You’re overthinking this. The trueplay process instructions you how and when to move the speaker around for optimum sound. You don’t need to figure anything out on your own. The tuning is not just about placing the mic where your ears will be, but understanding the room and how audio reflects off the walls. There isn’t an option to use an external microphone, and Sonos has never stated that such an option is coming in the future.
Maybe I am overthinking, but the instructions are a bit basic/vague. Just read a post by @Airgetlam suggests removing iPhone case and cleaning ‘pocket dust’ from iPhone mic before Trueplay process. I still don’t get why Trueplay would want to hear sounds in places I wont listen to them?
If you don’t cover sufficient areas of the room, Trueplay will abort with an error. That said, you can spend a bit more time in the areas where your ears will be located, and thus weight Trueplay somewhat to favour them.
It is easy enough to fool with setting up trueplay, try out the minimal movement possible around your seating area versus using larger patterns and see which sounds best to you.
I’ve just been looking how Bose do their equivalent of Trueplay, they call it ADAPTiQ:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KSUHWdVdwEw
The Bose approach would have more consistent results, as the microphones are external, positioned where the ears are, and the instructions are specific to sit where you listen.
My thoughts are of you had 2 people run a ADAPTiQ process in same room they would both get similar results.
If you had 2 people with different models of phones run a Trueplay process in same room independently you would get different results, based where those people waved the phone, which direction they travelled the room in.
I’ll do some testing, and limit the waving around of the Trueplay App to the sofa area.
I still think you’re overthinking this. The Trueplay process will tell you to remove your phone’s cover, turn it upside down...it’s not something you need to need to research in advance. As far as how and where you move the phone around the room, I’d argue that any difference you hear in audio will be mostly subjective. You’ll probably feel like waving near the seating area gives better results, because you want it to more than any objective difference. But if that makes it sound better to you, then sure.
From what I have read today, it appears others are also currently getting inconsistent results with Trueplay. As a concept Trueplay is a good thing, but there seems there are too many variables to provide a consistent result.
After some ‘subjective’ testing over past few days, I found to get the best out of Trueplay in my environment (L shaped room):
- If you have one, move Sub near corner of room if possible, this seems to give a richer bass sound.
- Use an old iDevice (I used an iPhone 6s)
- Make sure you remove cover from iPhone and clean microphone(s) from dust
- Move the iPhone around the area your ears will be most of the time, eg dont wave down to your knees, upto the ceiling. In my case I just move up and down slightly across the sofa, and back a few times.
HTH!
Video just published from Peter Pee, that seems to validate some of the issues I am hearing with Trueplay:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jmKsMLzv4m8
