No more SONOS for me

How is the volume at 50 or 80?

When mine sounds like a whisper, I turn up the volume until it's louder.  Of all the complaints, this one completely baffles me.  Are the numbers really that important?

I just watched TopGun Maverick in Atmos @ 65%, Trueplay on, sublevel +11, bass 0, treble +5, height +3. 
My neighbour has to be annoyed now, but it was fun, although it’s not wat it supposed to be. Can’t wait to watch the movie again when the bug gets fixed. Great movie btw….. Yeha, great balls of fire ☄️ 

The change in Volume control step size is a big improvement for many listeners who were having trouble listening at night. One number would be too loud but the adjacent number would be too quiet. By spreading things out a bit at the lower end it’s much easier to control the system at lower Volumes. 

At 100 there is no difference in the output now compared to prior.

Low end manufacturers are very aware of this control bias and make sure that their unit gets loud with just a little control rotation or low numbers. The unsophisticated user perceives these units as being “powerful” and these users will reject a higher end product that has much more power, but a less aggressive control characteristic.

This is a good example of how you can’t make everyone happy all the time.  I understand that people are having real issues with the sub and sound profile of the ARC, and I would be frustrated about that as well.  However, I have often seen posts about not being able to control the volume at lower levels.  One of the complaints often stated is that volume is way too loud at a setting of 1, and folks wanting more fine grained control at lower levels.

I have lost track of the number of times I have said this here in posts of Connect Amp users and even Sonos Amp ones, saying that it is not loud enough. What surprises me is that Sonos went the wrong way and had to dial back to this approach.

If I may digress on TopGun for a little - Apple TV now has it on sale and after I watched it on my 50 inch plasma with 2 quality front speakers driven by a small but powerful stereo amp, it was a fantastic watch. First movie in years where I thought at the end, I want to watch it again. And my simple but HiFi quality sound set up was shaking and rumbling the room as when the afterburners come on for the first carrier take off for the real mission. Don't need more kit for sound, with the phantom centre delivering crisp dialogues. Don’t need a sub, the two fronts are bass capable enough. In fact I suspect that anything more on the sound front is there only in a multiplex.

So slickly shot and edited, that any layperson can easily get a situational awareness of what is happening on the screen if they watch with smart phone stashed away. There must be errors as part of making a movie of such actions, but this one stood out for me: I think 200 push ups is the domain of Seal/Delta/SAS. Not US naval aviators!

Maverick is the best sequel ever made imho, couldn't have done it any better.

Go my Blu-Ray on order!.

That's why I've been looking into Atmos kit but to be honest first watch at the Cinema cannot be beaten.

So the logical consequence of this is that if you can find another system that is louder than Sonos at 20 but quieter at 100, you would choose the other system.  As others have said, there may be valid criticisms of the changes Sonos have made, but this complaint is just weird.  If Sonos isn’t as loud as you need it to be at 100, you have a problem.  If not, then just listen at the volume you want.

I am not convinced that reflecting from the ceiling Atmos effect at home will come close to Atmos speakers aimed at you in the Cinema. Let us know what you think once you are able to listen to Atmos effects via Blue Ray at home.

I’d say a ‘simple’ home 5.1 setup beats this hands down.  I’ll leave the Atmos side as I’ve not heard a repeatable and convincing home Atmos setup without physical elevated speakers myself - ARC included.

Godfather 2, Aliens, Empire Strikes Back and more I think.  Seriously though, Maverick was good fun - although I thought it was basically Star Wars.  It even had a trench run to a weak point while avoiding the SAMs 🤣

I was to say Godfather 2 as well, but I thought I get attacked enough for digressions.

And Star Wars is just Dune and a whole bunch of Western flicks; Rogue One and the Mandalorian are the only two I rate.

I don’t agree that a 5.1 beats a 2.0 hands down, if the dialogue channel is well mixed and the 2 speakers are bass capable as mine are. Surrounds are overrated in my experience, and don’t deliver the value for the wiring hassle and clutter.

but a 5.1 setup with a well mixed dialogue centre channel AND those rear speakers adds much more immersion - especially for the likes of Maverick etc.  Some of the jets literally come from behind you before you even see them.

That may well be the case; I threw away my surrounds in 2005, and the mixing for surrounds at home may have improved since then. I will go to the cinema near by and look for jets coming from behind me before I see them on the screen, to see if that effect is credible, but even if it does, and even though my 50 inch is in a dedicated for TV room, I do not see myself running wires for surround. Most of my TV watching does not include things coming from behind me and it is just not worth the bother. Not with a mutilplex 15 minutes away for the rare occasion, and with Covid now turned into just the flu.

Back somewhat on topic; with front speakers in stereo sound locations in 2.0 mode, the sound panning for jets screaming across the screen is very well rendered - you hear them before you see them just fine. And hear them after they have disappeared from the screen on the other side.

Does Arc deliver that rendering well?

Watched top gun two days ago , I actually wasn't impressed with my setup to be honest. I got beam 2 + 2 sl's and sub 3. Because of the software bug i set sub on +13 , EQ bass +5 treble +7 , true play on. I set height channel +10 and I couldn't really hear sound above my head , rear channel set on +7 and rear was decent but for me to much background music instead of the sfx in this movie. Bass obviously is lacking on 14.14 so won't even comment on that. I expected more sfx and more directional sound from the whole system.

Come on Sonos fix the damn software.…

Previously watched bad guys on 14.10 and was blown away with the sound and bass.

Have an amp, sub, symfonisk lamp surrounds, Kef R3 - watched Maverick and it sounded freaking phenomenal. Had night mode on still sounded great, think I need to check my ears 😀

@Bumper Why am I not surprised?

Do this experiment that is easy to do. Turn off the power to the surrounds and see if anything significant is lost from the same movie experience.

The outcome will tell you what to do with them - retain or redeploy to elsewhere in the home.

Have already done that experiment but I like them as lamps though so they stay put 😀

Probably could move the sub as well but it has a plant on it so it stays 😂

It keeps the soil aerated.

A well mastered 5.1 on Netflix etc does make a difference, I'd say for normal TV our surrounds are dead weigh.

We use our Playbar 5.1 setup for music a lot as well though and it really is a nice place to be with surrounds on "full music" mode. 

It will probably be HT-A9's for us for Atmos but I'm a tight Yorkshire man and just can't pull the trigger, probably will when the nights draw in.. Just irks me having to buy another Sub..

Is it me, or has this drifted waaaay off topic? 

Let’s here your thoughts on the volume issue raised in the OP to get it back on topic. Thanks for your service.

The OP question was answered and put to bed in the first few posts, and he isn't objecting to the subsequent more interesting conversation, so I suppose it is ok?!

Back in the day when I had wired surrounds, it was more of a distracting gimmick of them announcing themselves as a separate presence from time to time, than leaving you immersed in the centre of the action at least on a horizontal plane - if not the vertical thing that Atmos claims to also add. Perhaps things have changed since then, but most of the movies I watch do not need me to sit in the middle of what is happening in them.

If I had a bar based solution with surrounds, I would get myself more out of them by unbonding them and moving both to the front, in correct stereo positions as a separate stereo paired zone for just music play, that they would do better than what a bar does. Even if said surrounds were just Play 1/One units. Even with the sub left bonded to the bar.

Do not the lamps do a - I am here - thing rather than shed useful light? So I have read in reviews.

As to the Sub being redundant, that is down to the KEFs.

Another question. Amp here is Sonos Amp driving the KEF placed flanking the TV? Sub is Sonos Sub? And this is a Sonos supported configuration with no lip sync issues?

If so, once the phantom centre channel is got to work properly via correct KEF placement, the only thing missing from a full blown 5.1 is centre speaker sound level control.

I would then any day choose this over any bar based solution for TV, while getting superior sound for just music. Atmos at home is mostly a gimmick.

And Sonos will never faff around with the sound profile for this, because there is really no call to. Sonos won’t touch the Sonos Amp to change its profile and nothing else then needs to be changed in this set up by Sonos because it is right from day 1.