Contributor I

Sonos Arc loud pop then audio loss

1202 replies
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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.

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Pinned Reply By Corry P

Hi Everyone!

Good news! We are pleased to share that our team has identified a fix for the popping sound on Arc and it will be shipped to all customers as part of a software release today, Thursday Nov 16 at 09:30 ET, 14:30 GMT, 15:30 CET. Please note that some app stores may take an extra hour or two for it to become available.

During our investigation we uncovered a rare bug that impacts how Sonos Arc and Beam (Gen 2) in certain home theater configurations process Dolby MAT, a streaming technology which is used to deliver Dolby Atmos audio over HDMI. Occasionally a Sonos product will receive a corrupted audio segment from an external source and needs to filter out unwanted audio data. The bug we identified was allowing our Dolby decoder to play audible errors on certain home theater setups rather than concealing them. The solution we’ve built and tested improves our Dolby decoder so it better filters out corrupt audio data that can manifest as a popping sound. We’ll continue to monitor customer feedback closely after the fix has been released and ship additional updates if necessary.

We strive to deliver the best listening experience possible and work to address major issues that impact our customers. We apologize for the disruption this bug has caused and want to thank you for your patience while our team developed a fix.

We would also like to thank our community users for their detailed setup information and steps to reproduce the issue, which were helpful to us in uncovering the cause of the bug.

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K

KrylonBlue

Enthusiast II

There haven’t been any updates as of yet. I also haven’t heard a thing despite following up with them by email regarding an open ticket I have with Sonos.

L

LuiG

Enthusiast I

Any luck with the 15.5 update?

P

ProfessorFrag

Enthusiast II

Any luck with the 15.5 update?

I like to think @Corry P would come in here and tell us if Sonos had any hope that they had fixed the pop.

A

Abo116

Lyricist III

Any luck with the 15.5 update?

I like to think @Corry P would come in here and tell us if Sonos had any hope that they had fixed the pop.

I think if a Sonos update finally fixes this long-standing problem, you'd hear about it before the update rolls out.

R

rc12

Lyricist III

I have been told my Sonos support that “at this moment we are having an issue with that, so it is something that we are investigating.” I went through all their “troubleshooting recommendations” re: new cords, CEC disabling, resetting the TV, resetting Apple TV, resetting Arc, etc, and obviously no changes. I was told “the workaround we have so far is to Disable Dolby Atmos and use Dolby Digital 5.1 instead. I know that is not what you expected, but we are working hard to solve it as soon as possible.” I was told today that the case was escalated to a Level 3 engineer, but they could not give me the name or contact information of anyone in specific who is working on the issue - I was promised that someone would reach out via email. I think anyone dealing with this issue should continue reaching out to Sonos regularly, as it is clear that this is an ongoing common problem with the way the Arc handles Atmos content - it seems to mainly affect Atmos content coming from a Xbox or ATV and suspect it may have something to do with the processing of a MAT container. At $900 for a sound bar with Atmos advertised as a main feature, this should NOT be an issue that has been allowed to languish for two years.

Obi-Wan Aloni

Trending Lyricist I

I have been told my Sonos support that “at this moment we are having an issue with that, so it is something that we are investigating.” I went through all their “troubleshooting recommendations” re: new cords, CEC disabling, resetting the TV, resetting Apple TV, resetting Arc, etc, and obviously no changes. I was told “the workaround we have so far is to Disable Dolby Atmos and use Dolby Digital 5.1 instead. I know that is not what you expected, but we are working hard to solve it as soon as possible.” I was told today that the case was escalated to a Level 3 engineer, but they could not give me the name or contact information of anyone in specific who is working on the issue - I was promised that someone would reach out via email. I think anyone dealing with this issue should continue reaching out to Sonos regularly, as it is clear that this is an ongoing common problem with the way the Arc handles Atmos content - it seems to mainly affect Atmos content coming from a Xbox or ATV and suspect it may have something to do with the processing of a MAT container. At $900 for a sound bar with Atmos advertised as a main feature, this should NOT be an issue that has been allowed to languish for two years.

Joining you in your experience, I had the same, including replacing my Arc to a new Arc - and the pop did happen again with the new speaker. When reaching out ro support again was yold, like you were, to disabling Atmos.

After purchasing additional 300's, disabling Atmos isn't an option for me. I hope this gets resolved. I have and over 2000$ set. This is unacceptable.

K

KrylonBlue

Enthusiast II

I have been told my Sonos support that “at this moment we are having an issue with that, so it is something that we are investigating.” I went through all their “troubleshooting recommendations” re: new cords, CEC disabling, resetting the TV, resetting Apple TV, resetting Arc, etc, and obviously no changes. I was told “the workaround we have so far is to Disable Dolby Atmos and use Dolby Digital 5.1 instead. I know that is not what you expected, but we are working hard to solve it as soon as possible.” I was told today that the case was escalated to a Level 3 engineer, but they could not give me the name or contact information of anyone in specific who is working on the issue - I was promised that someone would reach out via email. I think anyone dealing with this issue should continue reaching out to Sonos regularly, as it is clear that this is an ongoing common problem with the way the Arc handles Atmos content - it seems to mainly affect Atmos content coming from a Xbox or ATV and suspect it may have something to do with the processing of a MAT container. At $900 for a sound bar with Atmos advertised as a main feature, this should NOT be an issue that has been allowed to languish for two years.

Joining you in your experience, I had the same, including replacing my Arc to a new Arc - and the pop did happen again with the new speaker. When reaching out ro support again was yold, like you were, to disabling Atmos.

After purchasing additional 300's, disabling Atmos isn't an option for me. I hope this gets resolved. I have and over 2000$ set. This is unacceptable.

Same here.

Arc + Era 300 means Atmos is a must. Disabling is it unacceptable. Not happening.

The fix should have existed ages ago.

R

rc12

Lyricist III

Hey @Corry P would you or one of your colleagues be able to provide some updates on this issue? It would be helpful for those of us (877 replies on this thread is a bad sign) impacted to get some more specific clarity on precisely who is working on this issue and what has been done so far. I know some have raised the point that it is challenging to reproduce - I am more than happy to send a video or send in my unit because its honestly pretty easy to reproduce because it happens so regularly and predictably with Atmos content (LG C2 TV with Apple TV). Where do things stand presently?

S

seanh01

Lyricist I

This thread runs to 36 pages and now I wish to add my voice to the mix. I have the same problem - on an ARC that is only a few months old. With me, it happens - sometimes - when I am playing Atmos content from Apple TV through an LG 65” CX screen - in passthrough.

Shortly after starting the offending content the Arc makes a load crackle/pop and I have loss of audio. The central light on the Arc comes on red for a second then goes green and finally goes out. After that, it works fine - but, like others, I am concerned that this is damaging a very expensive piece of equipment.

Come on Sonos! You have a top end product yet this has been going on for two years. The solution is NOT to disable Atmos. I am sure you will not want a bunch of warranty returns for damage to the product.

Ken_Griffiths

I asked an online AI about this issue and the reply was this shown below (summarised)…

…..

When playing LPCM Atmos audio to a soundbar, the popping noise output is caused by the audio format's metadata. LPCM Atmos audio contains metadata that instructs the soundbar to switch between different audio channels and speaker configurations. This switching process can cause a brief interruption in the audio signal, resulting in a popping noise.

To prevent this popping noise, it is recommended to use an HDMI connection between the source device and the soundbar. This allows for the audio and metadata to be transmitted together, reducing the likelihood of interruptions in the signal.

…..

Make of it what you will, but it left me with the impression that the metadata is sometimes arriving at the speaker out of sync and causing the issue. If that’s the case not sure how Sonos could fix this, as any attempt to buffer the audio would throw the video on screen out of sync.

Maybe decent (short) high speed HDMI cables and an audio extractor, like an Arcana HDFury would both help improve things, bypassing the TV altogether?

I don’t suffer this issue, but thought I would just mention the response I got back from my AI search.

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