Dialogue level through Arc with Sony KD-75X9400D

D

Just changed from Bose soundbar and sub to sonos arc with sub and twin ones as surround. 
 

The sonos is so hard to hear dialogue with the sound level down yet the action scenes are very loud. Finding myself constantly adjusting the volume and the wife is asking if we have wasted our money changing to sonos. 
 

i have been playing all night with the app, trueplay on and off, loudness on and off etc etc. Have the surround speakers turned down to help a little but never had ti do any of this with the bose 300 system. 
 

Running Sony KD-75X9400D. 
 

any help appreciated :) 

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22 replies

W
Userlevel 3
Badge +2

I kind of recognize this in our setup. We upgraded from a Playbar to the ARC, with sub and two Ones for surround. We feel dialogues were more clear then with the ARC. Yesterday I spend some time on adjusting the sound and it is better but still not as good as with the Playbar. It is hard to explain in writing but the sound feels ‘dull’, balance between speech and the music/effects is far apart which, similar to you, means we need to adjust the volume some times during a program or movie. Hope Sonos will make some tweaks to make it better.

D

I am also wondering if it has somehow dropped resolution on the tv picture in netflix. Just seems more “pixely”

W
Userlevel 3
Badge +2

I am also wondering if it has somehow dropped resolution on the tv picture in netflix. Just seems more “pixely”

The Sonos ARC has no influence on the picture quality in any way. It is only receiving audio data from your TV (or AVR) and sending/receiving some CEC data.

D

Was just googling as the wife also mentioned it and supposedly it can slow down the NETFLIX. Some have said using the sonos boost can help. Our internet is not too bad but maybe with these now its slowing it down 

W
Userlevel 3
Badge +2

Sonos ARC is running on local network and not necessarily pulling a lot of data from the internet unless you play music from e.g. Spotify. Maybe you have other network devices that are using bandwidth from your internet connection causing less available bandwidth from your internet connection? What is your down/up speed you get from your ISP?

D

Ok :) 

 

38.1Down

14.1Up

ping 12ms 

 

7 devices on the network  4 sonos and our 2 phones then the android tv

 

Stanley_4
Userlevel 7
Badge +22

We find the standard dialog hard to hear too, kinda fixed it. Set Night Mode and Speech Enhancement mode. Went to Settings and manually lowered the low frequencies and Sub volume.

What we wish we had was an option to make the center channel louder than the R/L channels.

D

I upgraded to the Arc from the Playbase and find the dialogue on the Arc to be substantially better.  Louder and clearer voices.  No special settings for me.  Using LG C7 TV. 

D

I upgraded to the Arc from the Playbase and find the dialogue on the Arc to be substantially better.  Louder and clearer voices.  No special settings for me.  Using LG C7 TV. 

Ohh ok. I am going to try my old bose system again today. If i can’t get it to be as clear as that then i am going to ask for a refund. Hopefully i don’t lose 3k. 
 

i have tried all the night mode, speech enhancement, changing treble and bass and Adjusting volumes around but am still not happy with the sound.

 

i am a bit disappointed on the sonos kit for the poor volume dialogue only, if that was rectified it would be such an awesome kit. 

 

D

Did you run Trueplay?  It requires an iOS device but can make a big difference.  You may want to rerun it again and this time change the way you sweep the room.  Maybe focus on a narrow region of the room (like 15x15 feet) where you listen the most.

I haven’t heard the Bose bar you have.  But I’m almost shocked how great the dialogue sounds on my Arc. 

Another idea, are you using the stock Sonos HDMI cable or your own?  I’m using the stock cable.

D

Did you run Trueplay?  It requires an iOS device but can make a big difference.  You may want to rerun it again and this time change the way you sweep the room.  Maybe focus on a narrow region of the room (like 15x15 feet) where you listen the most.

I haven’t heard the Bose bar you have.  But I’m almost shocked how great the dialogue sounds on my Arc. 

Another idea, are you using the stock Sonos HDMI cable or your own?  I’m using the stock cable.

Yes i did run true play :)

 

am trying it again now. Just have the bose on and dialogue is so clear and all the action scenes (watching bumblebee atm) are at the same volume. 
 

another issue, when i turned the tv on the sonos was not emmitting any sound at all. Tried to turn on the tv speakers and it just reverts to audio system and no sound. Tried restarting tv and was the same. I plugged the bose in and all working perfectly. 
 

Will try the sonos again now 

B
Userlevel 3
Badge +4

My wife and I watched a movie last night for the first time since getting the arc. Our son was asleep so we had Night mode and dialogue enhancement on. We upgraded from the Beam to Arc. And last night was a struggle. Speech was quiet - turning off night mode made it better but then I found ourselves turning the volume up and down between dialogue scenes and action scenes. 

This was juts not something that we had to do the beam. It worked perfectly 

I’ve expressed my disappointment at the Arc regarding Bass issues and sound profile. 

The only reason it’s not been sent back is because I hold hope it’s a software issue. The clarity and space is there but it feels the tuning off by a large measure. 

I used trueplay with an old iPhone. On or Off. Speech is still lacking clarity.

Beam. 2x Play:1 - 2x Play One (gen 2) - Sub - 2x Play 5 - Move
T

I have the same issue, can’t watch a movie without constantly adjusting the volume. I ran the true play setup also and my Samsung Q950R won’t let me adjust sound settings saying it’s disabled through Sonos hdmi. Seriously considering selling it as I still have my Beam.

J
Badge

Hi @DVS JEZ thanks for reaching back to the Community. It looks like most of the troubleshooting steps have been exhausted. At this point in time, I would recommend you contacting our Phone support for further assistance. Thank you for the details and your patience on this. Please give us a call during our business hours and a technician will continue working with you. You can find our phone number and hours here. Let us know if you have any other concerns. Thanks! 

J
Badge

Hi @Tusho welcome and thanks for reaching out to The Community. We would like to gather more information in order for us to fully understand the issue. Please answer the following:

  • Did it work before?
  • When did it start happening?
  • What is the source(e.g Netflix, Cable box) when you are trying to play from the TV?
  • Where are you adjusting the settings? Is it on the TV or in the Sonos App?
  • Have we tried adjusting the EQ settings from the Sonos App?

Please submit a diagnostic while it is playing with the TV  for us to have a better view of your system. Let us know if you have any other concerns. Thanks! 

T
Userlevel 3
Badge

Came here to say me too! I almost sent the Arc back, but annoyingly it works better for us in terms of space and placement than our previous Playbase.

 

We *never* had to touch the volume controller when we had the Playbase. With Arc, it literally needs to be in hand constantly when watching any show. Up for dialog, down for action. Even boring shows, there is a crazy distinction between dialog and non dialog. It’s making watching shows quite unpleasant. 

J
Badge

Hi @TimDonovan thanks for reaching out to the Community. We appreciate you raising this to us. I would like to know more about the issue that you are having. Please answer these questions: 

  • Did it work before?
  • When did it start happening?
  • What is the source(e.g Netflix, Cable box) when you are trying to play from the TV?
  • Have we tried enabling the Speech Enhancement? 
  • Have we also tried enabling the Night Sound Mode? 

Link is available above on how to enable the Speech Enhancement and the Night Sound Mode. Feel free to reply to us if you have further questions or clarifications. Thanks! 

P
Userlevel 2

I’ve just purchased a Sonos ARC and I’m getting exactly the same issue.  The dialogue levels are extremely low in any movie compared to action and music.  My wife is losing patience and honestly it’s not pleasant watching movies / TV with it.  I’m about to unplug it.  Seriously disappointed.  Love my Sub, Play 5 Gen 2 and Gen 1 and Play 3.  

 

DEAR SONOS team - surely this is a software setup issue which is resolvable?  Please let me know - really don’t want to send it back!! Thanks in advance. 

G
Userlevel 3
Badge +4

I upgraded to the Arc from the Playbase and find the dialogue on the Arc to be substantially better.  Louder and clearer voices.  No special settings for me.  Using LG C7 TV. 

Ohh ok. I am going to try my old bose system again today. If i can’t get it to be as clear as that then i am going to ask for a refund. Hopefully i don’t lose 3k. 
 

i have tried all the night mode, speech enhancement, changing treble and bass and Adjusting volumes around but am still not happy with the sound.

 

i am a bit disappointed on the sonos kit for the poor volume dialogue only, if that was rectified it would be such an awesome kit. 

 

did you get this resolved?

 

I also have exactly the same issue.  The balance of voice/dialogue and action noises is too extremes and therefore constantly adjusting the volume.  

It’s such a shame as you can tell it should be awesome, but it is really lacking balance and additional control.  As many have said you should be able to increase the centre speaker in the arc where most of the dialogue comes from.  

 

If sonos would take the time to review this community and many other forums they will see this is a common fault that I am sure could be resolved with a firmware update.

I keep trying night mode but you do lose too much of the ooomph.

I have settled for playing at lower volume but with speech enhancement.  However, I must say the speech enhancement can make it sound a bit tinny at times.  

M
Userlevel 5
Badge +7

Yeah totally agree with this, I have tried to change many settings to get this right, Trueplaying with different devices, speech mode, loudness on/off but still find we have to adjust the volume, the voice/diaglogue can be just too quiet then then louder sounds kick in and its too loud.

Sonos need to give you an option to able to control the centre speakers etc manually like you can on other soundbars. fingers crossed. @Krishma M if you can look into this

G
Userlevel 3
Badge +4

Yeah totally agree with this, I have tried to change many settings to get this right, Trueplaying with different devices, speech mode, loudness on/off but still find we have to adjust the volume, the voice/diaglogue can be just too quiet then then louder sounds kick in and its too loud.

Sonos need to give you an option to able to control the centre speakers etc manually like you can on other soundbars. fingers crossed. @Krishma M if you can look into this

Sadly I think, if we do ever get a reply, it will be the cut and paste we have passed to the engineers as an idea but can't promise it will be done.  Follow this community etc, etc.

I have been reading a lot on this forum, reddit, AV forum etc and this has been an issue since release.  I think they are likely to just leave it as its selling well.

Such a shame, for the cost its an average performance that I can tell with a tweaks could be so much better.

E

I’m having the same issue - I’ve noticed that when dialog is mixed with background audio it sounds fine, but when dialog is just by itself if it is muffled and hard to hear.

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