Roam SL Trueplay

The Roam SL speaker is meant to operate as a portable device and hence be moved around - Without auto-TruePlay, you would have the situation whereby it would require tuning each time you changed its position and that therefore doesn’t make much sense. It was ‘perhaps’ easier to find it’s best settings that suit the majority of widely used locations, based on all the usage of the Roam auto-TruePlay tuning results instead and maybe that ‘best sound’ is what the device uses instead.

I wouldn’t personally want to keep having to tune the device and if I planned to leave it ‘static’ I would have perhaps chosen to purchase a Sonos One SL speaker instead.

T

Toby_Arthur
Author
Contributor I
1 reply
11 months ago
27 March 2022

Hi Ken_Griffiths,

Many Thanks for the reply!

I understand you’re thinking, BUT not all people use them in the same way.

Mine two Roams SL (just new) are fixed outside on the terrace wall.

I used to have there two Sonos ’es “Play One” and because they are NOT waterproof I have made something that it could never rain down on them.

Unfortunately the air in Spain can get very moisty and they broke down after 3 years because off moist air issues.

Hence I bought myself two Roam ‘s SL ones, because they are at this moment the ONLY Sonos speakers which are COMPLETELY waterproof.

Why then add this feature to the Roams and not to the Roams SL?

It’s only a matter of adding (software) this feature to the Roams SL.

Regards,

Marc.

Hi Ken_Griffiths,

Many Thanks for the reply!

I understand you’re thinking, BUT not all people use them in the same way.

Mine two Roams SL (just new) are fixed outside on the terrace wall.

I used to have there two Sonos ’es “Play One” and because they are NOT waterproof I have made something that it could never rain down on them.

Unfortunately the air in Spain can get very moisty and they broke down after 3 years because off moist air issues.

Hence I bought myself two Roam ‘s SL ones, because they are at this moment the ONLY Sonos speakers which are COMPLETELY waterproof.

Why then add this feature to the Roams and not to the Roams SL?

It’s only a matter of adding (software) this feature to the Roams SL.

Regards,

Marc.

I think your use situation for a supposedly ‘portable’ speaker is by far in the minority. You could also have opted to purchase the ‘Roam’ in your case - it’s IP67 rating is the same as the Roam SL.

M

I agree with the author disappointment and I can add my usage as support.
At my place the sonos roam sl sits at a “fixed” position and plays music, it sits in the center of the house so any member of the family can take the speaker with him to different place and returned it back to his base position.
considering the speaker support local wifi streaming I guess many buyers consider the option of “base position” for playing music when sitting at the area.
I would like too the option to tune..

You just need to purchase the regular Roam in that case, rather than it’s SL (Speechless) counterpart. The SL obviously has less features including…

Trueplay
Microphone
Voice Assistants
SoundSwap

The vast user-majority will use this little speaker as a portable product, making a (fixed) Trueplay feature mostly irrelevant. It’s why auto-Trueplay was developed to cope with the portability of the device and for that to work effectively, a mic is needed.

I’m guessing the Sonos engineers may have made a conscious and carefully considered decision to not include the Trueplay feature, as it may make a fixed-tuned portable device perhaps sound ‘less-good’ in some entirely different environment… an average overall sound setting is probably the better option… and for everything else, there is the Roam.

A