Beam with 2 Play 1 and Samsung TV Quality

You may need to adjust the volume of the surround speakers when watching TV. Although many TV shows choose their own volume, there's a certain amount of adjustment you can make on your own. Open the controller app, and select "More..." > "Settings" > "Room Settings" > [Room name of your TV/Beam] > "Advanced Audio" > "Surround Settings" and you can change the volume of those speakers when your listening to TV or streaming music.

I tried that already based on whats on the site. Does not help much... conversations low on TV and all of a sudden music blast. I have to turn off surround sound completely when watching TV.

Open the Sonos app. From the More tab, tap Settings > Room Settings.
Select the room the home theater speakers and surround speakers are located in. It appears as Room (+LS+RS) on the Room Settings menu.
Select Advanced Audio > Surround Settings.
Choose one of the following:
Surrounds: Choose On or Off to turn the sound from the surround speakers on and off.
TV Level: Drag your finger across the slider to increase or decrease the volume of the surround speakers for TV playback.
Music Level: Drag your finger across the slider to increase or decrease the volume of the surround speakers for Music playback.
Music Playback: Choose Ambient (default; subtle, ambient sound) or Full (enables louder, full range sound). This setting applies only to music playback, not TV audio.

How sure are you, when you're watching TV, that the Beam is receiving a Dolby Digital signal?

While you're watching a show on TV, open up the controller app, click on More...>Settings>About My Sonos System. In the area describing the Beam there's a line that starts with Audio In: What does it say after that?

It says Dolby Digital 2.0

Hello

Please excuse me for butting in :8 Just want to add to Airgetlam's excellent advice :)

Regardless of whether you're getting DD5.1 or DD2.0 your surrounds should not be overpowering. When using TruePlay the room should be deafening quiet. If you are near your HVAC system and it starts it can cause false readings (even the sound of the air rushing through the vents). If you can hear other people talking the microphones on your device can too. If your device has a case...remove it. I've found the best time to use TruePlay is after everyone has left the house or at night when everyone has gone to bed. I'd try running TruePlay again under the conditions I've described. Let us know how things sort out.

One more thought and I'm speaking from experience as I own a Beam. In a large area other than a bedroom the Beam delivers a better performance when paired with a Sub. Read about my experience with the Beam at the link: https://en.community.sonos.com/wireless-speakers-228992/beam-vs-playbar-playbase-my-opinion-6814520

Cheers!

That would indicate that you're getting a stereo signal, not a Dolby Digital 5.1 signal. Which is why you're not getting much volume out of the surround speakers, there's no signal for them to be playing.

You may want to check the audio settings on your TV set, and the devices connected to it, to be sure that they're sending a Dolby Digital 5.1 signal to the Beam.

And you should be pretty careful about the program you're watching, when you check all these settings. Don't, for instance, be on a news program. Try to be watching a fairly recent movie, on a movie channel, so that you're certain a full Dolby Digital 5.1 signal is being sent by the broadcaster.

@Airgetlam

Oops! Maybe I shouldn't have butted in. I interpreted Bruce's issue to be that the surrounds were overpowering (i.e. extremely loud). I must have missed something judging from your response. :? Although it isn't the first time and most likely not the last that I'll get my wires crossed. Old age is a .....

Cheers!

Heh. I tend to lose track of the original question myself, after reading so many posts in a day, and responding to some portion thereof.

But either issue would be exacerbated by not getting a 5.1 signal, wouldn't it? It would be easier to deal with on either side of that equation, if you were sure that the signal you're dealing with is the correct one. The way it is designed.

I'm currently tempted in writing up a post to explain what surround really is. It isn't a duplication of the center (voice) channel at all, which a lot of people seem to think it is, and expect their Sonos system to help with not hearing the voices on the TV properly.

Heh. I tend to lose track of the original question myself, after reading so many posts in a day, and responding to some portion thereof. But either issue would be exacerbated by not getting a 5.1 signal, wouldn't it?

That's another angle to consider. However, I'm not so sure that a signal would be exaggerated to be louder or lower (meaning to the extreme on either end) over properly tuned surrounds whelter it be DD5.1 or DD2.0.

I listen to a variety of programing and have 3 Sonos HT systems (DD5.1 x 2 and DD5.0 x 1) all tuned with Trueplay and not one has overpowering surrounds. I will grant that if I'm listening to music and I'm sitting between the surrounds the sound can be a bit loud. I've never been fond of the Sonos HT setup for music. That's one reason why I use my Play 5's for a more pleasing concert-like sound.

I hope Bruce S is able to find his way.

Cheers!

In a Dolby 2.0 signal, there should be no surround information whatsoever, causing you to turn up the volume if you're expecting something to be coming through. Then when you turn on music, the overall "room" volume would be higher, causing the music, set at "full" rather than "ambient" to be much higher in volume than expected.

At least that's my theory. :)

Since surround sound is really designed to deal with a 5.1 signal, and not a 2.0 signal, I *think* that getting Bruce S' setup to be receiving the correct data might assist in ensuring that he can have the volume set more evenly between the two inputs, as much as possible. There's of course the issue that Sonos doesn't do any sound leveling itself, so if the data stream coming to his Beam from his TV is at a lower native volume than a stream from Pandora, for instance, there's not much that can be done. But my expectation is that as he's got it connected via HDMI-ARC, then the volume coming from the TV should be handled by the HDMI-CEC connection. It's been a few years since I paid a whole lot of attention to HDMI-CEC, since it was at the time such a poorly implemented standard, varying from manufacturer to manufacturer, but I would be stunned if a TV that supports HDMI-ARC didn't automatically set the output level on the ARC signal to be fixed.

And after all, I can't leave a fellow Bruce in the lurch, can I?