Contributor I

Answered

Worse sound after 10.4 update

19 replies
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After updating to 10.4 the sound quality got worse. The bass is really low, had to tweak the equaliser up all the way. Still, it sounds hollow and no real punch. Calibrated with trueplay, didn’t fix the problem. Anyone having the same problems? Sonos One and Sub.

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Ryan SAnswer

Retired Sonos Staff

Hi everyone, we’re always looking to investigate any issues like this and the team will happily work with anyone to get to the bottom of what’s going on here. If you haven’t yet, I’d strongly encourage anyone noticing poor audio to contact our support team directly. The team will help gather diagnostics and what information they can and get this up to the engineering team to see if there’s a trend or some set of circumstances that might have come up.

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Airgetlam

Not a difference in any of my 18 speakers.

Seems unusual. I'd start trouble shooting by first rebooting your speakers by unplugging them from power for a minute, then plugging them back in.

If that didn't "fix" it, I think I would contact Sonos Support directly to discuss it.

I suggest the phone folks, they have more tools available because they're on the phone with you, but they are only available Monday through Friday during business hours. Both the Twitter and Facebook support folks are available 24/7.

Bruce

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billiejoe87

Chromatic Producer I

After updating to 10.4 the sound quality got worse. The bass is really low, had to tweak the equaliser up all the way. Still, it sounds hollow and no real punch. Calibrated with trueplay, didn’t fix the problem. Anyone having the same problems? Sonos One and Sub.

I thought it was just me and I was going crazy! There has been a definite reduction in the quality of my 5.1 system sound with Playbar since the last update. Music doesn't sound as good and sounds more "Hollow" as you say.

I have menieres disease which means my hearing can be unreliable, but I had a feeling it wasn't just me.

1 x Arc, 1 x Beam Gen 2, 1 x Amp, 2 x Sonos In Ceiling Speakers, 2 x Sub, 4 x Sonos Ones, 2 x Sonos Era 100, 5 x Symfonisk Lamp (Gen 2)

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Yundria

Lyricist II

Same problem here, after the update the sound changes worstly. I thought that It was only my appreciation, but today my wife that normally she doesn't care about this kind of things askme if I did some changes in the sound.

Ryan S

Retired Sonos Staff

Hi everyone, what source of audio are you noticing this with? Is it with radio stations, TV inputs, Spotify, Apple Music, or something else entirely? Do all of the sources sounds poor or just some of them?

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Yundria

Lyricist II

In my case, with Tune In Radio and Spotify/Google Music also.

melvimbe

Does the sound quality improve if you switch to a different audio source? Is it only happening in a room with bonded speakers..a sub or surround sound?

Danny

M

Mats HalvarssonAuthor

Contributor I

Hi,

Thanks for keeping the thread going. :)

For me it sounds bad in two rooms. One room with a Sonos One stereo pair, and one room with a Sonos One stereo pair with a sub. I use Spotify as the music source.
The magic of the very nice Sonos sound is gone. It sounds ok, not more. Definitely disappointing, as it previously was so much better.

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Yundria

Lyricist II

Does the sound quality improve if you switch to a different audio source? Is it only happening in a room with bonded speakers..a sub or surround sound?

No, same low quality in all sources.

We have 1 Sonos One in the kitchen and a soundbar+sub+surround in the saloon, poor audio is in all the speakers but more noticeable in the Sonos One.

The sound is similar to a low bitrate mp3,

Ryan S

Retired Sonos Staff

There haven’t been any general audio quality changes with this most recent update that should cause audio playback not to sound good. So I’d strongly encourage anyone noticing poor audio to contact our support team directly. They’ll help look into what might be happening, and will be able to report to the engineering team if anything starts trending. I’ll also bring it up for you.

To start with, try removing any Trueplay tuning and reset and EQ options. Also, try a wide range of audio sources.

If you’re noticing this only with Spotify, expand the spoiler and read on.

We’ve recently worked with Spotify on some improvements, to their integration that allows for what’s called Adaptive Bitrate, which will lower the bit rate from 320kpbs when the connection strength can’t handle the stream. To be perfectly clear, this does no affect any other source of music at all. Radio streams have had this sort of connection for a long time, so have other services. You’ll see them listed has streaming “up to 320kbps” or something of that sort, with lower quality versions usually available at 128 or 192 kbps.

Without digging into diagnostics or seeing your system in particular, I’m only speculating on one potential cause. However, if this is what you’re seeing from Spotify only, it would be because the network connection for the players is weak or has too many errors on it. To test it out, you could try wiring a player into the network and see how that plays Spotify. Also, try out playing Spotify using the Spotify app vs using the Sonos app to see if either sound different.

The lower bitrate songs should only come through when the network connection of the device can’t sustain playback of the higher quality streams.

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O

Owen One

Contributor I

Same problem here, seems like sound quality dropped a bit after 10.4 update. First noticed it with TV input, as I had to turn up the volume higher than I used to to understand dialog (even with speech enhancement turned on). Then started noticing the same problem for music and other inputs.

Besides the quality, I also noticed that when I switch from TV to Music, the volume jumps. Don't know if this related to us turning the TV up higher now, but we never had this problem before the last update.

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