Sonos Arc loud pop then audio loss


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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.

Corry P 5 months ago

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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Adding my identical experience to this thread. 
 

Sonos Arc. Xbox Series X with Dolby Atmos selected. CEC disabled. LGC1 utilizing eArc.
 

Loud pop (like a gunshot) whenever I leave a game running Dolby Atmos and return to the Xbox dashboard. Horrifying every time. 
 

Grateful for RC12’s advocacy on this thread.
 

C’mon Sonos.

Cleary, you have identical hardware and setup to me.  If you disable “Dolby Vision” and “Dolby Vision for gaming” on your Series X.  Do you get the pop? 

 

Update: turned off Dolby Vision on my Xbox Series X and played a couple hours with frequent jumps back to the dashboard. No gunshot pop sound as of yet!…

Xbox Series X in 4K/120fps mode with VRR. Both CEC and Dolby Vision are disabled. Dolby Atmos back on. Sonos Arc and Sonos Sub (Gen 3). LG C1 with Sonos Arc on eARC, Pass Through, Bitstream. SIMPLINK-CEC on LG C1 set to On,

 

Total conjecture: does some credence to the idea that the Xbox with 4K 120fps VRR Dolby vision is hitting the LGC1’s 40 gbps HDMI 2.1 with the Dolby MAT encoding on Dolby Atmos. Maybe?

Will keep testing (ie gaming for science)

Glad to hear, figured it was worth trying seeing that you have identical hardware to me and get the pop in the exact same scenario I do.  
 

Certainly leads to some interesting theories as to why the particular hardware configuration behaves once Dolby vision is removed.  Does anybody have the pop on a LG C2 or C3?  To expand clearys theroy, those TVs have 48 gbps ports while the C1 only has 40 gbps.  The configuration above 4K/120 10 bit colour literally consumes all 40 gbps (actually more seeing DV is 12 bit colour, tunneled back to 10 bit)

 

Ive also never tested with 4K/60hz and DV on.  But kinda scared to make changes now that it is behaving

I was actually wondering the same thing. I would love to know if people with TV’s that have full bandwidth (48gbps) HDMI 2.1 are experiencing popping issues when using Atmos on XSX or ATV. 

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Yes, I’m affected by the Sonos Pop on 48Gbps (Sony 900H). We’ve had many reports of Samsung users too in this thread. 

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Apparently Sony dropped a beta update today for the PS5 to enable Dolby Atmos for games. Anyone have access to the beta and has been able to test if the popping issue is prevalent on the PS5? 

Apparently Sony dropped a beta update today for the PS5 to enable Dolby Atmos for games. Anyone have access to the beta and has been able to test if the popping issue is prevalent on the PS5? 

Will definitely try once I have access to the beta. PS5 doesn’t have Dolby Vision (should that be involved in the Dolby Atmos pop), but will be eager to test regardless. 

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Apparently Sony dropped a beta update today for the PS5 to enable Dolby Atmos for games. Anyone have access to the beta and has been able to test if the popping issue is prevalent on the PS5? 

Will definitely try once I have access to the beta. PS5 doesn’t have Dolby Vision (should that be involved in the Dolby Atmos pop), but will be eager to test regardless. 

I believe they’re using Atmos to power their 3D Audio. If it’s not MAT format we won’t see any issues. I’m hoping for the best because I’d love to use my PS5 with Atmos when Spider-Man 2 arrives

Apparently Sony dropped a beta update today for the PS5 to enable Dolby Atmos for games. Anyone have access to the beta and has been able to test if the popping issue is prevalent on the PS5? 

Will definitely try once I have access to the beta. PS5 doesn’t have Dolby Vision (should that be involved in the Dolby Atmos pop), but will be eager to test regardless. 

I believe they’re using Atmos to power their 3D Audio. If it’s not MAT format we won’t see any issues. I’m hoping for the best because I’d love to use my PS5 with Atmos when Spider-Man 2 arrives

Agreed. 

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I’m a PS5 beta tester , and I can confirm loud pop also exist on the ps5 atmos . I was playing god of war Ragnarok once it loaded to the main menu loud pop occurred . Same as Xbox series X . Now more users will notice this is the problem in the future hopefully this will get more people to voice up and complain. Push Sonos to make this an official problem and get their ass to fix this damn issue . It’s very very very  frustrating !!!

 

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I’m a PS5 beta tester , and I can confirm loud pop also exist on the ps5 atmos . I was playing god of war Ragnarok once it loaded to the main menu loud pop occurred . Same as Xbox series X . Now more users will notice this is the problem in the future hopefully this will get more people to voice up and complain. Push Sonos to make this an official problem and get their ass to fix this damn issue . It’s very very very  frustrating !!!

 

Damn, that’s * news.  Thanks for testing it out.

LPCM is still an option, though, right?

 

Moderator Note: Modified in accordance with the Community Code of Conduct.*

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Yup LPCM option still there . I been doing some test , when I’m playing final fantasy 16 on VRR which is 48-60hz then no pop at all but when I switch back to god of war Ragnarok running VRR 48-120hz then loud pop occurs . Now we know 120hz is the problem that causing the pop . Just like the Xbox series X

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Yup LPCM option still there . I been doing some test , when I’m playing final fantasy 16 on VRR which is 48-60hz then no pop at all but when I switch back to god of war Ragnarok running VRR 48-120hz then loud pop occurs . Now we know 120hz is the problem that causing the pop . Just like the Xbox series X

That’s actually really encouraging.  Hopefully others can recreate and confirm once the update goes live and Sonos can use that as a jumping off point to finally resolve this.

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But that means that the PS5 also runs with MAT Dolby Atmos. Anything else would have surprised me too. DD+ Dolby Atmos is only used by streaming providers like Netflix and Disney+, right?

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Blunderdome, what TV hardware do you have?

Gathered you were running 4K/120 with VRR enabled?  
 

Paul Tsang, same question to you?

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Blunderdome, what TV hardware do you have?

Gathered you were running 4K/120 with VRR enabled?  
 

Paul Tsang, same question to you?

LG C2, so yeah, 4K/120 +VRR.

Edit: Note that I do not have the PS5 beta firmware and haven’t tested on it.

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Yup LPCM option still there . I been doing some test , when I’m playing final fantasy 16 on VRR which is 48-60hz then no pop at all but when I switch back to god of war Ragnarok running VRR 48-120hz then loud pop occurs . Now we know 120hz is the problem that causing the pop . Just like the Xbox series X

I, and many others, have experienced the pop at 60 Hz on Apple TV. I have also experienced the pop at 60 Hz on Xbox. The Sony 900H has an issue with 120 Hz where it lowers the vertical resolution to 1080, not the only TV model to do this, so I would play at 4K60 with VRR without Dolby Vision. Still pops when enabling Atmos. 

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Blunderdome, what TV hardware do you have?

Gathered you were running 4K/120 with VRR enabled?  
 

Paul Tsang, same question to you?

Sony A90J tv , 120hz VRR . I have no issue on Apple TV , I heard changing setting on the Apple TV to match content to dynamic range and frame rate then the pop won’t happens

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Same problem with PS5 beta firmware and a Samsung Q95T connected using e-arc.

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When this PS5 firmware enabling Atmos goes public release, we’ll have a whole new influx of affected users, won’t we?

 

@rc12 did a bang up job summarizing the problem to date. I think that’s a great reference post for new users joining our thread. We should see if we can point them to it. 
 

Is there a way to make that post the “best answer” for this thread?

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Popped again playing on PS5 with beta firmware . This time playing horizon zero dawn forbidden west. It’s so * annoying and horrible experience . Sonos get this fix now . Makes me want to rip that stupid ARC and slams it on the floor 🤬

 

*Moderator Note: Modified in accordance with the Community Code of Conduct.*

Interesting. I am owner of Sonos Home Theatre (Sonos Arc + Sub 3rd gen + 2xOne SL) for almost 3 years, owning Apple TV 4K (2021) - Dolby Atmos enabled, PS5 - all connected into LG OLED TV CX (eARC enabled, CEC enabled, Passthrough enabled) and I have never experienced the Arc popping sound. 

I am paying for top-tier Netlifx, Disney+, HBO Max, Apple Music, playing Atmos movies from native LG apps, Apple TV apps, Apple Music, but never experienced it.

When I will be able to test PS5 beta firmware, I will test as well.

May be the only 40Gbps HDMI ports on LG TV CX has something to do with that, but so far I was lucky.
 

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Here is a chance for us to ask questions about this live. Today, 8/2 at 2pm Eastern, 11am Pacific. 
 

https://www.sonos.com/en-us/sonos-live?sms_click=2272277&sms_source=e8e12f83-b87b-473c-8e0d-bf1eb8781673&sms_uph=4e44b0251fe950c168ba54823efb7fd1e55c4c1a68a93b964138ae2104cd2ab0&utm_campaign=SMS_LiveEvent-Era-JoinNow2&utm_medium=text&utm_source=wunderkind&utm_term=ondemand

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I doubt they will answer any technical /bug question in the live chat . They will only talk about how great the product is and how it works etc 

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The live chat is already over. Did anybody have a chance to bring up the Sonos Pop? What did they say?

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The live chat is already over. Did anybody have a chance to bring up the Sonos Pop? What did they say?

It was one of the first chat questions and was answered within the chat. It was not addressed by the hosts. Here’s the chat dialogue. 

Question: Are you guys going to address the pops you get with the arc? 

Answer: Good Q, this will focus on Arc, but for issues with your speaker I can post our technical support info in a moment

🤨

 

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The live chat is already over. Did anybody have a chance to bring up the Sonos Pop? What did they say?

It was one of the first chat questions and was answered within the chat. It was not addressed by the hosts. Here’s the chat dialogue. 

Question: Are you guys going to address the pops you get with the arc? 

Answer: Good Q, this will focus on Arc, but for issues with your speaker I can post our technical support info in a moment

🤨

Way to brush off the question again . They knew that’s the problem but will never man enough to address it officially . It is not something wrong to say “ we sucked , we can’t fix this issue and you all have to stuck with this issue but we are willing to give you a special voucher code to compensate this problem that caused you . 

 

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Sonos is being ridiculous here. 
 

“this will focus on the Arc”

 

We’re trying to focus on the Arc. This is why we’re asking you about a solution when supports been silent. 

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