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Ryan S
Ryan S
Retired Sonos Staff
November 10, 2015

Now Playing Trueplay - Your Impressions

  • November 10, 2015
  • 94 replies
  • 11820 views
Trueplay is now available for the world to try and we’d love to hear what you think about the tuning. Have you noticed a change in your home? What are your impressions?

Personally, I first set up Trueplay in the worst possible situation I had at home, an original PLAY:5 sitting half behind a hollowed out speaker tower speaker which was used as a table for a record player (it’s a long story). The room has stone floors, high ceilings, and a few couches. The difference was immense.

After my dance around the room the PLAY:5 sounded like a completely different speaker. The highs were much clearer, and the lows resonated better throughout the room. Friends in the house couldn’t believe the difference either.

The next room I tested was much better off. The PLAY:3 in there was in a better place already, sitting toward the corner of the room, on top of a table. Wood floors, much smaller room, lower ceilings. There was still a noticeable change, as Trueplay really does help out the PLAY:3, but it wasn’t as big as with that first room.

Let us know how it goes! We recommend testing out 5 tracks that you know very well and seeing the difference. What rooms did you try it out in? What did you notice? What are your experiences? Share your stories here.
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      94 replies

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      Kumar
      February 6, 2018
      Except that those reasons don't make any sense from a software development perspective. Each individual apple model would have known microphone characteristics, with a known reference source (a sonos speaker) you could definitely figure out the equivalent for any android device.

      If you google microphone calibration poeple manually do this all the time, there are plenty of papers written on it..

      I just wanted to provide a slightly more technical perspective on how they could calibrate microphones across devices as someone who works as a software developer.

      Purely from a usually logical layman's perspective - and one that is not a developer:
      With mics and their responses differing across even iPhone models to, saying for example, three, Sonos would need to take the three different mic characteristics into account in the tuning process. I suppose the controller app would be able to inform Sonos what mic of three is being used for every tuning. So what is being heard by the listener representative - the mic - is correctly understood by the room response DSP.

      But if there are say, thirteen or even perhaps thirty different mic models in use in a continuously changing universe of phone models, capturing that becomes a task that is a lot more difficult - no?

      Perhaps Sonos should sell a cheap, third party mic it has standardised on in a wand meant for all users, and sell it for ten bucks - it just has to be consistent more than highly accurate. Assuming of course that the iPhone today does nothing more than be an expensive mic in the process. But, and thinking on the fly here - how will the tuning process be conducted with just a dumb mic without any UI interface to the process?
      Ger75
      Trending Lyricist I
      February 16, 2018
      Hi, new Sonos One owner here and very happy with it. It lives in my bedroom and now I am experimenting with trueplay. I think it brings more clarity to the sound, but at the expense of less defined mids and high bass. At least that’s how I perceive it. Whether I like it more when enabled or not, it depends on the song. Now, my question to the forum is, do you think trueplay makes the music closer to the original recording? Or does it just make it more pleasant to the average ear? I am comparing how different songs sound with and without trueplay, having as a reference a pair of decent headphones (Senn’s HD650) with a decent portable dac/amplifier (dragonfly red). The sound of the Sennheiser’s is usually described as warm, smooth, with great imaging and soundstage. So to answer my own question, I don’t think trueplay makes the music sound closer to the original recording, but just clearer in a given room. Which of course, it may sound “better” depending on your preferences. But this is just my opinion; what do you guys think?
      Kumar
      February 16, 2018
      What we think matters a lot less; what sounds better to you IS better for you.

      As to the sound of the original recording, no one outside the recording studio knows what that is, and even not many there do. The mastering process involves many recording engineer decisions of what he/she thinks the music should sound like, taking into account what most people find pleasing.

      Which gets us back to - whatever that sounds more pleasing to your ears is the way to listen to music. Trueplay is the Sonos version of what the recording engineer does, with the EQ sliders there for you to customise that to your tastes if felt necessary. And, a Trueplay toggle to turn it off if you still can't come to agreement with this Sonos opinion.
        Ger75
        Trending Lyricist I
        February 16, 2018
        Thank you Kumar for your input. I’ve been testing trueplay and I do prefer the One without it. I honestly believe it modifies the original sound way too much. I am not expecting a hifi sound either, but trueplay drastically changes the “spirit” of some songs. Good thing we have the toggle! I love the One as it is!
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