Worse sound after 10.4 update
Best answer by Ryan S
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.
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.
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.
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.
+26Hi 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?
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?
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.
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,
+26There 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.
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.
It might be worth checking to see if the system is still sending a true Dolby Digital signal to the Sonos. Many people who have reported similar issues have found that something changed upstream that caused the Sonos to receive only a stereo signal from the TV.
However, it wouldn’t hurt to submit a system diagnostic within 10 minutes of experiencing this issue, and either post the number here, or contact Sonos Support to discuss it.
I usually suggest the phone folks, they have more tools available, but are onlyavailable Monday through Friday during business hours. Both the Twitter and Facebook support folks are available 24/7.
I also have the same problem - playing mp3 music from my network attached storage via 2 x Play 5s and a sub, all connected to my network by cat 5 leads.
Normally the sound thunders but when I played the same music last night I thought the sub had gone offline as the whole system lacked any punch. Changing the settings didn’t help, so this is all pretty disappointing but I’m somewhat relieved it isn’t just my system. There had been no changes at my end other than a system update.
Let’s hope for a quick fix..
As I posted before, your best bet would be to contact Sonos Support directly, rather than hoping someone in the community can deduce the problem and help you.
+1Glad to know I'm not the only one with this problem. I am currently working with Sonos engineers and submitting data from my own personal spectrum analyzer. I have been through three separate play bars and they all are doing the same thing. This is definitely a software update issue I don't care what anybody says. after this update went through anytime I try getting any significant volume out of my system it sounds like somebody is throwing a blanket over the speakers to compress them. my best guess is they were getting too many units with blown drivers and released an update to limit volume.
+1Not 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.
Do you mind me asking what kind of music you listen to Bruce? I'm very glad to hear you're not having this issue with any of your 18 speakers. I am willing to bet you are not trying to get nearly the amount of volume output from your system as the people that are experiencing this issue.
Davin
A pretty wide variety, from classical to classic rock, jazz, ambient, some country and western, to current rock, as well as movies, TV shows, etc. Most of my music is stored locally on my own NAS, although occasionally I’ll stream from Amazon, Audible, or using AirPlay 2 from either an iPhone or an iPad.
It’s certainly possible that I don’t have the volume turned up as others do, but that doesn’t change my suggestion that contacting Sonos support is more likely to garner an answer than any assumption, including mine, about what is happening. While there certainly is some satisfaction from seeing “me too” posts from other community members, my suspicion is that it can be best resolved by engaging with Sonos support, rather than the Sonos community. I can only relate my personal experience here, and sometimes point folks to common issues that might cause the symptoms that are experienced.
My personal experience is that being directly on the phone with someone helping me is preferable than being online, as it gives them the opportunity to get my permission, while I watch, to remote into my system in addition to looking at any diagnostics that I have submitted. But that’s again my personal experience, which I offer as a suggestion. There’s absolutely no requirement that you follow any suggestions from some random person on the internet. But the issue was posted on a community forum. As a community member, I provided my insight, for the valuation of those who wanted to consider my viewpoint.
I do hope you find the solution to your issue. I also hope that when you do, you come post the answer here, so others, including myself, can learn from your particular experience.
+1Please watch this video and play close attention to when I turn the volume down you will notice the Playbar gets louder and then when I turn it up it loses volume and becomes muffled.
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.
Same here in France, v10.5 w/ 1x Beam, 1x Sub and 2x Ones, all of them Series ID:100.
The sound is actually horrible to listen in music playback full mode.
Hey Sonos customer care, any reaction please?
Your kind support will be more than appreciated. 
Thanks!
+26Hi 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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