Sonos Admits Recent Update Did Quietly Change Sound—After Denying It

A Sonos employee has admitted that a recent software update did, in fact, tweak the company’s speaker sound profile—despite initially saying otherwise.

Posting under the username KeithFromSonos on Reddit, the employee walked back previous comments that there had been “no changes” to the sound following the latest firmware update. He explained that there were “a few small DSP fixes” that ended up affecting how low frequencies sound on some devices.

“Welp, I was wrong,” wrote Keith. “Turns out there were a few small DSP fixes included that seemed to have an impact on how lower frequencies were being represented.”

Users on Reddit had reported noticeable sound differences after the update, prompting Keith to dig deeper. He said the company is happy some listeners are enjoying the change, and thanked users for their feedback, noting that the “placebo effect is real” but the volume of reports led him to investigate further.

When asked why this change wasn’t mentioned in the official release notes, Keith replied: “Now now, it’s not that deep. TBH – this wasn’t hidden for any particular reason.” He added that the changes were considered minor and not expected to affect user experience, but that assessment turned out to be incorrect.

Keith also noted that Sonos may consider updating the release notes to mention even small changes in the future, although he warned that these notes go through multiple teams for approval and might take time to update.

The admission comes after several Reddit threads debated whether or not the speakers sounded different—turns out, users weren’t imagining it.

On a related note, during the recent Sonos Q3 earnings call, the company said a price increase was coming in response to U.S. tariffs. When asked if this would affect Canada, Sonos didn’t comment, only referring back to what was said during the earnings call.