Sonos Arc loud pop then audio loss

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.