Sonos ONE bass popping experiences

  • 28 September 2018
  • 12 replies
  • 4878 views

Userlevel 1
I can see people on the forum are writing about bass popping from Sonos ONE and I want to share my experience with this problem and want to hear what experiences other have with this issue.

My story:
I have 6 Sonos ONEs. 4 in 4 different rooms, and 2 as surround speakers in a 5.1 setup with a beam and sub. The problem is present on all 4 Sonos ONE speakers that are not connected to a sub. If I run a bass sweep using the "Bass Tests" by HzMP3 on Spotify, the problem is clear around the 35-55mhz transitions. I contacted the Sonos support and they were able to reproduce the issue and send a bug report to the US developers. Apparently this is an issue with the "sliding high pass filter", something the PLAY 1 also has according to Sonos support. Although confirming the issue, no apologies where given or compensation. I instead got the excuse that I couldn't expect that much from a small speaker.

So the official answer I got was that I can't expect to play ordinary music from a Sonos ONE without the bass popping once in awhile. For me this wasn't an acceptable answer, but the only thing Sonos offered where a 30% discount so I could buy 4 subs to "fix" the issue. I use my sonos ONE's in 4 rooms approx. 65-85 square feet (8-10 square meters). So they basicallly wanted me to pay 2000$ extra and fill my small rooms with big subs to fix an issue that Sonos have with there Sonos ONE speakers. I was also offered to return my 4 Sonos ONE speakers only and not the whole system. That would have required me to buy an extra sound system in addition to Sonos to fill my needs, leaving me with two different sound systems. Not an option either. Personally i'm disappointed with Sonos and how they are handling this issue.

What experiences does others have on this issue, and what was the supports respond when you contacted them?

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12 replies

Userlevel 5
Badge +12
Hi
I have got that popping bass on Sonos Play1 after True Play tuning.
Partially and temporarily I solved lowering the basses in the eq
I also have exactly this issue. I was planning on expanding my Sonos system but if this is a problem that they can't resolve, there is no chance that I'm getting another Sonos-speaker.

https://en.community.sonos.com/troubleshooting-228999/bad-bass-sound-from-sonos-one-6814299/index1.html#post16278752
Have you called Sonos to discuss it, as was requested by the Sonos rep in that thread?
Userlevel 7
Badge +20
I've never experienced this on any of my PLAY:1s or ONEs. They've been Trueplay adjusted. What am I doing right?
Userlevel 1
I've never experienced this on any of my PLAY:1s or ONEs. They've been Trueplay adjusted. What am I doing right?

If you set up your speakers, calibrated true play and started playing music we both been “doing it right”.

Either it is what you are not doing (listening to music that triggers the problem) or else your speakers are true play calibrated in some way that doesn’t triggers the problem or doesn’t make noticeable. Another explanation is that the problem only occurs on some batches of Sonos ONE.

You could try out this track (if you have Spotify) and see if the issue occurs between the 0:08-0:13 mark:
https://open.spotify.com/track/4dQCnZFeKvs3OkDVdMsxqZ?si=o6AfvccgSNabWuB9R2OLrw
Userlevel 7
Badge +20
You could try out this track (if you have Spotify) and see if the issue occurs between the 0:08-0:13 mark:
https://open.spotify.com/track/4dQCnZFeKvs3OkDVdMsxqZ?si=o6AfvccgSNabWuB9R2OLrw

Interesting. With this track I'm definitely, repeatably hearing a form of discontinuity that could be described as 'popping' on my PLAY:1s. I can honestly say I've never noticed this with anything I've ever played before.
Userlevel 5
Badge +12
In the end I had to turn off True Play in order to remove the popping bass.
Maybe it happens on specific or very low frequencies.
I have a brand new Sono ONE and I have also some intermittent popping basey sound. It does not coincide with the actual base from music that I am playing. It's also not really consistent. Because it is between base, it's not distortion of some sort (not playing them loud anyway) but more some sort of glitch. If I am playing a long mix of a couple of hours, some songs have this and some don't and not throughout the whole song either.... It bares no resemblance to any musical base... It sounds very buggy. (I have True Play tuned it by the way, not sure if turning it off will make a difference)
Well, try turning off TruePlay, and see if it changes. It is just an on/off switch, once you’ve set it up the first time. If it persists, I’d suggest you call Sonos.
Userlevel 1
Badge +2
Not wishing to play devil's advocate here, but why do you expect such a physically small speaker to play notes that are designed for an 8" speaker or bigger?
I agree rather than pop it shouldn't play them, perhaps that is the bug they are going fix
What are you saying nwgiles, don't play music on Sonos one? Don't play music that has ANY bass?

On first tests It appears that if True Play is turned off, the issue disappears... Not amused.
Hi, I had the same problem. I sent mine in for replacement as I thought it was defective. I just received my new one today and it does the same thing. To “repair” the problem, I had to go in the room settings of the specific speaker and turn off the “loudness” option and lower the bass until the problem stopped. To me, this is not a solution but simply putting a band-aid on the problem. I still can’t use my Sonos product how I would’ve liked. However, I’m now using it to the maximum of it’s capacity... which has a pretty low limit for bass. I was expecting a bit more out of this product. Clear notes sound amazing though. Hope this helps.