get this issue fixed.  If everything works perfect for you then great!  This topic isn't for you.  For everyone else on the now 24 pages of this thread amongst many others, we are looking for a solution to this common defect that will allow us to use our product as designed without issue.

I only asked @Rios what product they would switch to - fanboy or not, I’m (still) not convinced it’s a Sonos issue, as there are other soundbar links in this thread (and others) that do appear to have the same issue and it’s almost always where an Xbox or an Apple TV is being used with the multichannel LInear PCM codec and involves Atmos metadata - that’s all I see when I read about these things.

So no, I’m not convinced to switch by your thoughts or others here, but I would happily concede it was a Sonos issue if that indeed was the case.. I just see some evidence to the contrary in threads here and other online links. Sonos may eventually come up with a counter-measure to hopefully somehow resolve the issue, but I still think the ‘actual’ core issue may lie outside of their control.

Yes it is.

This has happened twice to me so far.  Here’s a video from last night.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/K1MCjDXJqxQPg3Nx6

Is there any fix?  Does Sonos even acknowledge the problem?

Turn off HDMI CEC on Xbox settings. 

This seems like a terrible solution to this problem, I’ll give a whirl though.

I have no Xbox.  This is simply a Samsung OLED S95B TV connected to a Sonos Arc.

In both times that it happened nothing else was connected to the TV.

On the video I posted my wife had just finished watching an episode of something on NetFlix then I opened Plex and was browsing around.

The first time it happened my TV was in some “Screen Optimization” where the screen goes blank for a while.

sorry i thought you had xbox plugged in.  Mostly people have problem with xbox and apple tv.  I've never heard of a problem with native TV apps

@Eric F - No, neither have I, maybe a different issue. If not done already and you encounter the issue again, it might be worthwhile submitting a system diagnostic and note, or post, it’s reference back here and then contact/chat with the Sonos Support Staff via this LINK and see if they can help with your issue.

We’ve had a few people chime in with nothing-plugged-in, native TV app pops in this thread. Common factor appears to be that those TVs use Dolby MAT Atmos. I suspect the Apple TV and Xbox get so much attention because they are hugely popular devices.

I have not seen any evidence of any other manufacturer having the pop. Any links that have been posted so far may have had users use words such as “pop” or “crackle”. But when you chase it down, it’s completely different. There might be a rhythmic clicking in the background, or static. It also affects very few users; probably specifically defective units, bad cables, etc.

I have not seen any other brand that has a loud bang that cuts out audio reproducibly, and where the problem seems to be specific to Atmos.

um, the symptom was the same - a loud shot as in the video above.  only that it was able to shoot in the menu on xbox when I had the CEC function turned on under x on the pad, automatic change of signal input on xbox.  pressing x quickly several times could trigger this loud sound bang several times.  After disabling the CEC feature, is ok