Trueplay Bass Distortion on Play:1

A TruePlay retune and lowering the bass setting helped, but there was still distortion. In the end I've turned off TruePlay and there's no distortion.

Ive turned it off now aswell which is a shame but the bass distortion is annoying

Yeah I have a ticket open but not got anywhere with it tried everything so reverted back to normal now.

Hi just done a diag for you 5421578, its the kitchen speakers but I can also hear the same issue on my bedroom ones but its not as obvious.

I would like more information about your Sonos device and the device in question. Mind submitting a diagnostic and replying with the confirmation number? Here's an article explaining how: How to Submit Diagnostic

I seem to have this issue with my Play:1s too - I have submitted diagnostics too (5419640). Any chance you can take a look for me?

Thanks Jim. There are some network connection errors on the diagnostic from a few hours previous, nothing to worry about and not something that would cause audio quality issues. Make sure you've tried that unit in a different room and re-running Trueplay tuning. If you've done so, and the audio still doesn't sound right, I'd recommend giving us a call on our support line and working with a technician live.


Hi just done a diag for you 5421578, its the kitchen speakers but I can also hear the same issue on my bedroom ones but its not as obvious.

Thanks Ben, it'd be best updating your email ticket with the technician. I'll make sure to add these notes to it for you.

I'll give that a try and come contact support if need be - thanks.

Out of curiosity - if it's OK in a different room, what could have be the issue?

Sometimes the tuning will have some strange effects on the acoustics of the room and artifacts will become visible on certain frequencies; this can sometimes be confused with other sources of audio distortion. Usually running tuning a second time will resolve this issue, but it could be room based. If that is what's happening, it'd still be great to give us a call as we want to do the best we can to make sure it doesn't happen.

I am experiencing something similar with both of my Play 1s. The bass sounds fine, but speaker regularly "pops" on kick drum beats as if the woofer were hitting maximum excursion. This even happens at relatively low level making me wonder if there is some sub-sonic thing going on that is maxing out the woofer, or some other issue. I'm going to try turning off the true play and experimenting with the EQ to see what effect that has, but there is definitely something going on that is not just a room resonance etc.

Thanks for the details ctx. It sounds like you'd be best off giving us a call on our support line so a technician can investigate further. They'll be happy to assist further.

Yes, I too have noticed the occasional 'popping' on the Play-1 speaker. It's like the base has gone beyond its limit and almost sounds like the speaker is damaged. It seems to be intermittent.

I have 5 x Play 1’s. (Two as a stereo pair in the dining room, one in the kitchen, one in the bedroom and another in the downstairs hallway).

I fist noticed it in the kitchen, so I have just swapped that speaker with my hallway one, to see if it reoccurs.

I admit though I like to turn the bass and treble up full on all my Sonos speakers ... So it maybe my own fault... I rarely however go beyond 3/4 volume and have never pushed them to their volume-limit.

I now need to recall what music track I was playing and also I need to test things again with the bass and treble reset to their default.

Does anyone know how to find out if a speaker is actually damaged in anyway... Just wondering if there is any diagnostic results/information somewhere on the
http://(IP address):1400/status pages?

Does anyone know how to find out if a speaker is actually damaged in anyway... Just wondering if there is any diagnostic results/information somewhere on the
http://(IP address):1400/status pages?
I doubt that would identify any kind of physical damage, but IMO this isn't a case of the drive unit hitting the limits of its suspension. The popping can occur at all volume levels.

And in my experience the several PLAY:1s I've noticed this on play fine once Trueplay is disabled.

When it comes to sound I'm not very technical in regards to the hardware, but my thoughts were that the resistance level across the speaker or coil temperature might somehow show something if it was monitored/logged... or perhaps if Sonos monitor the level of 'current' or 'temperature' in the coil. It was just a thought really. There must be some way of telling if the sound is not quite correct and the cone is not moving correctly on occasions.

It is true, that I have only just recently noticed this issue when sat listening to music quietly in my kitchen and it is correct to say that I certainly have trueplay enabled on all my speakers. If I switch trueplay off I appear to notice a lack of 'clarity' in the sound and so I have left it on for now.

I don't know if 'clarity' is the best choice of word again, but the sound becomes slightly 'fuzzy' or 'muffled' with it off ... I only really notice the difference as I toggle the on/off button in the settings.

I'm not claiming to understand the technical side of things here, but i certainly have heard this 'popping' of the base speaker occasionally. Now I have swapped my speakers over, in the kitchen, I am hoping to eventually replicate the sound I hear again on my speaker and once I can pin it down, I will try it both with trueplay on and off. I will also toggle the 'loudness' button in the EQ settings to see if I can narrow it down.

I do have a pair of PLAY-5’s (older Gen 1) in my living room (set as a stereo pair) and I have never noticed the issue at all with those. They too have trueplay enabled and the bass slider set to its highest level. So it just appears to be on my Play 1 speaker at the moment.

I just hope it's not any kind of internal damage to my play 1 speaker (now in the hallway) as I suspect it is just out of warranty. Having said that, it is very intermittent that I notice this occasional drop/slap/pop... I wish I could describe it better!!!

Thanks for all the feedback everyone. I'd still like to recommend that if you're seeing this behavior it'd be great to give us a call on our support line so a technician can investigate further. We've done a lot of testing on Trueplay and are always looking for more feedback. If there is something here we'd be happy to take a closer look. Any suspected software or hardware issue would be best worked through over the phones so we can get the feedback to the right teams.

Ryan,

If I had a perfect listening ear and could find a way to easily replicate this issue, I would happily call Sonos Customer Support (who I have a very high regard for) and try to address the issue, but in fact it is, (as far as I can tell at this moment in time) an intermittent problem... and personally, I have tried to address the problem myself by swapping my Play-1 speakers over, between rooms/zones and by reducing the bass slider bar, which admittedly, I usually have set to its highest level.

I would presently feel a little uneasy to call Sonos Support and not be able to replicate the problem... I even struggle to adequately describe the sound I heard.

However... I will continue to research this problem and if I can replicate the problem I will certainly call the helpline.

My Play-1 Speaker, at the time that I first noticed this, just the other day, was in the kitchen zone, with trueplay enabled and the bass/treble slider bars both set to their max, with loudness also set to 'on' by default.

Today, I have gone to what I believe was the playlist that I was listening to at the time that I first noticed this issue, which was Apple Music's "Top Songs" Playlist, using ALL GENRES, here in the UK. The playlist begins with Work (featuring Drake) by Rihanna and ends with Again by Fetty Wap ... A total of 100 songs in all, but to the best of my recollection, the 'distortion' sound occurred within the first 20 tracks.

My wife and I had guests/visitors at the time at our home, so I'm not sure which track(s) we were listening to. I believe I had also grouped some speakers together across two zones at least, but it was the single Play-1 kitchen speaker where I noticed the issue ... It sounded like the cone was broken/a sort of 'burst' speaker slapping base noise. (I've tried to describe it as best as I can). I thought my speaker was damaged/broken in some way and I went onto immediately reduce the bass slider bar for that zone, hoping no-one would notice.

I have randomly and manually selected a few of the songs from the Apple playlist today, in my efforts to reproduce the noise, but so far I have not had any success. (Typical) and that's why I have described it as an 'intermittent problem'.

I plan to do some more research/playing of the playlist songs in the next few days to see if I can find the song that replicates the sound I heard.

If I can go on to reproduce this easily, then I will happily call Sonos support. I hope that helps. At the moment I would feel like I am wasting the time of the technicians, particularly, as I don't currently have enough detail to reproduce the problem with ease.

Ken Griffiths

Thanks for the update Ken. Let us know how it goes.

I have been playing a large music playlist all morning on both the Play-1's in my Kitchen and Hallway, trying to replicate the bass-noise that I heard the other day... I could not get either of them to create the sound again... (I was even sat in the same place). The only thing I have done is to swap the two speakers over and retune them both with Trueplay.

I have no idea why I can't replicate the noise unless retuning with Trueplay has solved the issue for me?

I have looked at my networks support/review Matrix and the only thing that reveals, is that my Kitchen Play-1 Speaker, where I originally noticed this noise, has a slightly weaker signal than the rest of my system (stepping off one of the dining room speakers) ... But even then, I can't claim that the signal is that low that it would cause me any issues.

Here is my Matrix screenshot for what little that helps in this situation:

I will keep trying to find what caused the flat bass noise, but right now I am stumped.

Ken Griffiths