PLAYBASE Bass Response Underwhelming

I stopped by a Best Buy at lunch, with the hope of comparing the Playbar and Playbase side by side. While they were both displayed, I could only "hear" the Playbase. Seemed like it had pretty good bass, all things considered, but nothing like having a true Sub connected....but given the size of the speaker, I was fairly impressed. It will never have the same punch as a full sized sub, but I'd think for a large portion of Sonos' market (think non-audiophiles), it would be more than sufficient.

Have just tried the Playbase an installed it with Trueplay, but unfortunatly im not satisfied. The tweeter is to electric and sounds just to tweeety, . The bass is maybe Ok for its size but something in the soundspectrum doesn't come out with the feeling of wholeness. I will send it back and keep my Audiovectors..

I totally agree that there's something overly shrill about the tweeters—I hope this can be fixed in a future software update. Based on the form factor you'd think the mid drivers would be compromised, but it's the most competent range in the pbase.

After some experimenting, I actually like the sound (for music) I am getting out of a 5.0 "full" setup with my p1s in the back. Living in a rowhouse, it's nice to be immersed in music without having to really crank it. I'm going to get a dedicated pair of p1 rears and will exchange the pbase for a playbar.

Curious. Anyone else having loudness issues? Does it have to do with my tv? The play bass sounds good. Just added some 1s. Will get the sub soon too. Just wondering if it gets louder. Seems like up to 50% can barely hear anything. I'm new to this surround sound stuff! Thank you!

Could someone paste here a frequency response test from the playbase? How does the playbase compares with the playbar in general sound quality? Not just bass.

I was initially somewhat underwhelmed when first hooking up the Playbase. I did an initial Trueplay and all sounded just okay. Imaging was better and voices were more distinct, but the bass did seemed somewhat lacking.

I then did another Trueplay session, this time being more careful and also setting my seating position further back than usual. That seemed to have an impacts as the bass seems much more pronounced. I also think I was sonically prejudiced by my previous soundbar which had a small wireless sub - it was not a very good system and the sub probably provided a muddy deepness that may have clouded my hearing. The bass on the PB sounds more tight and not just a rumble with anything under 60hz.

You can't expect too much in either stereo separation or bass in a unit like this or any sound bar without a separate sub.
If the Sonos multi-room isn't important to you then you are better off with a soundbar that has a subwoofer with it. Personally I can't stand sounbars of any type because they have poor stereo separation. The laws of physics still apply.

I was initially somewhat underwhelmed when first hooking up the Playbase. I did an initial Trueplay and all sounded just okay. Imaging was better and voices were more distinct, but the bass did seemed somewhat lacking.

I then did another Trueplay session, this time being more careful and also setting my seating position further back than usual. That seemed to have an impacts as the bass seems much more pronounced..
This sounds similar to my experience. The first Trueplay tuning I did was just OK, but something seemed off. I realized that for one thing the HVAC fan was running for part of it, and for another, I had a case on my phone (iPhone 😵 that may have influenced the sound from certain angles. So I took the case off the phone, made sure the fans were off, and re-tuned, as you said being more careful this time about covering the main seating position but also on the second pass covering the whole room better. One question I have as you're doing the walking around part is how well it deals with when your body is in-between the phone and the Sonos. I tried to minimize that.

Bottom line is I did notice a significant improvement in the sound on the second try. I did bring the bass EQ up slightly above center (I really wish they provided an optional full-band EQ instead of 2 sliders but of course how that would interact with Trueplay tuning is a question), and I keep Loudness on. Sounds pretty good for both TV and music. As noted, the Playbase by itself is never going to challenge the sound of a quality monster system with multiple, dedicated speakers, but I'm very impressed. It's really perfect for an apartment where you are constrained on space and you can't realistically use earth-shaking bass anyway (the built-in Playbase bass is pretty impressive though).