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Thewizard2000
Chromatic Producer I
May 12, 2021
Answered

SONOS speakers largely under-exploited.

  • May 12, 2021
  • 61 replies
  • 2244 views
SONOS speakers largely under-exploited. Being an audiophile for a long time, I notice that the qualities of the Sonos speakers are of great precision and of great quality. On the other hand it is spoiled at the level of the system which manages them, in effect the application does not offer in ANY WAY to adjust the sound to the top level with an equalizer (10 bands and +). Since every style of music is NOT EQUALS AT ALL, a professional sound system such as SONOS should give us the choice by offering us a QUALITY EQUALIZER option. This has not been the case for many years god knows why. It seems to me that it is not necessary to be an expert in sound to understand that if you want to listen to classical music, hip hop or even pop or country, each style of music requires its own configuration to have sound quality AND UNFORTUNATELY Sonos is ignoring this problem. 
Will there be someone one day who will eventually make SONOS understand how does a quality sound system work?
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    Best answer by Xander P

    Hi @Thewizard2000, thanks for raising this with the community!

    While it’s not a particularly frequent request, further control via equalizer has been put forward as a feature request previously, and I can certainly understand that some users may want more granular control of the Sonos system.

    (As an aside, part of the reason for jumping in late was indeed interest in where the conversation would go - rest assured we’ve noted your interest and have forwarded it to the development team :slight_smile: )

    61 replies

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    Thewizard2000Author
    Chromatic Producer I
    May 13, 2021

    @Kumar 

    In an ideal world everyone would listen to the same music and everyone would enjoy the same type of sound. On the other hand, the beauty of it is that in the world we live in, not everyone has the same tastes. There are several frequencies of low, mid and high and all enjoyed in certain ways. If Sonos does not want to hear anything then just AT LEAST put us a slide to control the mid-range, at least I will have the feeling to have the equivalent of settings as in my old car.

    Kumar
    May 13, 2021

     

    There are several frequencies of low, mid and high and all enjoyed in certain ways.

    Something for you to think over - I have heard how the designer of Harbeth speakers designs his speakers that are well known for delivering natural sound. He does this using the human voice, and the piano. He holds that if these two sound good/natural, so will everything else within the limitations of the frequency response of the speaker design. He does not spent time listening to every possible frequency and how that sounds, for very long.

    You can of course disagree.

     

    Kumar
    May 13, 2021

     

    In an ideal world everyone would listen to the same music and everyone would enjoy the same type of sound. 

    And that would be a horrible world. Imagine the spice girls 24/7/365 as one example.

    John B
    May 13, 2021

    @Thewizard2000 . Development resource is finite, and the list of possible enhancements almost endless.  If Sonos believed that adding this feature would be the best use of resource - in terms of long term sales and profits -  then they would have done it.  They must believe that for the vast majority of their target market, this is irrelevant to their enjoyment of the system in practice and to their consequent purchasing decisions.

    Whether Sonos are right or wrong, it’s fundamentally a commercial decision.  It is not primarily about whether or not a graphic equaliser could ‘improve’ the Sonos experience, if a user could be bothered with it..

    I don’t recall seeing any review of the Sonos system or products that listed ‘lack of a graphic equaliser’ as a downside.  There may well be some out there, but I have missed them.  Interestingly. lack of ‘hires’ support is often cited as a downside in reviews, and I suspect that Sonos have begun to offer hires support purely because of perception and marketing, not because of any technical merit in favour of hires.

      Thewizard2000Author
      Chromatic Producer I
      May 13, 2021
      @John B If the Development resource is finite then they should add us at least the slide to adjust the MID-RANGE. For me, this frequency breaks my ears, I hate it, I usually put it to a minimum and the sound is much more pleasant, it's my taste and for the health of my eardrums. I understand that the Development resource is limited, but with a market cap of 3.77 billion I believe they should get there with a little effort. I took a programming course, it's not complicated you copy the same line of code for the bass or treble slide and you just modify the ranges. Where we are going to send them a request? Because obviously here it seems that we are talking into the void, just with this post now of 25 comments I have seen absolutely no official representative of SONOS interested in our discussion, it confirms what I said since the beginning of this post.
      Kumar
      May 13, 2021
      they should add us at least the slide to adjust the MID-RANGE. For me, this frequency breaks my ears, I hate it, I usually put it to a minimum and the sound is much more pleasant, it's my taste.

      Are you suggesting that you cannot adjust the mid range on Sonos today via the two existing EQ sliders? What is it that you put to a minimum? And if, as you seem to say, that is to your taste, what is then the problem?

      Ken_Griffiths
      Ken_Griffiths
      May 13, 2021

      Not sure if it’s me, but I scrolled that user-review list/posts yesterday until I got fed up and then I searched all the posts on page for ‘Equalizer’ thinking that there might be some folk asking for that feature, but I couldn’t find a single post in the link provided🤔? I captured my search result of the scrolled pages (see attached). 

      Most complaints there, seem to be more network related, but in fairness to the views expressed, there are many 4 & 5 star reviews from folk too who appear to love the App and their Sonos products.

      It’s perhaps the old story of “…you can’t please all of the people all of the time”. 

      Not one mention of ‘Equalizer’ however, perhaps that strongly ‘infers’ it’s not exactly a priority request from a majority of Sonos customers.

      The very few calls I have seen around this topic, by users online, has been for EQ presets for different genres like Pop, Rock, Classical, Acoustic etc. In my own experience though when those presets are available most people seem to leave things switched off and just adjust their Bass and Treble.
      So I guess that Sonos engineers may have much better things to do than create such features for such a tiny minority.

      I’m sure Sonos may have the EQ development feature on a ‘to-do’ list somewhere, but as we all know they never (or very rarely) announce their intended development path anyway.

        chicks
        chicks
        May 13, 2021
        I took a programming course, it's not complicated

        I once played MS Flight Simulator.  Think I’ll go fly a real 747 - it’s not complicated. :rolling_eyes:

        melvimbe
        melvimbe
        May 13, 2021
        Because obviously here it seems that we are talking into the void, just with this post now of 25 comments I have seen absolutely no official representative of SONOS interested in our discussion, it confirms what I said since the beginning of this post.

        Sonos has surely seen this thread already, and I’m a little surprised no one has posted the standard message that they appreciate the suggestion and will pass it on.  Perhaps they want to see where this thread ends up, if others share your point of view on it before chiming in.

         

        Danny
        Thewizard2000Author
        Chromatic Producer I
        May 13, 2021

        @melvimbe

        Well the post unfortunately does not seem to lead to much unfortunately with low-end comments like @chicks .

         

        @Ken_Griffiths

        Ken just because you can't find complaints doesn't mean that users wouldn't be happy to have this feature, most people who have Sonos sound systems aren't even aware of this forum and aren't. not even registered. Just because there aren't enough complaints to your liking doesn't mean it shouldn't be considered. I did a search on google and in 5 seconds I found complaints, it is not just a question of scrolling a page randomly, it is obvious that the majority of people do not have time to think about equalizing it because most of them do not even manage to have a good connection with the system.

        https://www.reddit.com/r/sonos/comments/gzcdbv/no_improved_eq_in_s2/

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