I recently set up Trueplay on a couple of Play:1s that I own. When testing out the post-Trueplay calibration sound I discovered bass distortion once I dialed up the speaker to about half-way on the volume bar (my EQ had bass and treble right in the middle and Loudness was turned off). At first I thought it was an issue with my speaker, but turning off Trueplay removed the distortion issue. The best way to describe the distortion is that it is a deep popping bass sound like occurs intermittently (maybe once every couple of seconds, but that depends on how bass heavy the song is). Anyone else having this issue with a Trueplay-tuned Play:1?

Trueplay Bass Distortion on Play:1

I contacted Sonos support for exactly the same reason, distorted bass, popping sound, clipping whatever you want to call it, as it sounds terrible. They were very good & talked me through a factory reset, & initially I thought it had cured the problem but it hadn't. They offered to replace the unit but I returned it to the shop & the replacement is exactly the same.

The worst combination is true play & loudness both turned on & turning either one off reduces the problem. The only way to eliminate it altogether is to turn off true play & loudness but I think the sound is then very average & the bass particularly poor.

My friend has 2 x play 1's (which is why I bought one) but he doesn't have the true play option, as it's unavailable on an android phone, but when he played the same tracks he still has exactly the same problem. He'd never noticed it till I pointed it out to him, & again by turning off the loudness it seems to stop the problem.

So that's 4 x play 1's I can say I've heard with this problem & as someone else commented I can't believe relatively few people have noticed this, but then again my friend hadn't until I pointed it out to him.

I feel there's definitely a problem with this product but I'm going to contact Technical support again, as they were very good to be fair, but looking at how long this has gone on I don't think this is going to be resolved any time soon.

My plan is to buy another play 1 & pair them for stereo listening but I can't live with this problem & if it can't be resolved I will reluctantly have to replace it with an alternative brand.

Hi, I'm a long time Bose user (Headphones, Sound System, Portable - you name it). I recently bought Sonos thinking it was on the same level and that the company is very forward thinking (I'm on the latest everything techwise.) I've been reading through this thread and I'm getting exactly the same problem. I'm getting a popping, or a (thuuup) sound that if often mistimed or just downright distracting. It happens on almost every song when the volume is turned up and wanes when the sound is turned down. The sound quality is also sub-par compared to my other audio sources. It's unfortunately at the level of something cheap I could buy from Best Buy and connect via Bluetooth. Since I listen to a lot of melodic trance or dance music, you could imagine that this is incredibly distracting and unusable long term. I also exclusively stream all of my music and it really does sound like it's coming from a radio and not a digitized format.

I've tried re-tuning it several times, unplugging, and fiddling with presets in both the app and spotify. The problem still exists. Especially when the volume is turn up higher. I'd love to add more to the system, but so far I have to say I'm pretty disappointed. Is there something you can do to help? I'm on these speakers all day and they'll have to go soon if we can't fix it.

Thanks

@GBlackman _ what you are describing in terms of bad sound quality doesnt seem right. The play1 are pretty much universally well regarded. Sound quality is subjective, but still - might be a problem with your speaker. I would either exchange at retail for a new one or if not possible contact support and see what they say.

Yeah, they seem off. I contacted support. I guess my other problem... I threw out the boxes and bought them on Amazon. If you throw out the boxes is it still possible to return?

Of course. If you call Aonos and then Agee to a replacement hey will do an RMA.

If you give them your card number they will ship the replacement before they receive the return and then you can use that box. If not just pack in other box but do a good job.

I am having the same problem as it is described often. Songs with trueplay sound weird on the play 1's bass. Without trueplay it seems to hold it way better (sometimes it stil has difficulties). I understand that some songs contain a too heavy bass for such a small speaker, but in my opinion it should be possible to program the play 1 a little better if we look at its bass? (programmed in a way that it uses a little less bass to make it sound nicer?)

Thank you @sonos if you could look into this problem of the play 1!

@GBlackman _ what you are describing in terms of bad sound quality doesnt seem right. The play1 are pretty much universally well regarded. Sound quality is subjective, but still - might be a problem with your speaker. I would either exchange at retail for a new one or if not possible contact support and see what they say.

So I went back to the speakers and moved them to a different location and reconfigured the settings. Everything seems fine now. The problem was that I put the speaker in a corner and it was really messing everything up. Once I put them in the center of the room, everything seemed to clear up.

Yeah, the distortion is just insane. I have 4x Play1s and they are all trueplay tuned and they all do it. Right now I'm listening to a live bootleg album and even at 1/3 volume there's a massive, massive, massive insanely huge popping from the speakers. I turned the bass down to 1/4 and its still there but better.

Can we just get a low end cutoff fix? I don't need a small speaker to try to go down to 50hz or whatever. They sound fantastic otherwise but this sounds like someone blowing into a microphone on every bass drum hit. It's extremely distracting, makes the tracks unlistenable, and will probably destroy something in the speaker eventually.

My Play:1 distorts religiously and predictably. The amount of bass in the song is irrelevant. I am on an Android device and there is no Trueplay option anywhere in the room settings.

It is odd some people have this problem and others don't. I can't imagine there is any other explanation than Q/A and/or manufacturing defects Sonos refuses to address. Loudness on or off is irrelevant. Leaving the EQ flat also irrelevant. Volume level, irrelevant.

This bad boy distorts with savage glee and I get the business decision not to call this spade a spade and admit this product has huge problems in the real world. It's unethical, but I get it.

$30 Bluetooth waterproof speaker blows this distorting mess away. LOL @ the poor guy that moved the speaker all over his house to try and "fix" it. I wonder if the boys in Sonos customer service were messing with him or honestly trying to fix it?

Back to best buy you go as clearly Sonons customer support has firm marching orders to pretend this problem doesn't exist. Unreal!

My Play:1 distorts religiously and predictably.

It is odd some people have this problem and others don't.

Very odd. I have 4 units bought at different times since early 2014 and all perform very well.

I found that there are close to 3000 reviews on Amazon, and even in the eighty odd one star reviews that are very critical of the feature set, something like this doesn't find a mention.

Something definitely smells.

I find truplay works and sound fantastic with the 5.1 setup, playbar, 2 play 1s and the sub. I have two play 5s and when truplay is turned on you can hear it tone down the bass and makes it sound flat, which doesn't sound as good,the same as the 2x2 play 1s setup i have upstairs. so i have truplay turned off for my stereo pairs.

truplay is turned on you can hear it tone down the bass and makes it sound flat, which doesn't sound as good,

Almost every room response DSP does this; but since people most are used to a bloated bass, it sounds flat to start with. In time one gets used to what is a more balanced sound signature and the true play off mode feels artificial. At times all that is needed is to bump up the Sub output level a little from the centre position at which Trueplay tuning leaves it.

But if personal preference remains for True play off, Sonos also makes this very easy to accomplish. End of the day, whatever floats your boat is best for you.

truplay is turned on you can hear it tone down the bass and makes it sound flat, which doesn't sound as good,

Almost every room response DSP does this; but since people most are used to a bloated bass, it sounds flat to start with. In time one gets used to what is a more balanced sound signature and the true play off mode feels artificial. At times all that is needed is to bump up the Sub output level a little from the centre position at which Trueplay tuning leaves it.

But if personal preference remains for True play off, Sonos also makes this very easy to accomplish. End of the day, whatever floats your boat is best for you.

Yes it is down to personal preference,the difference is night and day with my play 5s.The Quality is definitely better with truplay off on mine.

My Play:1 distorts religiously and predictably.

It is odd some people have this problem and others don't.

Very odd. I have 4 units bought at different times since early 2014 and all perform very well.

I found that there are close to 3000 reviews on Amazon, and even in the eighty odd one star reviews that are very critical of the feature set, something like this doesn't find a mention.

Something definitely smells.

I exchanged mine and will hook it up later and report back.

I can 100% promise you I am not making this up. Any song with any kind of bass produced a crackling noise from the speaker. If I turned loudness on or turned the bass up, it was worse.

On some hip hop songs I have to turn the bass down to 1/4 and regular pop songs can distort/crackle at the default levels.

I agree its not a more prevalent issue in the reviews. If this new unit (from bestbuy) crackles, then I will try it in another house or office. This is a brand new house and maybe there is some odd issue with the electrical current. Makes no sense I understand, but this was hands down the worst audio product i've ever purchased.

Curious to see if the new one cracks and pops.

I know in new residential construction there are some different electrical codes and standards in place. No idea if this is the problem but i'd say there is some chance it is. Since Sonos is headquartered in the land of no-new-construction-ever, I don't see this problem ever being resolved. The noises I heard were real and they were real annoying.

Any song with any kind of bass produced a crackling noise from the speaker.

Curious to see if the new one cracks and pops.

I know in new residential construction there are some different electrical codes and standards in place.

That points to a speaker defect and not a Trueplay driven issue that this thread is about.

Nonetheless...the new one should not behave the same way, Sonos does not need special kind of mains power to work, just the normal stable kind that is utility provided, as long as that means that old, and well established quality standards have to be met before a construction is released for residential use.

I have the exact issue of "popping" on bass for my Play 1's (2 of them) and Play 5. Is there any actual answer on how to fix this yet??

I have had this problem for some time, two Play 1's but only one experiencing poor bass response or 'clipping' even at relatively low volumes. This happens whether using TruePlay tuning or not and with identical EQ settings on both units. Not sure if this is the case for anyone else but the solution was very simple for me. The unit affected was on the worktop in the kitchen, within close proximity to the power socket. As such I coiled the power cord and cable tied it in a nice neat bundle out of sight behind the unit. It occurred to me that the only difference between the kitchen unit and the unaffected living room unit was this cable arrangement. I've uncoiled the cord and done another TruePlay retune and hey presto, nice deep bass (deep for a Play 1 anyway) with no clipping/popping even at much higher volumes. The units now seem very much aligned in terms of sound quality. I assumed units like these would be shielded from electrical interference but clearly not where a cable is coiled and so close to the rear of the unit. Hope this is of some help to others.

How strange! I have several Play 1's (although bonded in a pair with a Sub) but the one which has the distorted bass issue has an identical set-up to yours. I tried your trick and amazingly it has sorted the issue! I uncoiled the cable and moved the speaker away from the socket and did a retune. After the retune, I coiled the cable back up and moved the Play back to its original position and it continues to play without any distortion. Thanks for the advice.

Just to add to the thread, I have always had the bass distortion issue with my Play 1's. I have had 4 Play 1s over the past 3 years and currently own 2 units which were purchased about 3 months ago. The speakers were / are positioned in different ways and in different locations. Trueplay tuning (done it many many times) always resulted in bass distortion (bass popping and clipping even at low volumes). My only solution to the problem was and remains: Turn off Trueplay. I do not get bass distortion once I disable Trueplay on the Play 1. This is a shame of course because Trueplay works great on my Play 5. I am using the manual EQ to tweak the Play 1 sound.

I find the default Sonos sound (Play 5 Gen 2, Play 1) to be very bass heavy anyway. This is exacerbated if the speaker is close to walls but the bass bloat remains even if the speaker is placed well away from walls and in big rooms. Loudness (on by default) adds to that problem. I managed to get a more balanced sound by reducing the bass by quite a few clicks (between 3-5).

So to summarise, like others, I have always had the Trueplay bass distortion problem with all my Play 1 speakers (past and present). I have accepted that unfortunately this is not going to be fixed but I can achieve good sound by disabling Trueplay and manually tweaking the EQ.

Just a quick follow up to my previous message.

Good news: I have managed to use Trueplay on the Play 1 without resulting in bass distortion. I am not sure why it works after my previous attempts. I had not tried Trueplay for 2 months but tried it again last night and it seems to work. It reduces (to some extent) the bass bloat which is the default Play 1 sound but the real magic is with the midrange and vitality of the sound. The bass bloat need further manual EQ adjustment after Trueplay (2-3 clicks additional reduction in bass) but the great news is: No more bass distortion :-)

I love the resulting sound.

My advice is to try again and to repeat the process a few times. Also, if you have any case (no matter how minimal) on the iPhone try removing it.

Cheers

I too was having bass distortion issues on my play 1. Today I decided to try turning TruePlay off and then on again and my issues have vanished. Not sure why this worked, but it worked for me.

Mine does the popping sound with Trueplay turned on or off, it seems to slowly raise the bass levels then it pops and turns the bass down, it then slowly raises bass again then pops again, I have already submitted diagnostics a while ago, but sonos couldn’t say what was wrong, we just have to put up with it I’m afraid, shame really because when the bass raises it has a real nice sound

If you factory reset that PLAY:1 and use it in a different room does it have that same audio issue? If so, it could be a hardware issue with that player.

Yes it does, I was curious if it did it or not, so I moved it. I have given it to my daughter now as they don’t care what the sound is like, lol

I am new to Sonos. I bought a total surround sound system PLAYBAR/SUB/2-play 3’s/ and a ONE. The TV room was set up with all speakers except the ONE, and it sounds good. The ONE is set up portable, and it has the bass distortion everyone is referring to. At low volume the speaker sounds decent, but with any volume or bass, it distorts horribly. I noticed the distortion within 10 minutes of setting it up.

I just bought the system to replace my JBL extreme (which sounded great) and an cheaper Samsung home theater system (which wasn’t very good). The Alexa feature is nice but the distortion for a $200 speaker is unacceptable. Considering you need to have two to sink in stereo I am glad I bought the two play 3’s (so far no distortion). I may just return the ONE and get a DOT and use the TV room setup and the JBL extreme as a portable.

Based on others comments, not sure the ONE or play 1’s are worth it. I know others have positive comments, but sure are a lot of similar issues for a suposidly high sound quality speaker.

Sign up

Login to the community

Scanning file for viruses.

This file cannot be downloaded