Sonos Sub Gen 3 crackling/static sound

Similar experience here, BE market. I think I may be one of the "lucky" ones with a fairly okay sample. Being in the 0.0001% top auditive range of population (since I have become 98% blind) I noticed it right away. As I removed and readded it from the system it went from the rattling to the static noise, which is far less annoying in my opinion. Adding ethernet kind of helped too, but not sure about that. Either way, I can hear it from about 6 metres away but my girlfriend only did when she was holding her ear in the sub (even with 2% vision, a very pleasant sight ha!), which seems less than what some of you are experiencing. Fearful of it deteriorating though. 

I'm planning to contact support and redirect them to this thread, waving the request or counter-proposal for a substitute which is just wasting their time really, especially in this pandemic situation. I hope that legally expressing my desire to return, but only once they are able to replace with a fixed production line extends the window to do so. From the positive help a lot of people seem to have gotten I'd say Sonos cares enough not to screw its' customers over on such technicalities. That alone is rare nowadays. 

Wishing the best to all fellow sub-owners and the people at Sonos who are probably stressed out of their mind to adress this as the complaints roll in. We don't buy these on the short-term, a solution might not be found in such time either. Hopefully they can find a way to fix and replace case by case rather than recalling. 

Received my replacement unit today (NL). Same serial range 54-2A-1B but is definitely does not have the issues. 

When no music is playing and I place my ear almost inside the hole I can here a very silent small zoom, but I definitely can't hear it when I'm in the chair next to it and it doesn't produce all kinds of side noises when music is playing.

Happy! And probably lucky.

If you hear that idle static noise when putting ear to the sub, you should be also hearing it when music is playing (by putting year to the sub).

Latest conversation with Sonos and they say that they are “tracking the issue”, which is odd because they have so far being denying that anyone else has reported a problem!
 

i have turned down the offer of yet another replacement and will give it a another few weeks to see if they come forward with a properly engineered solution...

I have this issue with a 7 day old Gen 3 sub purchased from John Lewis in the UK.

I created a separate thread as I hadn’t spotted this one, but having read through this in full it is the same issue.

Hardware Version: 1.32.1.4-2.2

Sub has an electrical hum when plugged in. There is a bit of crackle but not as bad as the videos linked in this thread. The hum is louder when the sub is “awake”. The hum can be heard from about 0.5m away. All my other Sonos products are “clean” in that they don’t hum.

I can probably live with it… but I am concerned that it will get worse over time. Given the direction of this thread, I am very tempted to return it as I am inside my “no questions asked” return period with the retailer.

My impression is that this is an issue with the PSU or some other electrical component(s) in the unit. It doesn’t sound like the hum is coming from the speakers themselves, but from inside the sub.

I have the same problem. It’s a really bad an annoying flaw. Constant rapid clicking. Loud enough to make me want to return the product. Very very poor Sonos!!!

This evening I moved the Sub from one side of the room to the other. It is now close to the Arc. The hum has remained the same but I can now hear the “crickets” more clearly. This feels like some sort of shielding issue?

The more of these comments that appear the more I am convinced that there are at least two sources of the noise, both a result of a lack of shielding in the audio path.

The hum noise is certainly just good old fashioned mains pickup at 50 or 60hz depending upon the local mains supply frequency.

The ‘ticking’ , ‘crackling’ or ‘hard drive’ noise could be due to crosstalk from the switched mode PSU or even a demodulated WiFi signal or similar.

My current unit generates mostly a humming noise although on careful listening I can hear the feint chirp of the switched mode poser supply.

I have a similar issue, tried a reset and moved the sub to a new location, I’m currently within the 14 day return window so trying to decide what to do, will call Sonos support on Monday and take it from there. 

Reading through all the new comments and it sounds like almost every g3 sub has this issue in some form. At this point, I’m thinking this has to be coil whine from the PSU due to how it increases in volume when the sub is no longer idle and is drawing more power. There is nothing Sonos will be able to do software side if this is the case and I imagine they will argue that this is in the normal range of electrical hum for a consumer electronic. Pretty huge disappointment for a high end audio product.