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I swapped out a Playbase with a Beam about a month ago.  The Playbase has been wonderful for several years.  Great sound, nicely tuned for TV usage. I would buy it again any day.

I moved to a new house where the TV needs to go on the fireplace mantel, so I need something les than about 5 inches deep to fit the space.

I thought a Beam would be perfect, and I expected the usual Sonos quality.  I am deeply disappointed. 

The Beam has no midrange, which means dialog is especially bad.

I have loudness off, I have EQ set to -10 bass, +10 treble.  I tuned the room with Truplay.  Truplay took the speaker from godawful to merely far beneath acceptable.

I have checked the ARC connections, HDMI 2.2, Dolby, etc.  I have been reading some other suggestions around these forums, but the reality is the Beam allows very little adjustment and also adjustment won't fix a bad speaker design.

I don’t think the Beam is worth even $100 and it’s really not much of an upgrade compared to the poor quality speakers built into the TV.

I would rather not go outside the Sonos ecosystem, but the only alternative is the Arc,

I am struggling to understand why the Beam gets good reviews.  It is possibly one of the worst speakers I have owned other than a cheap boombox back in the 1990s.

I don’t really care about home theater in the sense of surround sound or whatever the new Dolby feature due jour is.  Dolby has always been problematic for reducing dialog loudness relative to explosions.  I think Dolby is a stupid gimmick which decreases overall quality, but I acknowledge others would disagree. 

Does anyone have any suggestions for salvaging the Beam before I dump it on some poor fool via eBay?  Are all recent gen Sonos this bad?

Any suggestions for a really good center channel all-in-one TV speaker?  Bose?  Other brands?  I only care about dialog quality, Dolby and other junk features are not really needed.  Wired ethernet preferred, but wifi could be acceptable.

As an amusing aside, my 17yo son has taken Piano for 12 years.  So I’ll call him the sound quality expert in the house.  He listened to the brand new beam for 10 seconds and exclaimed at the lack of midrange and the poor audio quality.  He asked what it cost and looked at me like I am stupid when I said it cost $400.  I have to agree.  I would not pay $100 for a Beam.  I think $60 is the right price for a product of this quality.

Am I missing something or are reviewers just fanbois who are easily pleased?

Hi

Sorry to hear that you dislike your Beam. Is it a Gen1 or Gen2? Regardless the Beam is designed for small spaces like a bedroom. It appears you may be asking the Beam to cover too large an area. In a large area the Beam really requires a Sonos sub to handle the low end thus allowing it to better produce mids and highs.

To be honest the Beam is not as robust as the Playbase. Therefore it is not a suitable replacement. If you require a speaker that is slimmer than the Playbase you might consider looking for a used Playbar on eBay which may accommodate your mantle (length wise).  The Playbar is equivalent to the Playbase acoustics. Of there’s always the Sonos Arc 🙄

Fyi, Dolby Digital multi-channel is just what any Sonos home theater speaker is cable of decoding. If the source is just two channel stereo that is what the speaker will decode and output.

I realize this is probably not what you wanted hear but it’s an honest response. If you have an iPhone or can borrow one you can use Trueplay in the Sonos app  to possibly improve the Beams performance.

 

I also have the Beam, and mine is in a small room. I’d used Trueplay to set it up, but the midrange (dialog) is atrocious despite enhancement and nighttime mode being on. 5.1 sound exacerbates the problem.

Sorry for the cynicism, but upgrade to an Arc. The Beam is a stellar speaker at its price point, but it was always going to be a step down from the Playbase.

We shouldn’t have to “upgrade” just to make dialog intelligible.

… and here we go.

“I'm shocked at how poor the audio dialogue on the Sonos Arc is. I play media from all possible sources, and I'm constantly adjusting the audio levels to hear the conversation.”

It’s weird, as I don’t have that issue at all, on either of the two Arcs I own. So it doesn’t appear to be an endemic hardware issue...although perhaps an issue with some Arcs, and not all?

It’s kind of why I try to encourage people to contact Sonos directly. Posting in this forum isn’t the same thing as contacting Sonos Support, it’s a much more tangential thing. I’d think the forum moderators do what they can to forward data to both Sonos Support and the programming manager, but their job isn’t just support, it’s first and foremost to maintain the community aspect of this forum.  

… and here we go.

“I'm shocked at how poor the audio dialogue on the Sonos Arc is. I play media from all possible sources, and I'm constantly adjusting the audio levels to hear the conversation.”

 

One person.  One.  On the other hand, I give you this:

Sonos Arc reviews at Amazon

4.7 out of 5 average, 86% 5 stars.  If there were something systemically wrong with the Arc. there’s no way it ranks that high at Amazon. 

Have you tried setting the bass and treble to zero? -10 for bass and +10 for treble is a weird EQ. 

I have a Playbase in a 5.1 configuration. I’d buy an Arc if it weren't just a bit too wide for the LPCM support although I find the Playbase all I need for sound quality and it always gets a Dolby Digital signal either 2.0 or 5.1. We also have a Beam on it’s own in our bedroom connected to a TV by ARC using Sky Q satellite mini box as a feed which can output Dolby Digital or PCM. If the Sky box is set to output Dolby Digital the sound particularly for dialogue is low, recessed and while clearer overall is so unbalanced it’s not worth bothering with. Switch the output to PCM and everything falls into place with a rounded, balanced sound. I don’t know it this is an issue with the Sky output, the TV passing through the signal or the Beam. Streaming Tidal HiFi through the Beam is excellent (for a sound bar). As I’ve found a way to make it work I’ve not bothered to investigate further but worth trying. 

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