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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

    Enthusiast II
    October 28, 2017
    How are they supposed to configure for hardware that is not released to anyone, anywhere, until release day? It's not like Apple hands out iPhone 8 betas to all their app developers.

    They absolutely do (well, to some, not to all). Alpha and beta versions of pre-release hardware and software are made available to developers. You might have to meet certain conditions as a software company, you might have to pay for the h/w if you are a smaller and lesser known company, and you certainly have to sign an NDA, but they do make h/w and s/w available early to developers. Ever wonder how new apps that take advantage of new features are already in the store on the day new hardware is launched? That's how.
    Contributor I
    November 8, 2017
    Improved my music but killed my 5.1 setup. 😞
    Avid Contributor I
    November 11, 2017
    Improved my music but killed my 5.1 setup. :(

    Can you elaborate?
    Lyricist III
    November 14, 2017
    True play is awesome, I have two play 5's paired as a stereo setup; downside is the app still doesn't support for the iphone 8 😕 have to borrow my friends iphone 7
    Trending Lyricist I
    November 18, 2017
    Any truplay hope on the horizon for those of us who don't drink the apple juice?
    The7hil
    Avid Contributor I
    November 30, 2017
    Very happy with Trueplay. Nice that the app sorts the speakers best setting for me. I’m a bit ocd so trying to do it myself can be a long and painful process.
    Lyricist II
    December 5, 2017
    Any truplay hope on the horizon for those of us who don't drink the apple juice?
    I think that the official reason for this was that the microphones on Android devices don't behave consistently enough (talking about variance for the same models, not inter-model).
    Enthusiast I
    December 11, 2017
    I don’t like trueplay very much. At first I thought I did, but tried it on and off many times and now I always seem to prefer the sound with it off and eq adjusted manually. I have a Gen 1 Play 5 stereo pair with a Sub in the living room, stereo pair of Play 1’s in the master bedroom and a Play 3 in the kitchen (living room and kitchen are open concept so when listening to music I usually group the kitchen and living room). With the Play 5 and Sub combo trueplay basically makes the trebles too bright (even introduces some sibilance with certain types of music) while the bass is toned down too much for my liking (no kick). So I just leave it off and turn bass down -1 or so in room settings and sub down -3 or so from default as the default settings are quite boomy with loudness on.

    In the bedroom the Play 1’s sound ok with trueplay (bass actually has more kick with it on) but it seems to make the bass sound a little distorted so again I turn it off. Overall I find trueplay a little gimmicky. Not sure how a cheap iPhone microphone can be used to accurately measure and improve quality speakers unless the speakers are hiding behind a cupboard or something.

    Wish Sonos would just give us the option to use a proper eq with frequency ranges, but doubt that will happen.
    Avid Contributor I
    December 20, 2017
    It’s been a year since I ran trueplay on my speakers. As there have been several software updates in that time, is there a benefit to retuning? This assumes trueplay has been improved by the software updates.

    Also, should loudness be on or off during tuning?
    December 21, 2017
    Loudness setting doesn't matter. And after relocating a play 1 after a year, my retune showed a bigger difference, with a slightly stronger bass line as compared to Trueplay left off in the new space; last year, there wasn't any noticeable difference. So if an iPhone is handy, it is worth the 5 minutes of quiet it takes to retune with no downside to it.