Trueplay - Surround Distance Isn’t Accurate

My understanding is that Trueplay sets the distance much more accurately than is displayed in the Sonos App and the display for surround distance is set to ‘inactive’ when TP is enabled.

The fact the inactive display shows a ‘default’ display of more than 10ft is really irrelevant IMHO  - Only when Trueplay is disabled can the user then go onto adjust the surround distance of the left/right surrounds. The App provides 3 options only. What you are seeing in its inactive state is irrelevant from the things I’ve seen/read here in the community in the past. 

Maybe it would be better if the surround speaker distance was hidden from view when Trueplay is enabled to save any confusion here🤔?

My test isn’t scientific, just opinion based. 

But I turned off TruePlay and messed with the left speaker at all three distances…I kept it at 2-10 feet for a while and everything sounded pretty good. 

I did another TruePlay tuning and immediately the left speaker was blasting again…noticeably louder and showing a distance of 10+ feet. 

And if I’m being completely honest, I wish there was another option other than 2-10 feet…maybe 2-5 then 5-10. 

All in all I had to disable TruePlay. 

i guess if a user moves the ‘sweetspot’ slightly in the first stage and walks around the room differently in the second stage, then there might be some noticeable differences and note the changes can be subtle initially and change as you use the HT setup. So another TP tuning may sound different, but I don’t believe it’s anything to do with the manual change in surround distance as I’m pretty sure that setting is usually ignored when TP is enabled. Otherwise you would end up with a skewed audio output.

Being positioned at the ‘sweetspot’ in the first stage of tuning is usually what balances all the speakers in the HT setup.

Previously in S2, you could disable Trueplay, amend respective surround distance and turn Trueplay back on.

Shorter distance reduced the surround volume, larger distance increased it.

The new app no longer allows this workaround to adjust a specific surround volume, as the surround distance set with Trueplay off, no longer have any effect when Trueplay is subsequently enabled.

The app should have a surround balance slider to cater for such adjustments as Trueplay does not get the balance correct.

I think these are likely some software bugs that Sonos may still need to resolve - I have even seen the surround distance settings ‘active’ whilst Trueplay is enabled. Probably a screen refresh issue and if the speaker balance is not correct for the chosen ‘sweetspot’ position used in the first stage of TP tuning, then that likely is a TP issue that needs to be looked into aswell. Hopefully Sonos will have seen these things reported and will hopefully look into the issues.🤞

The TP speaker balance for chosen “sweet spot” has been incorrect for years. It’s not a new issue.

I don’t appear to suffer with that issue @Mr. T, personally speaking, but if it’s happening in your case, then here’s hoping Sonos can fix it for you and any others affected too.

Like you i would like to see a front/rear - left/right balance control too in the Sonos App, that’s just because I do tend to sit at different locations in our living room when watching TV, but when sat at my ‘preferred’ chosen sweetspot the HT speakers do seem reasonably well balanced via Advanced Trueplay here.

I notice a new iOS App 80.12.02 today on App Store, release notes say “Ongoing improvements to Trueplay”

I would assume that is potentially related to the recent reports of low bass with Arc Ultra/Sub after Trueplay has been enabled 

It would be nice if Sonos would be transparent on what these new updates are doing rather than leaving us all guessing. I’ll let you download it first 🙂