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.
I turned Dolby Vision off on the Apple TV and left Atmos on, no issues so far. Any loss of Dolby Vision enhancements are not that apparent to me.
I appreciate Atmos and sacrificing Dolby Vision was not a big trade off for me.
Could you please explain how you turned Dolby Vision off on the Apple TV. I have mine set to 4K SDR 60Hz with both Match Dynamic Range and Match Frame Rate set to on. It is my understanding at those settings that the Apple TV will match whatever is thrown at it including Dolby Vision. In other words, at that setting, if a movie broadcast in Dolby Vision the Apple TV will match and play it in Dolby Vision. How could I eliminate the Dolby Vision so the ATV will not broadcast in it? Thanks for your help
From your screenshot, you already have Dolby Vision off. Changing the format to 4K SDR 60 is all you need to do. However each time you turn off the AppleTV and turn it back on and play any Dolby Vision source, AppleTV will automatically enable Dolby Vision again and you have to manually change the format each time you turn your AppleTV back on. Which is a pain.
When I play my Xbox Series X I just shut off all Dolby settings Dolby vision and Dolby Atmos.
This issue is almost over a year old with zero support.
I’m thinking of selling my Sonos system and getting the Sony HT-A9 instead with Black Friday sales happening now.
Thanks for your feedback. Each time I turn on my Apple TV 4K these settings stay stable and from what I understand, they allow for whatever content I run through the ATV to match what appears on your screen. If it’s SDR content, I’ll get it in SDR. If it’s HDR content, it runs in HDR. If it’s Dolby Vision, it will play in DV. Here is a good video showing all of this in real time. It explains it very well.
In reading your other posts, I’m a little confused. Have you tried to turn off DV on your Sony TV and had any success watching Atmos through your ATV without the popping issue? I share your frustrations and just wish we’d get more feedback from Sonos Support. Even if it’s to tell us they’ve given up if indeed that’s what’s going on.
I wish Sonos would interact with us. I went from having traditional sound systems (Denon+Klipsch) for decades to wanting something simple that just works with minimal time investment and doesn’t require cables once I had kids. I thought Sonos was that brand.
I really want this system to work. But if Sonos doesn’t intend to make it compatible with Apple TV and Xbox, I’d rather they just tell us and I can get started on the painful process of selling it all on eBay and get some other all-in-one system. Maybe Sennheiser.
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🤔?)
Has your situation changed? Are you now also affected?
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.
Been constantly checking with the Sonos support team who say they are aware of the issue and it’s also persistent in other sound bars. The only option is to disable Atmos content and go for 5.1 instead. After selling one of my kidneys to afford the Arc + Sub + Surrounds, my other kidney is calling me a politician for promising some of that Atmos content and not delivering.
Is everyone down to email the CEO? ceo@sonos.com is the address given on the contact page. Not sure what else we can do?
I turned Dolby Vision off on the Apple TV and left Atmos on, no issues so far. Any loss of Dolby Vision enhancements are not that apparent to me.
I appreciate Atmos and sacrificing Dolby Vision was not a big trade off for me.
Could you please explain how you turned Dolby Vision off on the Apple TV. I have mine set to 4K SDR 60Hz with both Match Dynamic Range and Match Frame Rate set to on. It is my understanding at those settings that the Apple TV will match whatever is thrown at it including Dolby Vision. In other words, at that setting, if a movie broadcast in Dolby Vision the Apple TV will match and play it in Dolby Vision. How could I eliminate the Dolby Vision so the ATV will not broadcast in it? Thanks for your help
From your screenshot, you already have Dolby Vision off. Changing the format to 4K SDR 60 is all you need to do. However each time you turn off the AppleTV and turn it back on and play any Dolby Vision source, AppleTV will automatically enable Dolby Vision again and you have to manually change the format each time you turn your AppleTV back on. Which is a pain.
When I play my Xbox Series X I just shut off all Dolby settings Dolby vision and Dolby Atmos.
This issue is almost over a year old with zero support.
I’m thinking of selling my Sonos system and getting the Sony HT-A9 instead with Black Friday sales happening now.
Thanks for your feedback. Each time I turn on my Apple TV 4K these settings stay stable and from what I understand, they allow for whatever content I run through the ATV to match what appears on your screen. If it’s SDR content, I’ll get it in SDR. If it’s HDR content, it runs in HDR. If it’s Dolby Vision, it will play in DV. Here is a good video showing all of this in real time. It explains it very well.
In reading your other posts, I’m a little confused. Have you tried to turn off DV on your Sony TV and had any success watching Atmos through your ATV without the popping issue? I share your frustrations and just wish we’d get more feedback from Sonos Support. Even if it’s to tell us they’ve given up if indeed that’s what’s going on.
Yes that’s exactly correct, each time you turn on your Apple TV and play Dolby Vision content it will switch to Dolby Vision. I have to manually change the format to 4K HDR to disable the Dolby Vision, while my Dolby Digital setting is at Auto, Atmos Available to play Atmos content without any issue. It is only when Dolby Vision is enabled with Dolby Atmos that the popping error occurs. This “fix” only applies to Apple TV.
One thing to note I never encountered this popping audio loss problem on my Apple TV with Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos playing at the same time, until after it was initially caused by my Xbox Series X was connected to my Sony. The Xbox Series X was a recent purchase. After the Xbox Series X caused the error, only then do I now have a permanent the aforementioned issue playing Dolby Vision and Atmos at the same time.
So yes, by setting my Apple TV Video format to 4KHDR when playing Dolby Vision content, that will allow me my Sonos Arc to play Dolby Atmos without any issues.
It is a nuisance, that when you play any content with a Dolby Vision, once the content begins, you must go into your settings to “disable Dolby Vision” by changing the format to 4K HDR. In order to play Dolby Atmos content without any issues.
I also have had a PS5 and never encountered any issues.
Turning DV off on my Sony TV made zero difference. The problem still occurs. It is only by turning off Dolby Vision on Apple TV. When I used to play my Xbox Series I have to disable both Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos. I have since sold my Xbox Series X.
With all due respect, have you tried lately? I called (again) in early October and was told by a very nice operator to ‘change my cables.’ Something Sonos Support told me to do 10 months ago when this first started for me. Something I did even though I knew my cables were up to date. Just more money I wasted.
Changing cables and wasting money on top of line cables was a complete waste of time and money on my part as well.
I can't believe this is still happening, had my arc for 2 years now changed my tv and my hdmi cables and still getting this awful sound.
Fix this Sonos before my arc gets broken!!!!!!!
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?
We were watching a show through our Fios box and had the loud pop with the loss of sound until it had power cycled. I’m very worried about damage it may have caused. We just got this for ourselves as a Christmas gift, so it has only been used for less than 4 weeks. Any progress on a fix.
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.
I just came home with a brand new Arc and set it up with my Samsung S95B. I enabled Atmos on my Series X and everything appeared ok.
I loaded up Overwatch 2 and less than a minute into the game…“POP” and the sound cut off. :| I quit out of the game and there was another smaller pop and then the audio returned. This is very disheartening.
I was aware of this issue from browsing the forums but was hoping I wouldn’t be affected or at least not often.
I captured a diagnostic and called Sonos support and they basically just said since my sound had returned the issue was fixed and if it happens again to call back. They seemed very dismissive of the popping sound/cutoff occurring which is obviously what the concern is.
I don’t know what to do now as far as keeping or returning. Again this is very disheartening after spending $1000. I’m already scared to leave Atmos enabled but and not sure if it’s worth it without it.
I know this has been a long standing issue but is there any acknowledgment or confidence that this will be resolved?
I had time for a small experiment today. I bought a fiber optic HDMI cable to connect the Arc to the TV. Fiber cables contain active chips at each end that convert between electrical and optical signals.
I got the usual pop within half an hour. I believe this eliminates the physical layer of the connection as the problem since there is no electrical connection between the TV (and Apple TV) and the Arc anymore.
Not a huge surprise. I think we are all expecting this to come down to how Sonos decodes Dolby MAT. But there you have it.
+3
Our two posts crossed - it makes me think perhaps there is an issue with the LPCM format with Atmos, but obviously that’s just a guess on my part, but it seems to be one of the common denominators whenever people report this popping sound.
This has been my theory for a long time — between Apple TV, Xbox and Roku — it’s the common denominator: Dolby MAT.
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.
+3
Yes they are all using Atmos
Curious.
For me, I’m sold on it being a software issue as I was using the Arc in the same hardware configuration for a good 12 months before I experienced the pop, which only occurred after major revisions to the Sonos OS, Apple TV, and BRAVIA XH92. 🤔
The challenge may be, and I’m guessing here, that it’s not a Sonos issue at all, but something that’s being sent from the TV (although that may not be the origination point, I don’t know). If that’s the case, Sonos is merely playing what they’ve been told to play, and it’s the switching upstream by some other device that’s causing the issue.
I do tend to agree with
And if that is the case, Sonos is unlikely to call out publicly who the responsible party is, since they’re on the “we want to be friends with everyone so they’ll interface with our system” train.
All I can say for sure is that I’ve not had this issue on my system, which is indeed driven by an Apple TV through a Vizio TV to a Sonos Arc. But that doesn’t mean it’s not happening at all, just means that there’s something else going on, and it may not be an endemic issue with Sonos itself.
+3
I had time for a small experiment today. I bought a fiber optic HDMI cable to connect the Arc to the TV. Fiber cables contain active chips at each end that convert between electrical and optical signals.
I got the usual pop within half an hour. I believe this eliminates the physical layer of the connection as the problem since there is no electrical connection between the TV (and Apple TV) and the Arc anymore.
Not a huge surprise. I think we are all expecting this to come down to how Sonos decodes Dolby MAT. But there you have it.
If this is indeed down to the Sonos’ decoding of MAT, this was introduced during 13.4 (The one bringing DTS support). Well, for me at least.
From Dec 2020-Oct 2021; I had no issues with the exact same setup that I had now. Both DA and DV enabled from the Apple TV. 🤷♂️
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.
Hey, I read online disabling the auto HDR feature on the Xbox and switching audio delay to on with the arcana should stop this happening. I have an arcana too and this is what the engineers who make the arcana suggest on their discord 
If you give this a go and let us know if it works that'd be brilliant. In the process of testing this myself
Thanks for sharing that,
A couple of people on the discord said it’s not happened since, it hasn’t happened to myself either yet but very limited use. It’s not perfect scenario due to me having Arcana but the issue does occur with LG eARC tv’s commonly from what I’ve seen. I’ll keep the auto HDR feature turned off and then keep you posted on whether it happens again.
I’m having the same issue as OP but on my Gen 2 Beam (with One and One SL as surrounds) connected via eARC through a Samsung QN65Q80A to an Apple TV 4K 2nd Gen.
Every 30 minutes of play or so there is a loud “pop” followed by a beam restart. Only happens with Dolby ATMOS audio.
+18
Hi
We’re not aware of this issue happening on Beam, though it is related to Atmos. Therefore, we would appreciate it - if it ever happens again - if you could immediately submit a support diagnostic and later get in touch with our technical support team so we can document the occurrence. We’re also not aware of this issue causing any actual damage to the units it happens on.
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.
So we have Corry P employed at SONOS who likes the post above.
Are these the answers we will get from SONOS?
Corry P has been very active today on the community. With lots of written responses to other threads. But we get the thumbs up on a post.
Incidentally, I was at 9 dealers today. No one absolutely no one mentioned that there might be problems with Apple TV or Xbox if you want Dolby Atmos.
Sonos it's time to give us an answer.
About a month ago I worked with you to get some devmode capture of the pop as produced with Apple Tv and Xbox. Both when playing sound and also when the Apple TV was just on screensaver.
After being without Atmos for more than a year, and with Apple releasing its new HomePods today, I have to figure out for myself if it’s time to go through the pain of selling my Sonos system and changing horses so that I can have Atmos back. No hard feelings, it is what it is.
+18
Hi Everyone
If any of you are able to reproduce one of these “popping” events more or less at will, please help us by getting in touch with our technical support team, as we’re looking for more information on this matter. It does seem to occur most often - but is definitely not limited to - when an audio stream starts/stops or changes from one to another or , e.g. going from a playing movie to a menu, rather than when something is playing uninterrupted. We need some additional testers to assist us in getting a direct recording of the feed from an affected unit, as it happens.
This is somewhat outside of our normal case handling procedures, so if/when you have a support case, please reference this thread to the agent you speak to, and ask the agent to message me, Corry P, the case details so I can get you in touch with an engineer directly.
Thank you.
Edit: We’re no longer looking for assistance with this. Thank you to all those who got in touch.
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