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.
Just ordered both beam and arc to see which is best. With all this going on, should I just return the arc and keep the beam?
I only have a gen 1 Beam myself (no Atmos) but my understanding is that both the current Beam and Arc are affected.
So I think the real question is whether you’re cool with turning off Atmos. Hopefully we’ll get a fix and then we can turn it back on.
Oh. Is it only with particular devices? Is the new apple 4k tv that just came out affected? Ps5? TIA
No I have a PS5, no issues. My 4K Apple TV is the previous version. And it only began to have issues, after my Xbox Series X started the problem in the first place. I’ve also read that the Gen 2 Beam also has sound popping issues on Reddit. I don’t know if it’s the same issue. The only thing I know in my case as well as others who have the same set up as me, the Sonos Arc has issues playing Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos content at the same time, after the Xbox Series X initially causes the popping sound. Look into the Sony HT-A9 sound system.
Or another soundbar. This issue is over a year old and unfortunately nothing has been done about it from the Sonos end of things.
+18
Hi
Thanks for the update — that said, I’m not entirely sure about “audio stream starts/stops or changes from one to another”, as the pops that myself and others seem to endure are mid-stream. And even then, it’s not part of the audio track that’s the trigger. Rewinding over the same spot will not induce the same issue.
I agree, and have edited my post a little to emphasise that point. Thanks!
Whilst there are crackles and pops that occur when changes sources, such as the Netflix auto-play of trailers when navigating the menu, that’s a different kettle of fish entirely. A small static pop compared to the “bang” followed by a full frontal audio dropout most of us are describing here.
I personally don’t know a lot about it, but I think one is causing the other - not that they are the same thing.
I’ve previously submit several audio captures to a Tier2 support engineer via the Sonos ARC’s “devmode” — hopefully these have made it up the chain…
They have indeed - thank you!
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. 🤷♂️
As I’ve said before, prior to connecting an Xbox Series X, I had zero issues playing DV and DA content simultaneously on my Apple TV for over a year. Then as soon as I plugged in the Xbox Series X, Pop error, and now my Sonos Arc has a permanent error playing any DV DA content from my Apple TV or any source with DV and DA content playing through the arc. And of course all of us (with Sonos Arcs) are connecting our Sonos Arc on the e-arc hdmi input on our TVs.
This is now a 2 year old problem, and the entire point of “upgrading” to the Sonos Arc was to utilize Dolby Atmos, but now we can’t.
Just ordered both beam and arc to see which is best. With all this going on, should I just return the arc and keep the beam?
If you do end up going with Sonos, depending on your space and living situation, I would go with the Arc with two Sonos One Gen 2 for surround (and the subwoofer if you live in a house), for the living room and Beam Gen 2 for the bedroom.
Just don’t ever hook up an Xbox Series X to your Sonos. Ever! Lol. I wish I hadn’t. PS5 and Switch had no problems for 2 years. Until I bought an Xbox Series X. And Apple TV 4K is fine as long as you never ever hook up an Xbox Series X. I never tried the beam, the beam has their own issues apparently.
Had I known about all of this prior I would never have gotten the Xbox, this is a good time now to look into the Sony HT-A9 with the Black Friday sales.
At first when I removed Alexa and set Compressed Audio to Uncompressed, it took hours of Atmos content for the pop to reappear. I thought we might have a solution! But now that it has happened once, it’s coming back in the usual less than 30 minutes under either setting.
I completed all testing using Apple TV and did not use my Xbox in between.
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.
Thanks, dude. I’m just frustrated. I’ll try to hang to hang in there a little longer.
When it works, it really does sound great.
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.
+3
Not using the Sonos provided cable here – one of three pack of 48Gbps 8K Cable Matters HDMI leads.
Has been fine for the most part of a year, until mid-October.
Seems a majority of us are using Sony Bravia, and the X900H series. The Android 11 firmware was released not long before this October time frame… 🤔
+3
I still stand by my Dolby MAT theory – it’s the only consistent point between Apple TV and Xbox Series X.
Sorry to hear it, dude. Once you’ve had the first pop, they keep coming back often.
If you want to test, or catch a diagnostic, or get it on video: play an Apple Music spatial audio playlist on your Apple TV. I bet you’ll reliably get a pop inside 30 minutes.
I am playing ‘Made for Spatial Music’ on Apple Music thru my TV and Apple TV. Let’s see. Will post an update.
My Living Room has an older setup as well with Beam, Play-1’s and Gen 2 sub. No serious issues ever for years in that setup.
I had my same set up (Sony 900H, Apple TV4K, Sonos Arc, Sonos One Surrounds) for over a year with no issue ever. Then last spring, out of the blue: BANG. Then it popped every 15 to 20 minutes after that while watching Atmos Content. Sad.
That certainly suggests to me that the issue is upstream from Sonos, either the TV not handling the stream properly, or the device feeding the TV sending a signal that the TV passes on to the outboard speakers.
We have lots of reports of both Xbox and Apple TV being affected. And these are widespread devices from major manufacturers, so it might just be their popularity causing the reports.
Likewise we have lots of reports from both Sony and LG TVs passing the signal. Again, major popular manufactures.
On the other hand, we only have reports of Sonos devices being affected. Granted, this is a Sonos forum. But nobody is linking to similar threads about other sound bars and any request for examples is avoided.
The weight of the evidence is pointing at a solution having to come from Sonos. Yes, maybe the Atmos spec is somehow not being followed by the major content players and TVs, but even if (if!) that is the case, it’ll still be on Sonos to fix it in software if they want to keep selling devices. I know I have stopped buying further Sonos devices until my Arc can play Atmos.
Has anyone tested the Apple TV 4K 3rd-gen with this issue yet? Thinking about picking one up today or tomorrow to see if the issue exists with that combination of hardware, I did try a bunch of config changes to my setup and had the pop happen within 30 minutes again
I haven’t experienced it since that one time months ago but it just happened twice within 5 minutes of the initial pop while playing the Resident Evil 4 Remake demo on Xbox Series X. I have had CEC disabled on the Xbox side for months which I thought fixed the issue but it didn’t.
I am not disabling Atmos on a Soundbar I bought specifically because it has Atmos. This should have been fixed by now.
I reckon that almost every report I have ever read about this ‘popping’ issue mentioned online in relation to Soundbar’s (not just Sonos ones, but others brands too) that somewhere in the HT setup, is either an XBox or an Apple TV-4K (or both) - those two connected products seem to be a common denominator and it’s certainly happening with other manufacturers Soundbars, if you look online. It makes me wonder if it’s not a Sonos-owned issue🤔??
It might also ‘perhaps’ explain why Sonos is not making any public comment about the issue, if it is partner-related.
Came across something interesting on Reddit
In this post the user has the same issue discussed many times in this forum, however making changes to the video setting seems to have fixed his issues.
Wondering if this is a Dolby Vision / Dolby Atmos combination thing? I know for me I get this issue on the Xbox series X and have both activated all the time. I don’t get this on the Apple TV because I match dynamic range settings
What are others experiences??
This is exactly correct. As soon as I disable Dolby Vision, Dolby Atmos works perfectly without any popping, as soon as I enable Dolby Vision on Apple TV, pop within 7min, every time. Hard reset repeat, always occurs. I was a QA Tester for Sony, and this what would be classed as an “A” Bug. It is reproducible. And it always initially occurs with an Xbox Series X. Prior to last week, when I got an Xbox Series X, I had zero issues with my Apple TV no matter what the setting or content. As soon as the Xbox Series X was played with Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos, this error occured. After which, the Apple TV 4K began to have issues and is now permanently having issues. So Brian, this IS a Sonos issue, as once the error has occurred from initial Xbox Series X connection, now any Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos combined from any source, Sonos Arc can no longer function properly.
+18
Hi
what wil sonos do to resolve it. Do we need to change a setting to prevent this till a solution is coming.
The issue happens on other brands too, so a resolution is not something we’re in the right place to achieve. We’re seeking ways to mitigate the problem in the meantime.
You can prevent it from happening by disabling Dolby Atmos (on your TV), as reported at the start of this thread.
For sure you could replicate this in your test center?
We have been so far unable to reproduce it ourselves - thus the need for engineers to contact anyone who can reproduce it reliably.
Sorry to hear that. I’ve been pop free since Xbox CEC off. But of course there’s some background anxiety every time I watch Atmos now.
I think that discomfort won’t really go away until we have an official statement from Sonos or a software fix.
Ah that’s great thanks! I’ll keep an eye on my emails :)
Came across something interesting on Reddit
In this post the user has the same issue discussed many times in this forum, however making changes to the video setting seems to have fixed his issues.
Wondering if this is a Dolby Vision / Dolby Atmos combination thing? I know for me I get this issue on the Xbox series X and have both activated all the time. I don’t get this on the Apple TV because I match dynamic range settings
What are others experiences??
This is exactly correct. As soon as I disable Dolby Vision, Dolby Atmos works perfectly without any popping, as soon as I enable Dolby Vision on Apple TV, pop within 7min, every time. Hard reset repeat, always occurs. I was a QA Tester for Sony, and this what would be classed as an “A” Bug. It is reproducible. And it always initially occurs with an Xbox Series X. Prior to last week, when I got an Xbox Series X, I had zero issues with my Apple TV no matter what the setting or content. As soon as the Xbox Series X was played with Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos, this error occured. After which, the Apple TV 4K began to have issues and is now permanently having issues. So Brian, this IS a Sonos issue, as once the error has occurred from initial Xbox Series X connection, now any Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos combined from any source, Sonos Arc can no longer function properly.
I tried the “disable Dolby Vision” on Apple TV and still had the pop occur when playing Atmos yesterday
We have been so far unable to reproduce it ourselves - thus the need for engineers to contact anyone who can reproduce it reliably.
I would get it occassionally with PC → LG CX → Sonos Arc
After I got rid of my LG CX and replaced with a monitor (PC → HDFury Arcana → Sonos Arc) I found that I can now reproduce the popping at will by running the Windows System Sound Test:
System → Sound → Arcana Properties → Select “Dobly Atmos for home theatre” and click TEST.
The pop happens consistently. I’m glad to put in a case if the engineers want to get on a call and monitor in real-time.
Upgraded from a playbar to Arc a couple of weeks back. LG C1 and an Xbox one X. Had popping a number of times now.
Previously zero issues before the Arc. This must be a sonos Atmos issue.
Have they even acknowledged this as a bug? Not really acceptable for any product, let alone one that costs this much.
Sonos?
What is being done about this?
Be prepared for people on here to attack you claiming this isn’t Sonos’ fault and they have nothing to fix or even acknowledge
Have the same issue with apple tv & Sony x91j, it’s insane that an atmos capable device is just another sound bar now. Not worth >$2k if this is the support customers get.
I can confirm that I switched off Dolby vision 2 weeks ago. I haven't had a single issue since with Atmos. Just wanted everyone to know!
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.
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