I’m only suggesting to unplug power. As part of my stepwise testing I did have the Xbox HDMI unplugged at first when powering everything back on. I doubt that made a difference since everything is fine even with the Xbox fully connected (CEC off) again. 

Over a week has passed, I’ve been using Apple TV and Xbox plenty with Atmos on, and there has been no pop. It appears that CEC-off on Xbox plus power cycling all around has solved the problem. It’s a little annoying that I now have to use the TV remote for input switching and power on/off when using Xbox, but that’s OK. More importantly my family can use Apple TV with just its remote and CEC works fine.

I have to add that I am surprised how much better I feel when watching movies and playing games. I didn’t realize just how much stress and frustration pent up from having dropped thousands on a sound system that didn’t work for its advertised purpose and, perhaps worse, where the manufacturer spent years aware of the problem and still hasn’t publicly acknowledged it.

Will I ever buy another Sonos product? I don’t know. But I’ve learned my lesson that it’s more like AliExpress than the reputable brands (Denon, Klipsch, Sennheiser, etc) from which I typically buy.

If I don’t post in this thread again for a while, bon voyage, fellow forumers. I hope your problem is resolved as well. You have been troopers sharing information, replicating, troubleshooting, etc. Yes, there are a few users who tried to throw us off the solution path through persistent gaslighting that the problem didn’t exist or surely couldn’t be Sonos’. But you all hung in there and we’ve made it. You will always have my thanks.

@ProfessorFrag - Before you leave us...and for the uninitiated (like me) that don’t know how to change our CEC settings (or where they exist)...could you post some screenshots?

The two Home Theater Control settings for Apple TV and then the one master on/off for CEC on Xbox. 
 

So I disabled the CEC on my Xbox Series X and Samsung TV. I have an older TV so using a HDFury Arcana to give me eArc and Dolby Atmos to my Sonos Arc. So far, it is looking very positive. It used to be that I could start a game, press the X button to switch to Xbox menu and I would get the bang every single time. Now no bang at all. I also played Thor 4K and confirmed Dolby Atmos feed in my Sonos app. Hitting X button, again no bang. It is obviously early days but I will repost back after more testing... Thanks so much to all of you guys for the valuable information.

just popping in - pun intended to see if there was a fix for this yet.  so frustrating 

BTW, has anyone tested the Arc with Atmos content now that firmware 15.1 is out? I haven’t yet as it’s very new but curious if anyone else was brave enough to do so!

Quick update.

So the replacement Beam Gen 2 I got was fine up until today when playing Rocket League on the Xbox Series X with Atmos enabled. The Series X is set to pass through and I have eArc enabled, but I have the HDMI control off on the console.

So it looks to be a software issue. Any advice on how to avoid this happening?

Chris Welch from The Verge is soliciting questions for an interview of Sonos CEO Patrick Spence on Reddit. Link: https://www.reddit.com/r/sonos/comments/119bkie/if_you_could_ask_patrick_spence_a_sonos_question/

if you want to put this issue on the table. 

I am in same boat but with Sonos Arc, and have an option to get a replacement. I am highly doubtful if that will fix this issue. I use Apple TV 4k and PS5. Yesterday it popped for a second and then works fine after that. This is really stupid but I do love the sound from Arc :( 

As a new Sonos user, I thought I would add my voice to the choir concerning the “popping” issue.  I had just bought a new Sony TV and an Apple TV for one of my bedrooms and I wanted to add a soundbar.  I decided to do some research before dipping my toe into the Sonos ecosystem.  I already had a dedicated home theater/game room in my home.  This would be just a bedroom TV.

I originally intended to buy a Sonos Arc.  Researching the Arc was when I first learned of the popping issue.  I certainly believed it was real, but I kept thinking that I’m sure Sonos has sold a ton of soundbars.  Maybe I was just reading the comments from a relatively small vocal group that was having an isolated issue.  After all, no one is going to complain about how great their soundbar is working.

Ultimately, because of the bedroom size and sound needs, I decided that maybe a Beam Gen 2 would be a better fit.  It was also in the back of my mind that most of the popping complaints seems to be from the Arc.

It’s now been about 3 weeks since I bought the Beam Gen 2 from the Sonos website.  Setup was a breeze.  It sounded good, looked great, and I liked the software.  I liked it so much that I ran out and bought a Sonos Amp to power two pre-existing built in speakers as surrounds.  The ability to use those speakers via the Amp was another reason I went with Sonos.  It all worked great.

Now, here we are, several weeks later, and I’ve had the “pop” happen five times while streaming Atmos content.  It’s a loud pop and then the Beam goes dead.  The video keeps playing and the Sonos Amp keeps playing the surround sound.  If I press pause and then play on the Apple remote then the Beam sound resumes.

I contacted Sonos support.  I didn’t really expect a solution.  I just wanted to officially log the issue.

After a few questions about my TV model and software version, the tech just came out and said it.  It’s a known problem with the Beam 2 and Arc.  I appreciate the candor, although I do find it a bit disingenuous of Sonos to sell a premium Atmos soundbar with a known issue whose solution is to disable Atmos.  Of course, he said that other manufacturers are also having similar issues with their Atmos soundbars.  I don’t know.  I haven’t tried them.  I guess it’s possible.

He provided a couple of possible solutions.  The first was the disable CEC/power cycle idea.  The second was the aforementioned, disabling of Atmos.  By the way, the Apple TV 4K is the only device connected to this TV.  No other device has ever been connected to it.  I’m using the Sonos provided HDMI cable connected to the TV’s eARC port.  Every device is on Ethernet.  Every device has been updated.  It’s pretty much a basic setup.  Everything works perfectly, except for the popping.

There are so many things that I really do love about the Sonos Beam.  I might try disabling Atmos since it’s just a bedroom TV.  It’s not like the Beam really produced any noticeable Atmos effect anyway.  If I’m satisfied with the non-Atmos sound then I’ll probably just keep it.

Having said that, if I were looking to build an “Atmos” home theater system, then I don’t think I would go with current Sonos Atmos soundbars.  This is just my experience and opinion.  Your milage may vary.

Hah that’s funny, I guess the devs do read these boards after all

@Corry P it appears disabling CEC might resolve the issue for most. Does Sonos know why this is happening and can it be fixed? 

Thanks 

Hi @Magnesiumion 

I understand your need for an answer.

Unfortunately, I can only share the information that has been provided to me, and at present, I don’t have any addition information to share.

I believe our engineers are presently working on confirming this possible fix (they had a lot of trouble in replicating the issue in the first place) before publishing it as “the answer” or making changes to our software in order to prevent it. Please be assured that we are still working on this issue.

I hope this helps.

What’s so strange about the CEC fix is that it works for those of us with an Xbox. Turn it off on the Xbox, and now everything is good even with CEC-on on the TV and Apple TV.

But then there are others with the bang that don’t have an Xbox, or even an Apple TV! I hope support has a nice spreadsheet going of all affected customers and the totality of their equipment (TVs and source devices) so that they can run cross-tabs on whether combinations of equipment produce the bug on Sonos. And then only one of the affected devices would need to go CEC-off.

Plus that would make for the best possible FAQ on the product pages. E.g. “Be advised that this product has a compatibility issue with Apple TV and Xbox being used in combination. CEC will have to be deactivated on one of those devices.” Or something along those lines.

Just to add to this thread. Same problem as everyone. I have contacted in multiple times support via phone and email, with the same corporate response everyone here has experienced. I could never get through the “first tier” of support since they always asked for a video that showed the issue and being such a random thing I didn´t had the time nor the drive to get on with the filming, and always telling me that it was the first report of this issue and nothing more. The last time it happened it did while watching The last of us E5, and noticed that it kept happening everytime at the same spot (moreless 3 min in the episode) so I recorded the event and sent it, now with the video a “tier 2” representative, called Jason, was “in charge” of the case. After almost an hour of keeping me on the phone just going in circles and deflecting he asked me to try to reproduce the problem but with him on the phone, so he could “verify” that the video was good (like I had the time or drive to make a video just to mess around and waste my time with them on the phone), so I did, and when he heard the pop and verified it, he went silent for a moment and told me to wait a little. After 5 min he came back and told me “you know, you´re right. Since more or less 2 weeks ago we have been receiving calls with this issue. Our engineers are working tirelessly to solve this. I´m putting you on a special list with the few others that have been reporting this for the last 2 weeks and we´ll contact you as soon as we have a solution, you don´t need to call us again”. After this, I pointed out at him the existence of this thread and that the company has acknowledged the problem and that in almost 3 years we don´t have a solution and that despite this they are still selling the product without any warning of this known issue. After hearing me he went full defensive (and a little verbal aggresive) mode and basically cut the conversation with the classic “is there anything else I can help you with?” and that was it. Personally I feel a little robbed because they know this issue, do nothing to solve it, not issuing a warning to the customers and still sell the product like nothing is happening. I´ve tried the CEC disabling method with no success, the problem persists with the appletv and with some movies in the PS5. Just a little venting, best regards.

I was planning on dropping $1500+ on an Arc home theater system until I found this thread a few weeks ago.

Lurking this forum and reading all these stories of how Sonos support has been deflecting and gaslighting their customers for years has made me reconsider ever purchasing a Sonos product. It’s not even just the Arc, the Beam 2 also has “The Pop” and another persistent issue where it makes a full volume jackhammer-like sound.

WTF Sonos?? It’s completely unacceptable that issues like this get dismissed for years, and the way customer support tries to deny that this is a real issue really rubs me the wrong way.

Thank you to everybody who’s shared their experience in this forum. You’ve saved me a lot of money and headache.

At the time I bought the arc and bass I was between this and the Sennheiser AMBEO (with the advantage that you don´t really need a separate bass with the AMBEO), today I´m hitting my head against the wall. First world problems, I know, but this is very frustrating and again the company does nothing to solve this. Do check it, prob a better choice right now.

TLoU S2E5 premiered on Feb 10, 2023. Are you telling me support is still doing the “it’s a new problem” song this year!?

Correct

Well 750+ recordings from all the

over world. No one is mentioning  this problem when you want to buy your products. Sonos this is not fixed. See you soon...

And we know the problem, as you are!

Management should think what to do next...if you want to buy “that” next house.

I have the exact same problem for two years !!! 4k120hz atmos have loud bang . If I select 4k 60hz then the bang will never show up . It’s so damn frustrating with this issue .  Disable CEC does not resolve the issue 

Tried unplug Apple TV , disable CEC from Xbox series X still the same issue . Loud bang after a while .