Feature Request: Center Channel Volume and Tuning on Arc


Userlevel 6
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Can we get the ability to tune and control the volume of center channel independently (like surround audio) in a 5.1 setting?  If we get this feature, we won’t have to turn the volume up just to hear the dialogues clearly. 

Bose app already offers such feature for their soundbars. 


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Just bought the arc from Costco… looking at returning this soon … dialogue is wayyy too soft… and yes, I did my due diligence 

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Can we get the ability to tune and control the volume of center channel independently (like surround audio) in a 5.1 setting?  If we get this feature, we won’t have to turn the volume up just to hear the dialogues clearly. 

Bose app already offers such feature for their soundbars. 

 

DITTO!

DFTT.

Userlevel 1
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I am really happy with my new Sonos arc but it really needs center speaker adjustment. To avoid to adjust volume continuously now I am living with night sound always on otherwise speech is really low.

Please Sonos team I guess that everyone with arc is happy but want this feature implemented as soon as possible.

Shame they haven't fixed this one yet given the question was asked years ago. 

Dialogue is so much  better from my tv than it is from the Arc. Not great when you have spent £1200 on the set up

Any news on centre speaker adjustment for the arc yet  ??? Love my arc with one sl surrounds but really struggle to hear dialogue without turn it right up. Got to the point now where i've given up using it for regular tv and reverted back to the tv speakers. Come on Sonos sort it out !!! 

 

Sonos never gives updates.  The most you get is they will forward your idea to the engineers.

Any news on centre speaker adjustment for the arc yet  ??? Love my arc with one sl surrounds but really struggle to hear dialogue without turn it right up. Got to the point now where i've given up using it for regular tv and reverted back to the tv speakers. Come on Sonos sort it out !!! 

Absolutely agree with this thread, just 'upgraded' from the LG atmos soundbar and surround speakers which had a present movie mode which ensured rich sound effects while delivering very clear dialogue and I could adjust the centre speakers, height speakers and the surround speakers. 

Considering the Sonos is three times the price, being able to adjust the centre speaker to have clear dialogue should be an absolute basic given!!! 

Sonos really needs to be sorted soon, it's clearly a while spread issue with a lot of people waiting for this. 

yes please center channel adjustment!! speech enhancement does something with the sound...surround movies have dialogue in the center channel anyway so would be great if you could raise or lower only the center channel!

I thought I was the only one that noticed that about speech enhancement. It makes surround sound less present or not as loud as it should be. Does something to the LEF too. But with DTS content it doesn’t happen 

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I’d also really like this feature. 

Userlevel 1

It’s a must have feature for the quality of the dialogue  it produces now. I have just installed the arc yesterday, and I was a AV system salesman once, I noticed that instantly, it’s not even good as my OLED TV screen speaker (for dialogue)

Also a new owner here as of 3 weeks ago. I have an ARC, 2 subs, and 2 One SL’s. Watching anything with Dolby, especially with any action at all raises the sound to a level where I cannot hear any of the speech coming from the center channel through the Arc. For example: I am at the moment watching Shang-Chi on Disney+ and experiencing this issue. It was also an issue watching Dune on HBO Max. I normally turn off the rears and turn the subs down while watching regular TV.

This system was quite expensive, and the only way I can hear the speech clearly is to either turn the subs, and rears down so I can hear the center, or better yet turn the subs and rears off completely.
 

I purchased this system based on all of the rave reviews out there. I even added a second sub to make it more of an experience. Wanting a theater experience in our home was what I was after, although at the theater I can hear what they’re saying along with the action! But I have to say, having to turn down, or turn off half the system to hear the speech with everything is pretty crazy.

I would definitely second adding user control over the center channel levels! And I’m surprised in looking at how many posts have come before mine requesting this feature that nothing has been done about it. Especially when it is an option from Sono’s competitors. If there’s an option to control the volume of the subwoofer and rear channels, how hard would it be to add a feature to control the front? And how many people need to request it before it may become reality?

Luckily, I’m still in my return window! And it’s too bad. The system sounds great, but I’m at an age where I’d like to get as many years in as I can before having to turn on the closed captions!

 

Userlevel 1

New Sonos Arc owner here , just come from a home theatre 5.1 setup with projector to LG GX and Arc combo and immediately noticed the centre level needing to be adjusted.

 

I know plenty of owners asked for the height adjustment sliders but I feel the centre is even more important IMO. I’ll be on a mission now to petition and have this feature added.

 

Seems a pretty simple and obvious one so let’s hope it gets sorted soon…speech enhancement does help a little so far but still not ideal 

Adding a reply to see if they ever do anything. Maybe I’ll call the support and complain. My beam has better center channel isolation. You’d think a device over 2x as expensive would sound better.

Can only agree what has been written about center volume level. I need more of it please.

 

Userlevel 7
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Subtitles might work for some folks but I often have the TV on just to hear the sound, ignoring and not even looking at the picture.

I’d even settle for a mute “right, left, sub and surround” button just so I could hear the voices.

Userlevel 3
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people have been asking this for years (literary from play bar era).  

Yes, night sound and speech enhancement both help a little but nothing comes close to being able to adjust canter channel manually to your liking. 

they just added height channel adjustment to Arc which means they should be able to give us control over the other channels in Arc.  

I guess till sonos does this, many of us have to watch TV with a remote control in our hand to constantly adjust the volume. 

Please add a separate centre channel volume adjustment slider Sonos! Many shows are mixed poorly with unbearably loud special effects so it would really help if we could up the volume of the centre channel to help raise the dialogue.

I expect that the speech enhancement mode does not work as well for Sonos as a direct volume adjustment slider would.

I don’t use bars for TV sound; indeed I use just two front HiFi speakers for TV sound with the centre channel being a phantom effect that works very well except for exactly this problem which can never be resolved because there isn't a centre speaker in my case, where I use a stereo amp.

My permanent fix for this may be useful till Sonos implements this for its bar type products - I use subtitles for English movies as well.

Can we get the ability to tune and control the volume of center channel independently (like surround audio) in a 5.1 setting?  If we get this feature, we won’t have to turn the volume up just to hear the dialogues clearly. 

Bose app already offers such feature for their soundbars. 

Please make this happen.  I would recommend the Arc to anyone until this is added. 

Userlevel 7
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Hi @GaryGorilla 

Do sonos ever monitor this section?  This feature has been asked for repeatedly, including by me.  This would make the arc much better.  At the moment I am forced to use nightmode or things are unwatchable, I.e. voice too low and sound effects way too loud without it.  If I could increase the centre speaker for voices then I could enjoy the system much more and turn nightmode off.

Yes, we do. This thread has been marked as a feature request and will be seen by the relevant teams.

Userlevel 3
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Do sonos ever monitor this section?  This feature has been asked for repeatedly, including by me.  This would make the arc much better.  At the moment I am forced to use nightmode or things are unwatchable, I.e. voice too low and sound effects way too loud without it.  If I could increase the centre speaker for voices then I could enjoy the system much more and turn nightmode off.

Userlevel 1

Please add a separate centre channel volume adjustment slider Sonos! Many shows are mixed poorly with unbearably loud special effects so it would really help if we could up the volume of the centre channel to help raise the dialogue.

Userlevel 7

Where is this at? Has anyone at SONOS provided any information or feedback?

Night Sound and Speech Enhancement can be enabled on the Now Playing screen in the Sonos app.

Night Sound: https://support.sonos.com/s/article/1948?language=en_US

Speech Enhancement: https://support.sonos.com/s/article/4796?language=en_US

Userlevel 1

Where is this at? Has anyone at SONOS provided any information or feedback?

Userlevel 7

Interesting. Is it as much on the stereo feed as it is on a Dolby Digital feed? I’m not at home to do any testing.

To my ears, I would say the dynamic range compression using Night Sound is comparable between a stereo source and Dolby Digital source. But because multichannel audio tends to have a much higher dynamic range than stereo (especially if it is lossless audio like Dolby TrueHD), I would guess the amount of compression would need to be much more with Dolby Digital.

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