Surrounds are whisper quiet with Arc Ultra + AMP

Question

Summary: I have an AMP paired with an Arc Ultra to power surround speakers, and I have cannot get them to be louder than whisper quiet without also affecting the side-firing speakers on the Arc Ultra itself. I purchased two Sonance IS8s to use as surround speakers in my living room.  I purchased an AMP to power them.  I recently purchased an Arc Ultra.  I set that up using WIFI, and then I paired the AMP to it (also over WIFI).  When I am watching Dolby content (5.1+ confirmed in the app), the surround speakers are whisper quiet.  I tried adjusting the “TV Volume” slider, but that increases the surround channels on the soundbar as well as the surround speakers.  I am not sure why the soundbar continues to duplicate the sound coming from the surround speakers, but it does.  So, though this slider does make the surround speakers louder, it makes the surround coming from the soundbar itself ridiculously loud.  I also attempted to solve it with Trueplay.  I did both the simple version and the advanced version.  I also attempted to do it both ways with my phone literally right in front of the soundbar (far from the surrounds), hoping to trick it into giving me more volume from the surround speakers.  That did not work either.  I spent a lot of money on AMP, and it seems insane that I cannot simply boost the volume of the surround speakers without also changing anything that plays on the Arc Ultra.  Any ideas?  The sound is worse than what I had with a $20 5.1 receiver.  Even at their loudest, I have to stand inches away from the surrounds to hear anything from them.

Jamie A · Accepted Answer

Hi ​@Nomis Star Corps, welcome to the Sonos Community!I’m sorry to hear that you’re having trouble with your surrounds when connected to the Arc Ultra. From our internal information, this is intentional behaviour where the surround level sliders adjusts the sound level for both the Arc Ultra and the surround channels equally.I’d be happy to forward this thread to the relevant teams as a feature request for their consideration. This has been requested before on the community in other threads which I’ll link below as they have more information for you.For now, you should still be able to adjust the volume of your surround speakers (the Amp in your case) by changing thesurround distance setting.Setting it to “Less than 2 feet (0.6m)” reduces the volume, while setting it to “More than 10 feet (3m)” increases the volume. Please note that you can’t use Trueplay if you want to adjust the surround distance settings.These threads also have more information. While they’re about the Era 100 and Era 300, the information regarding the Arc Ultra should still apply to you.I hope this information helps!

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