Still bad audio balancing for games with Arc Ultra, is it faulty?

If you shift the L/R balance does the center level increase? I’m not a gamer. Can you set the PS5 for simple stereo? If so, how is the center channel dialog?

No such thing for both of the things you said.

I came here to say that I’m also having problems with the Dolby Atmos setting on PS5. I’m actually finding LPCM to sound really good and balanced, meanwhile atmos is very much sounding off, like voices and waterfalls that should be surround coming from the front (generally the mix does not sound correct). I don’t have this issue with atmos supported games on PC. 
 

it seems like there’s issues with either the PS5 Dolby atmos setting or the Arc ultra with PS5 atmos.

I don’t think it’s the PS5 because when I use the TV audio from my LG C4 (which also supports Dolby Atmos), I don’t get any of the issues. Haven’t tested with another eARC soundbar, since I don’t have one, which would be an interesting test.

As I mentioned, I’m not a gamer. Also, I don’t have access to an LG TV. Technically, I think that some games are sending the L/R channels out of phase and the either the PS5 or LG is sending stereo audio out. Something in the chain is combining L/R in order to derive a center channel. The out of phase games, as a result of combining L/R, will partially cancel the center channel. I’m guessing that there is a configuration issue somewhere in the chain.

I did further testing and the only way I got the audio levels to not spike on the sides and be mixed properly was to disable eARC on the TV, but now it says Stereo PCM in the Sonos app, as opposed to multichannel PCM when eARC is switched on. If I pick Dolby Atmos on PS5 instead of LPCM then it says Dolby Digital 5.1 in the app (as opposed to Dolby Atmos when eARC is on), but this also has the same problem. I have to select LPCM on PS5 and toggle eARC off on the TV. However this sounds more flat compared to if eARC is turned on so it’s not a solution.

I’ve been searching for people talking about gaming issues in an attempt to understand mine and I think I know what’s happening with yours.

basically when the arc ultra is trying to render the surround audio and it’s way louder than the front state audio, which is why you feel like the left and right is louder than the center because that’s when things are being moved to what the bar consider its virtual surrounds.

when you disable earc it forced lpcm into stereo which resolves the issue because the bar is nolonger trying to render data intended for rear channels, so now everything is just varying degrees of front stage which is relatively well balanced.

I have a system with actual surrounds which I’ve tried disabling and removing at various points to see how the behavioir changes, unfortunately gaming with lpcm 5.1 is impossible to correctly balance and will always end up with any sound that moves away from the front staging getting way louder on the arc ultra, even if you have discreet rears it should be sending to.

You can flatten and balance the sound by leaving earc on but changing ps5 output to av amplifier with 2ch, this  forces a stereo output and eliminates the imbalance as the arc ultra will no longer send anything to its virtual surrounds supports. It’s a poor solution to a very expensive sound system but the best I’ve figured out so far.

I am glad I found your thread as I was going insane trying to find any gaming people discussing the weird balance as sounds move around you specifically on the arc ultra, which just seems broken to me.

Could this also be because you might be closer to the screen when gaming compared to when you are watching a movie?

Edit - accidentally responded to the wrong thread

The issue is the front left and right channels of the arc ultra are very quiet, a good 5dB or more than the rest and 7dB or more, quieter than the centre.  No issues playing ‘stereo’ only content as just left and right channels are matched.

Apparently ProTune is on the way that will allow front left and right channels to be increased, solving the issue.

i have raised this issue many times and Corry P has admitted the team moved on and gave up on their flagship product when it comes to a balanced sound. Shame on Sonos.

I have an update to this. I have now tested another Arc Ultra with another TV (Samsung) at a store, and there were the exact same issues with all of the games. Any and all dialog that comes from either the far left or far right speaker on the soundbar are extremely boosted. The guy in the store agreed it doesn’t sound right. This can be easily tested in the witcher 3, where there is an NPC that keeps talking in one of the towns. If you look straight at him, the sound is as expected and comes from every speaker (or at least those in the center), but if you turn around, then the sound is very boosted because the NPC talking comes from the far left or far right speaker only.

Conclusion: The Sonos Arc Ultra in general is broken for gaming. The Arc Ultra is broken in dolby atmos when gaming also, because some voices are way louder than others, also tested in store. The guy in the store also doubted that buying rears would help. The only solution is to game in stereo mode, or to buy another brand. To be fair, we weren’t able to test this on another brand soundbar, so I don’t know for sure this won’t happen with all 5.1 soundbars.

But it is the far left and far right that are very loud. I tested this in store and it was just as bad as at home, with a different Arc Ultra and different TV (tested on Samsung the frame, I have lg c4 at home). It should be the same speakers that would otherwise be rears. See my new post. What do you think? Now that I think about your post it could be that when characters talk they usually come from the 2 front side speakers which is why they are much more quiet than the far left and far right, but not sure. I am pretty sure they also speak from the centre. In any case, I have no choice but to game in stereo because this is just broken.

It could be due to the left and right being so quiet.

See if you can test, borrow or buy an OG Arc, no such issues at all! I miss my old Arc!

It is also due to the Arc Ultra not knowing what is and isn’t speech. If I put speech enhancement to max, then in Metaphor the center speech gets very muted, but not when it comes from the sides, so I think that is what is going on there. The arc ultra does this muting/boosting to some degree even with speech enhancement off, and is only boosting the sides and muting the front.

I have another update. I went back to the store and confirmed the same issues. Then, we tested the Bluesound Pulse Cinema soundbar, and it had even volume levels in both Metaphor and Witcher 3. With the Arc Ultra speech from left/right is much louder. No idea why the Arc Ultra behaves like that, but that was their own unit, which has the same problem as mine, so it must be a general thing with the Arc Ultra, because the Bluesound wasn’t like that.

Is there still no update? How is it acceptable that the flagship product of Sonos is terrible with PS5? The mixing is extremely bad and it wasn’t the case on my Beam or original Arc. So it’s clearly a matter of sound mixing. The ARC Ultra is also fine with my PC or Atmos content on Apple TV. Sonos, please, it’s unacceptable that the only way to play games without absurdly imbalanced mixing is to use stereo…

I have been in a long e-mail process with Sonos. Their conclusion is that there is nothing wrong with the Arc Ultra, since they couldn’t find a problem in the diagnostics i sent in. Instead, they are blaming the PS5 CEC signals through HDMI, which confuses the soundbar. It’s a weird conclusion since that would mean the Arc Ultra can’t handle the signals, meaning it doesn’t work, but they wont admit that directly.

Furthermore, they haven’t actually tested anything themselves, even after they wanted me to explain my PS5 settings and send them images of it. They claim they did “internal testing”, but when I press them and ask which game, they say they didn’t test. It would be a lot of help if they tested any of the multiple games I mentioned to them, and see if they experienced the same, but they can’t be bothered to.

They recommend I try a so called CEC-less adapter between the PS5 and the TV to prevent those CEC signals, but they never tested this themselves so who knows if it would work. They said there had been people who had TV boxes where they had sound issues, or no sound at all, and using such an adapter fixed it, which is why they are speculating it would help. Anyway, as I told them, using an adapter like that would downgrade the signal from HDMI 2.1 to 2.0, which would impact the graphics and framerate, because as far as I could find, those type of adapters are only available for HDMI 2.0. It’s also ridiculous that I would even have to do that.

They are also making a logical fallacy. They say that Sonos can’t have a problem because then they would have received more reports, and therefore they blame the communication between the devices. But surely there must be tens of thousands of people using an Arc Ultra with a PS5, meaning all these people would have the same issue, so their argument doesn’t hold water. Also, this works with other soundbars, plus the same issues happen on PS4 with the Arc Ultra. I told them maybe it affects a number of Arc Ultras, like from an early batch (which could explain why the store display unit had the same issue), but they never addressed this hypothesis, and I am waiting for my latest e-mail to be answered where I repeated that and pointed out their contradiction. They could also be wrong that the issue isn’t widespread, maybe most people simply do not call them about these kind of things.

I am going to contact the store from where I bought the Arc Ultra again probably tomorrow, and see if I can forward the chain of e-mails to them for them to read through and give me feedback. When did you purchase yours? Do you know if it is an early or newer unit? Have you tried with rears?

What did Sony say, as well, since it seems to be limited to the PS5 and games?

I got it around ~8 months ago. I had issues with crackling and fuzziness from side speakers and had to replace it twice so I know the exact production batches. I’m quoting my reply from that thread: “I can confirm my third Sonos Arc Ultra will thankfully be my last. Serial number 2504 - no issues I can find. I insisted to support to try different batches and to their credit, I went 2508->2507->2504.”

So it is an early production batch. I can also be more confident about the mixing issues as I work in game dev and I actually had a friend who worked on Spider-Man 2 remark this when he visited. So I think it’s possibble my ears are a bit more attuned to this kind of imbalance, whereas many people might either:
1. Not notice
2. Assume it’s bad mixing from the game itself
3. Use it loud enough that the balancing mismatch is less apparent

It is also for sure something on the software side as Spider-Man’s audio is terrible in LCPM mode but a lot better in Atmos (which is roughly analogous to Sony’s 3D audio I suppose). It almost feels like the Arc Ultra is over/under compensating and “fighting” the PS5. And it has to be on the processing side as, again, my old Beam gen2 and Arc base had no issues in the same games.

Ghost of Tsushima is very prominent in all modes, with center channel being over-boosted. It becomes immediately clear because horse footsteps (which you hear a lot of) are incredibly loud and overbearing.

And, as you said, it’s clear with most dialogue in games when you pan the camera around and the speaker goes from side speakers to the center speaker.

My setup is:
Arc Ultra, Sub Mini, 2x Era 100’s
LG C2 with a PS5 Pro → it also passes through a Hue Sync 8K box but I sincerely doubt that’d affect anything

I frequently play games via Steam Remote Play or Moonlight/Vibepollo on my TV. Sound is fine through them. I don’t really want to waste the money but I could buy some games on sale and compare them to the PS5 game.