Now Playing Trueplay - Your Impressions

  • 10 November 2015
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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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Ryan, I've got a lock on your signal!

Thanks for your answers on both. I appreciate the distinction on complexity for the Home Theater TruePlay, although it would be a great thing indeed.

And I guess I'll anxiously wait for my next Sonos setup for an audio only purpose. We use our Playbar set up too frequently this summer to remove speakers and so on. Thanks again,

T21
1 x Play 1, 1 x Play 3, 1 x Play 5 trueplay definitely improved sound on all three each in their own room's. Most improvement is with Play 1 in the bathroom (safely wired and located away from moisture); a big sound in this bright, hard walled room.
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I can't try beacuse for andorid isn't present 😞
Do you have a friend who has an iDevice? Usually the promise of a beer or even dinner would get you the 10 minutes of borrowing necessary to run the TruePlay process.
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.


My story is that after update to iOS11 sonos True play doesn’t work, instead there is a message that “this iPhone is not supported”

Anyone got the same problem after update to iOS11
Sonos has stated that iOS 11 support is coming soon, they need to calibrate for new hardware.
Maybe but I just got sub and updated iPhone day before and it is disappointing that company like Sonos and price tag doesn’t reackt faster.... they should in my opinion... as well as they could add HomeKit compatibility
Maybe but I just got sub and updated iPhone day before and it is disappointing that company like Sonos and price tag doesn’t reackt faster.... they should in my opinion... as well as they could add HomeKit compatibility

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.
But I think they’re are kind of “apple” we within speakers world, defo price tag and quality
I like what Trueplay does. It's a great enhancement to Sonos. On the UX side, I would prefer if it wouldn't guide me so deep into the Trueplay menus (say, when moving my SUB) before I get a chance to cancel out. Much of the time, it's not convenient for me to run it. This isn't a fault of Trueplay, but speaks to a huge opportunity for Sonos to clean up and streamline the setup/settings portion of the UX.
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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.
Improved my music but killed my 5.1 setup. 😞
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Improved my music but killed my 5.1 setup. :(

Can you elaborate?
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
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Any truplay hope on the horizon for those of us who don't drink the apple juice?
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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.
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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).
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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.
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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?
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.
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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.

Kumar can you remember how to see the difference metric for trueplay? I’ve forgotten.

Interestingly while on phone to support I did a before and after diagnostic on two of my speakers and the kitchen play 1 had a massive change in the trueplay result going from 12 to 8. Also we learned that the iPhone produced a wildly different result to the iPad, something that should not be the case according to support so they were interested in that too
Now that the Ones have multiple microphones, and given that the upcoming Apple widget will supposedly use its mics to self-tune to the room it's in, I wonder what plans are in Sonos' room-tuning future?
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Interesting question chicks?

They have been a little slow to verify and do update allowing iPhone 8 and iPhone X to work with Trueplay ... I wonder if that team has been busy with a new more complicated project??
Troykm
Kumar can you remember how to see the difference metric for trueplay? I’ve forgotten.

You can't anymore; Sonos has taken away access to that information in the matrix. Among many other bits of information, for alleged security reasons.
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Here's my Playbase experience with Trueplay. Following the instructions for mic position I got a bit more thump out of the bass but voices take on a kind of hollow sound - kind of like they are out of phase. Anyone familiar with what adjustments Trueplay makes? Both amplitude and phase at the various frequencies? Not so noticeable on rock music but the dialog in TV source mode can be like voices from a bottom of a barrel. Choosing to leave Trueplay off for now.