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Center channel issue

J

OK so I have read a lot about this and think i know the answer but im hoping to get some advice on what i can do to make this better. My system currently is as follows

Sonos amp running two LCR front speakers

Sonos sub

The issue I am having is with some TV shows and movies the Phantom Center voice is just way to low. On other stuff it is fine. I am looking for a way to add basically a center channel to my system to make this better as I don't think anything Sonos has in their offering will work. To me it seems like the simple solution would be for Sonos to offer some settings in the amp for the AMP and other products that would bring out the Voice or maybe other EQs but so far that has not happened and the APP is very basic as i write this. So that leaves me with a couple of options that I can see.

1 Buy a HDMI audio splitter and a HDMI 2 way splitter to pull the center audio off the HDMI stream then feed this into a mono amp and into a passive center speaker.

2 Toss the Sonos amp and add a 3 channel amp to run the front. But then i have a issue getting the signal to the sub

3 Buy a Soundbar and use move the LCR speakers to the rear and use the sonos amp to run this but i expect the sound bar will not sound nearly as good on the mains as what i have.

 

It seems like this is a core peace Sonos is missing in there setup as it would be very mice to be able to use one of their speakers as a center. So with all that said anyone have any other half way simple ideas  on how to do this?

 

 

 

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6 replies

Ken_Griffiths

I don’t believe there is a way to achieve what you’re looking for and others have spoken about a central speaker with (4) satellite surrounds front/back in various other forum threads here. 
 

I assume you have tried the speech enhancement feature in the Sonos App?

https://support.sonos.com/s/article/4796

 

J
  • John B
  • 19684 replies
  • March 12, 2022
joesgtech wrote:

The issue I am having is with some TV shows and movies the Phantom Center voice is just way to low. On other stuff it is fine.

 

Is there any correspondence between this and the audio format that Sonos is playing, as given in About My System in the app?

Airgetlam
1 person likes this
  • Airgetlam
    Airgetlam
J
  • joesgtech
  • Author
  • Contributor I
  • 2 replies
  • March 12, 2022

Well I’m not completely sure but i know its bad on stereo pcm. And the speech enhancement change is very slight.  

J
  • joesgtech
  • Author
  • Contributor I
  • 2 replies
  • March 12, 2022

Well 5.1 is basically just as bad even with speech enhancement on. So no fix there. 

Ken_Griffiths
joesgtech wrote:

Well 5.1 is basically just as bad even with speech enhancement on. So no fix there. 

I’m wondering if it’s an issue (or compatibility matter) with your TV, or perhaps the chosen connected speakers? The Sonos ‘speech enhancement’ (& Night-mode) features both work well with my LG TV, but that said, we’re using the Sonos Arc with surrounds/Sub here.

Speech/dialogue also seems fine when listening to the news, or when playing a movie on Netflix/Prime.

I haven’t seen many here complain about the sound of their Amp with TV audio and these independent reviews are really favourable when the Amp was tested with TV audio output…

K
  • Kumar
  • 13501 replies
  • March 13, 2022
joesgtech wrote:

 

The issue I am having is with some TV shows and movies the Phantom Center voice is just way to low. On other stuff it is fine. I am looking for a way to add basically a center channel to my system to make this better as I don't think anything Sonos has in their offering will work.

So with all that said anyone have any other half way simple ideas  on how to do this?

 

 

 

The phantom centre effect usually works very well for dialogue, making it appear to come from the screen, but it can be overpowered in effects heavy movies. 

The full solution for this is legacy style wired 5.1 or 3.1 AVR with a dedicated centre channel speaker that has its independent volume control to change dialog loudness levels. Sonos does not offer this solution at this time.

The simple solution is subtitles.

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