Please add support for DTS for the Sonos Playbar.

Please see a copy of a mail thread with Sonos and take a short look by yourself to figure out if they are serious about home cinema use of the PLAYBAR or not. (Support answers are weak marketing chat, the CEO is not answering at all.) _________________ Thread Titel: Stop the PLAYBAR marketing lies ! _________________ Hello Keith, dear (unknown) CEO, seen your answer and for sure I’m going to return the unit instantly. No way to keep this scrap on weak promises and marketing lies. For sure you can send me updates about new features and functionality. But I’ve learned the information on your website is inaccurate. With all required respect, but Sonos is simply lying to customers. Sincerely Bernd _________________ Hello Bernd, We do not give out any information on any future updates or products. As soon as I know anything, I can send you that information. If you would like me to return the unit for you, please let me know. Sincerely, Keith M Sonos Support Manager. _________________ Hello Keith, dear CEO, thanks for fast fast answer, anyway it does not lead into a solution, especially it does not answer my question. Therefore I’m asking again for a clear statement, not for a weak ‘maybe sometime in future’ marketing answer. First please seriously review my statements below together with your engineering team about HD TV sets. Second please answer my clear and simple question at the end of this mail. 1. The Sonos view of PCM, DD and DTS handling on common HD TV sets is wrong, at a minimum bad market research. Most HD TV sets work in pass through or bit stream mode on their optical output. Therefore they commonly forward the given DD 5.1 or DTS 5.1 bit stream unchanged to their optical output to forward best quality. As a result of this common implementation they are forwarding DD 5.1 or DTS 5.1 to the PLAYBAR depending on the source signal. In example most audio content delivered on Blu-Ray is DTS 5.1, especially if you go for the international translations of the audio streams. For sure on some HD TV sets you can configure PCM 2 down-sampling for the optical output. As already stated this leads into down-sampling on the HD TV set and re-up-sampling on the PLAYBAR and therefore an unacceptable loss of audio quality. By design this multiple re-sampling dramatically reduces the 5.1 experience, ‘cause it’s not native 5.1 as given on the source, it’s just virtual surround quality. Anyway this is just a sad workaround to the missing DTS support on a 2k Sonos surround sound system (counting a PLAYBAR, a SUB and two PLAY:3). 2. The question asked multiple times is simple and the two possible answers are ‘YES’ or ‘NO’: Is Sonos going to offer full and hassle-free DTS 5.1 support on the currently purchased PLAYBAR hardware? Again: I’m asking some kind of a multiple choice question and the possible answers are: ‘YES, YOU CAN KEEP YOUR CURRENT PLAYBAR, WE ARE GOING TO SUPPORT FULL AND HASSLE-FREE DTS 5.1 ON THE CURRENT PLAYBAR HARDWARE.’ ‘NO, RETURN IT, WE ARE NOT ABLE, NOT WILLING, NOT SKILLED ENOUGH TO SUPPORT FULL AND HASSLE-FREE DTS 5.1 ON THE CURRENT PLAYBAR HARDWARE.’ Your options are ‘YES’ or ‘NO’ nothing in between, ‘cause I need to decide if I want to keep my current PLAYBAR or to return it on time and get my money back. Anyway I really like the Sonos PLAYBAR, the other Sonos audio stuff and the Sonos user experience, but I’m not likely to take the risk to stay with possibly clumsy hardware. Sincerely Bernd Krause ________________ Hello Bernd, I thank you for your feedback on the PLAYBAR. The design of the PLAYBAR is to work through the Optical Out of your TV. The majority of TVs do not pass DTS. They commonly will pass either Stereo or Dolby Digital, which the PLAYBAR can handle. If we receive a Stereo Signal, the PLAYBAR will upmix this signal to a virtual Surround Sound. For Dolby signals, we will play that format as a Native Dolby Digital signal. I will bring this DTS feature request up to the System Design Team. Hopefully this is something we can introduce to the PLAYBAR at some point in the future. Once again, thank you for your feedback. Sincerely, Keith M Sonos Support Manager. ________________ Dear CEO, dear Customer Service Manager, just a few days ago I bought a brand new PLAYBAR and I’m completely dissatisfied and quite upset about the big discrepancies between marketing descriptions and product features. Your website is saying : Plays all sources plugged in to your HD TV: satellite boxes, Blu-Ray players, and video game consoles. If it’s connected to your HD TV, PLAYBAR will play it. http://www.sonos.com/shop/products/playbar In simple words - and please accept my apologies about my pour English - this is a simple, but rough marketing lie. From a quick reviews it’s less than 20% of the common HD TV sets going to play properly from all inputs with the PLAYBAR. The main reason for this major lack of functionality is the missing DTS support of the PLAYBAR. As I learned from your support this is ‘failure by design’, therefore it’s seems to be an engineering problem. From my point of view you have just two options: Close the gap and correct the engineering problem by adding DTS support to the PLAYBAR. As a first result your current marketing information is (as everywhere just nearby) going to tell the truth. This way you are going to keep your customers satisfied and stop the upcoming ‘shit storm’ about the PLAYBAR. Or keep the gap, but stop the marketing lies on your website and tell the people the truth about the current PLAYBAR: It’s just a good music player looking similar to a soundbar and with some good luck it connects to your HD TV, too. It’s up to you to make the proper decisions. At this point in time I’m very likely to return my PLAYBAR in case I’m getting no valuable, reliable and convincing response telling me it’s going to have full and hassle-free DTS support on the currently purchased hardware. For sure it looks nice and quite similar to a real soundbar, but it only works fine as a music player and it’s definitively not matching the mainstream demand of the real ‘home cinema’ world and the common audio formats. Sincerely Bernd Krause
Why are you trying to make a point on a topic you clearly don't understand? A DTS signal contain 6 high quality digitally encoded audio streams. Centre speaker for speech, left and right for front, surround left and right and a low frequency channel for sub effects. PCM contains just two channels. You lose the discrete centre and surround sound channels, along with the sub track. They get mushed up in with the rest. It's kinda like putting a colour photo on a black and white copy machine. Incidentally, another format called LPCM does exist which allows surround sound. PLAYBAR also doesn't support that and never will in its current form as LPCM won't work over the SPD/IF optical connection.

Please see a copy of a mail thread with Sonos and take a short look by yourself to figure out if they are serious about home cinema use of the PLAYBAR or not. (Support answers are weak marketing chat, the CEO is not answering at all.) _________________ Thread Titel: Stop the PLAYBAR marketing lies ! _________________ Hello Keith, dear (unknown) CEO, seen your answer and for sure I’m going to return the unit instantly. No way to keep this scrap on weak promises and marketing lies. For sure you can send me updates about new features and functionality. But I’ve learned the information on your website is inaccurate. With all required respect, but Sonos is simply lying to customers. Sincerely Bernd _________________ Hello Bernd, We do not give out any information on any future updates or products. As soon as I know anything, I can send you that information. If you would like me to return the unit for you, please let me know. Sincerely, Keith M Sonos Support Manager. _________________ Hello Keith, dear CEO, thanks for fast fast answer, anyway it does not lead into a solution, especially it does not answer my question. Therefore I’m asking again for a clear statement, not for a weak ‘maybe sometime in future’ marketing answer. First please seriously review my statements below together with your engineering team about HD TV sets. Second please answer my clear and simple question at the end of this mail. 1. The Sonos view of PCM, DD and DTS handling on common HD TV sets is wrong, at a minimum bad market research. Most HD TV sets work in pass through or bit stream mode on their optical output. Therefore they commonly forward the given DD 5.1 or DTS 5.1 bit stream unchanged to their optical output to forward best quality. As a result of this common implementation they are forwarding DD 5.1 or DTS 5.1 to the PLAYBAR depending on the source signal. In example most audio content delivered on Blu-Ray is DTS 5.1, especially if you go for the international translations of the audio streams. For sure on some HD TV sets you can configure PCM 2 down-sampling for the optical output. As already stated this leads into down-sampling on the HD TV set and re-up-sampling on the PLAYBAR and therefore an unacceptable loss of audio quality. By design this multiple re-sampling dramatically reduces the 5.1 experience, ‘cause it’s not native 5.1 as given on the source, it’s just virtual surround quality. Anyway this is just a sad workaround to the missing DTS support on a 2k Sonos surround sound system (counting a PLAYBAR, a SUB and two PLAY:3). 2. The question asked multiple times is simple and the two possible answers are ‘YES’ or ‘NO’: Is Sonos going to offer full and hassle-free DTS 5.1 support on the currently purchased PLAYBAR hardware? Again: I’m asking some kind of a multiple choice question and the possible answers are: ‘YES, YOU CAN KEEP YOUR CURRENT PLAYBAR, WE ARE GOING TO SUPPORT FULL AND HASSLE-FREE DTS 5.1 ON THE CURRENT PLAYBAR HARDWARE.’ ‘NO, RETURN IT, WE ARE NOT ABLE, NOT WILLING, NOT SKILLED ENOUGH TO SUPPORT FULL AND HASSLE-FREE DTS 5.1 ON THE CURRENT PLAYBAR HARDWARE.’ Your options are ‘YES’ or ‘NO’ nothing in between, ‘cause I need to decide if I want to keep my current PLAYBAR or to return it on time and get my money back. Anyway I really like the Sonos PLAYBAR, the other Sonos audio stuff and the Sonos user experience, but I’m not likely to take the risk to stay with possibly clumsy hardware. Sincerely Bernd Krause ________________ Hello Bernd, I thank you for your feedback on the PLAYBAR. The design of the PLAYBAR is to work through the Optical Out of your TV. The majority of TVs do not pass DTS. They commonly will pass either Stereo or Dolby Digital, which the PLAYBAR can handle. If we receive a Stereo Signal, the PLAYBAR will upmix this signal to a virtual Surround Sound. For Dolby signals, we will play that format as a Native Dolby Digital signal. I will bring this DTS feature request up to the System Design Team. Hopefully this is something we can introduce to the PLAYBAR at some point in the future. Once again, thank you for your feedback. Sincerely, Keith M Sonos Support Manager. ________________ Dear CEO, dear Customer Service Manager, just a few days ago I bought a brand new PLAYBAR and I’m completely dissatisfied and quite upset about the big discrepancies between marketing descriptions and product features. Your website is saying : Plays all sources plugged in to your HD TV: satellite boxes, Blu-Ray players, and video game consoles. If it’s connected to your HD TV, PLAYBAR will play it. http://www.sonos.com/shop/products/playbar In simple words - and please accept my apologies about my pour English - this is a simple, but rough marketing lie. From a quick reviews it’s less than 20% of the common HD TV sets going to play properly from all inputs with the PLAYBAR. The main reason for this major lack of functionality is the missing DTS support of the PLAYBAR. As I learned from your support this is ‘failure by design’, therefore it’s seems to be an engineering problem. From my point of view you have just two options: Close the gap and correct the engineering problem by adding DTS support to the PLAYBAR. As a first result your current marketing information is (as everywhere just nearby) going to tell the truth. This way you are going to keep your customers satisfied and stop the upcoming ‘shit storm’ about the PLAYBAR. Or keep the gap, but stop the marketing lies on your website and tell the people the truth about the current PLAYBAR: It’s just a good music player looking similar to a soundbar and with some good luck it connects to your HD TV, too. It’s up to you to make the proper decisions. At this point in time I’m very likely to return my PLAYBAR in case I’m getting no valuable, reliable and convincing response telling me it’s going to have full and hassle-free DTS support on the currently purchased hardware. For sure it looks nice and quite similar to a real soundbar, but it only works fine as a music player and it’s definitively not matching the mainstream demand of the real ‘home cinema’ world and the common audio formats. Sincerely Bernd Krause
No need to to be disrespectful...I'm trying to understand your point by asking questions. You can throw all the toslink, spdif, lpcms you want. I'm just saying, playbar is designed to work from the TV. And when you play stream music to playbar (which is in stereo) it plays it through all 3channels (does a pretty good job matrixing).

Please see a copy of a mail thread with Sonos and take a short look by yourself to figure out if they are serious about home cinema use of the PLAYBAR or not. (Support answers are weak marketing chat, the CEO is not answering at all.) _________________ Thread Titel: Stop the PLAYBAR marketing lies ! _________________ Hello Keith, dear (unknown) CEO, seen your answer and for sure I’m going to return the unit instantly. No way to keep this scrap on weak promises and marketing lies. For sure you can send me updates about new features and functionality. But I’ve learned the information on your website is inaccurate. With all required respect, but Sonos is simply lying to customers. Sincerely Bernd _________________ Hello Bernd, We do not give out any information on any future updates or products. As soon as I know anything, I can send you that information. If you would like me to return the unit for you, please let me know. Sincerely, Keith M Sonos Support Manager. _________________ Hello Keith, dear CEO, thanks for fast fast answer, anyway it does not lead into a solution, especially it does not answer my question. Therefore I’m asking again for a clear statement, not for a weak ‘maybe sometime in future’ marketing answer. First please seriously review my statements below together with your engineering team about HD TV sets. Second please answer my clear and simple question at the end of this mail. 1. The Sonos view of PCM, DD and DTS handling on common HD TV sets is wrong, at a minimum bad market research. Most HD TV sets work in pass through or bit stream mode on their optical output. Therefore they commonly forward the given DD 5.1 or DTS 5.1 bit stream unchanged to their optical output to forward best quality. As a result of this common implementation they are forwarding DD 5.1 or DTS 5.1 to the PLAYBAR depending on the source signal. In example most audio content delivered on Blu-Ray is DTS 5.1, especially if you go for the international translations of the audio streams. For sure on some HD TV sets you can configure PCM 2 down-sampling for the optical output. As already stated this leads into down-sampling on the HD TV set and re-up-sampling on the PLAYBAR and therefore an unacceptable loss of audio quality. By design this multiple re-sampling dramatically reduces the 5.1 experience, ‘cause it’s not native 5.1 as given on the source, it’s just virtual surround quality. Anyway this is just a sad workaround to the missing DTS support on a 2k Sonos surround sound system (counting a PLAYBAR, a SUB and two PLAY:3). 2. The question asked multiple times is simple and the two possible answers are ‘YES’ or ‘NO’: Is Sonos going to offer full and hassle-free DTS 5.1 support on the currently purchased PLAYBAR hardware? Again: I’m asking some kind of a multiple choice question and the possible answers are: ‘YES, YOU CAN KEEP YOUR CURRENT PLAYBAR, WE ARE GOING TO SUPPORT FULL AND HASSLE-FREE DTS 5.1 ON THE CURRENT PLAYBAR HARDWARE.’ ‘NO, RETURN IT, WE ARE NOT ABLE, NOT WILLING, NOT SKILLED ENOUGH TO SUPPORT FULL AND HASSLE-FREE DTS 5.1 ON THE CURRENT PLAYBAR HARDWARE.’ Your options are ‘YES’ or ‘NO’ nothing in between, ‘cause I need to decide if I want to keep my current PLAYBAR or to return it on time and get my money back. Anyway I really like the Sonos PLAYBAR, the other Sonos audio stuff and the Sonos user experience, but I’m not likely to take the risk to stay with possibly clumsy hardware. Sincerely Bernd Krause ________________ Hello Bernd, I thank you for your feedback on the PLAYBAR. The design of the PLAYBAR is to work through the Optical Out of your TV. The majority of TVs do not pass DTS. They commonly will pass either Stereo or Dolby Digital, which the PLAYBAR can handle. If we receive a Stereo Signal, the PLAYBAR will upmix this signal to a virtual Surround Sound. For Dolby signals, we will play that format as a Native Dolby Digital signal. I will bring this DTS feature request up to the System Design Team. Hopefully this is something we can introduce to the PLAYBAR at some point in the future. Once again, thank you for your feedback. Sincerely, Keith M Sonos Support Manager. ________________ Dear CEO, dear Customer Service Manager, just a few days ago I bought a brand new PLAYBAR and I’m completely dissatisfied and quite upset about the big discrepancies between marketing descriptions and product features. Your website is saying : Plays all sources plugged in to your HD TV: satellite boxes, Blu-Ray players, and video game consoles. If it’s connected to your HD TV, PLAYBAR will play it. http://www.sonos.com/shop/products/playbar In simple words - and please accept my apologies about my pour English - this is a simple, but rough marketing lie. From a quick reviews it’s less than 20% of the common HD TV sets going to play properly from all inputs with the PLAYBAR. The main reason for this major lack of functionality is the missing DTS support of the PLAYBAR. As I learned from your support this is ‘failure by design’, therefore it’s seems to be an engineering problem. From my point of view you have just two options: Close the gap and correct the engineering problem by adding DTS support to the PLAYBAR. As a first result your current marketing information is (as everywhere just nearby) going to tell the truth. This way you are going to keep your customers satisfied and stop the upcoming ‘shit storm’ about the PLAYBAR. Or keep the gap, but stop the marketing lies on your website and tell the people the truth about the current PLAYBAR: It’s just a good music player looking similar to a soundbar and with some good luck it connects to your HD TV, too. It’s up to you to make the proper decisions. At this point in time I’m very likely to return my PLAYBAR in case I’m getting no valuable, reliable and convincing response telling me it’s going to have full and hassle-free DTS support on the currently purchased hardware. For sure it looks nice and quite similar to a real soundbar, but it only works fine as a music player and it’s definitively not matching the mainstream demand of the real ‘home cinema’ world and the common audio formats. Sincerely Bernd Krause
It's easy to check the format of the audio input while listening to the TV sound on the PLAYBAR. Just go for 'About My Sonos System' on any Controller and check the value for 'Audio In:' on the PLAYBAR section. If it's saying 'Stereo' it's just PCM 2.0 and you are listening just to loud and bumpy virtual surround created by the PLAYBAR.

Please see a copy of a mail thread with Sonos and take a short look by yourself to figure out if they are serious about home cinema use of the PLAYBAR or not. (Support answers are weak marketing chat, the CEO is not answering at all.) _________________ Thread Titel: Stop the PLAYBAR marketing lies ! _________________ Hello Keith, dear (unknown) CEO, seen your answer and for sure I’m going to return the unit instantly. No way to keep this scrap on weak promises and marketing lies. For sure you can send me updates about new features and functionality. But I’ve learned the information on your website is inaccurate. With all required respect, but Sonos is simply lying to customers. Sincerely Bernd _________________ Hello Bernd, We do not give out any information on any future updates or products. As soon as I know anything, I can send you that information. If you would like me to return the unit for you, please let me know. Sincerely, Keith M Sonos Support Manager. _________________ Hello Keith, dear CEO, thanks for fast fast answer, anyway it does not lead into a solution, especially it does not answer my question. Therefore I’m asking again for a clear statement, not for a weak ‘maybe sometime in future’ marketing answer. First please seriously review my statements below together with your engineering team about HD TV sets. Second please answer my clear and simple question at the end of this mail. 1. The Sonos view of PCM, DD and DTS handling on common HD TV sets is wrong, at a minimum bad market research. Most HD TV sets work in pass through or bit stream mode on their optical output. Therefore they commonly forward the given DD 5.1 or DTS 5.1 bit stream unchanged to their optical output to forward best quality. As a result of this common implementation they are forwarding DD 5.1 or DTS 5.1 to the PLAYBAR depending on the source signal. In example most audio content delivered on Blu-Ray is DTS 5.1, especially if you go for the international translations of the audio streams. For sure on some HD TV sets you can configure PCM 2 down-sampling for the optical output. As already stated this leads into down-sampling on the HD TV set and re-up-sampling on the PLAYBAR and therefore an unacceptable loss of audio quality. By design this multiple re-sampling dramatically reduces the 5.1 experience, ‘cause it’s not native 5.1 as given on the source, it’s just virtual surround quality. Anyway this is just a sad workaround to the missing DTS support on a 2k Sonos surround sound system (counting a PLAYBAR, a SUB and two PLAY:3). 2. The question asked multiple times is simple and the two possible answers are ‘YES’ or ‘NO’: Is Sonos going to offer full and hassle-free DTS 5.1 support on the currently purchased PLAYBAR hardware? Again: I’m asking some kind of a multiple choice question and the possible answers are: ‘YES, YOU CAN KEEP YOUR CURRENT PLAYBAR, WE ARE GOING TO SUPPORT FULL AND HASSLE-FREE DTS 5.1 ON THE CURRENT PLAYBAR HARDWARE.’ ‘NO, RETURN IT, WE ARE NOT ABLE, NOT WILLING, NOT SKILLED ENOUGH TO SUPPORT FULL AND HASSLE-FREE DTS 5.1 ON THE CURRENT PLAYBAR HARDWARE.’ Your options are ‘YES’ or ‘NO’ nothing in between, ‘cause I need to decide if I want to keep my current PLAYBAR or to return it on time and get my money back. Anyway I really like the Sonos PLAYBAR, the other Sonos audio stuff and the Sonos user experience, but I’m not likely to take the risk to stay with possibly clumsy hardware. Sincerely Bernd Krause ________________ Hello Bernd, I thank you for your feedback on the PLAYBAR. The design of the PLAYBAR is to work through the Optical Out of your TV. The majority of TVs do not pass DTS. They commonly will pass either Stereo or Dolby Digital, which the PLAYBAR can handle. If we receive a Stereo Signal, the PLAYBAR will upmix this signal to a virtual Surround Sound. For Dolby signals, we will play that format as a Native Dolby Digital signal. I will bring this DTS feature request up to the System Design Team. Hopefully this is something we can introduce to the PLAYBAR at some point in the future. Once again, thank you for your feedback. Sincerely, Keith M Sonos Support Manager. ________________ Dear CEO, dear Customer Service Manager, just a few days ago I bought a brand new PLAYBAR and I’m completely dissatisfied and quite upset about the big discrepancies between marketing descriptions and product features. Your website is saying : Plays all sources plugged in to your HD TV: satellite boxes, Blu-Ray players, and video game consoles. If it’s connected to your HD TV, PLAYBAR will play it. http://www.sonos.com/shop/products/playbar In simple words - and please accept my apologies about my pour English - this is a simple, but rough marketing lie. From a quick reviews it’s less than 20% of the common HD TV sets going to play properly from all inputs with the PLAYBAR. The main reason for this major lack of functionality is the missing DTS support of the PLAYBAR. As I learned from your support this is ‘failure by design’, therefore it’s seems to be an engineering problem. From my point of view you have just two options: Close the gap and correct the engineering problem by adding DTS support to the PLAYBAR. As a first result your current marketing information is (as everywhere just nearby) going to tell the truth. This way you are going to keep your customers satisfied and stop the upcoming ‘shit storm’ about the PLAYBAR. Or keep the gap, but stop the marketing lies on your website and tell the people the truth about the current PLAYBAR: It’s just a good music player looking similar to a soundbar and with some good luck it connects to your HD TV, too. It’s up to you to make the proper decisions. At this point in time I’m very likely to return my PLAYBAR in case I’m getting no valuable, reliable and convincing response telling me it’s going to have full and hassle-free DTS support on the currently purchased hardware. For sure it looks nice and quite similar to a real soundbar, but it only works fine as a music player and it’s definitively not matching the mainstream demand of the real ‘home cinema’ world and the common audio formats. Sincerely Bernd Krause
Tua09788, PLAYBAR is designed to work from the TV. When I connect it to my TV I either get 2.0 stereo, which sounds pretty poor compared to the 5.1 source, or I get silence when playing a DTS source. No sound at all. You don't have the surround speakers do you? Do you even have a SUB?

Please see a copy of a mail thread with Sonos and take a short look by yourself to figure out if they are serious about home cinema use of the PLAYBAR or not. (Support answers are weak marketing chat, the CEO is not answering at all.) _________________ Thread Titel: Stop the PLAYBAR marketing lies ! _________________ Hello Keith, dear (unknown) CEO, seen your answer and for sure I’m going to return the unit instantly. No way to keep this scrap on weak promises and marketing lies. For sure you can send me updates about new features and functionality. But I’ve learned the information on your website is inaccurate. With all required respect, but Sonos is simply lying to customers. Sincerely Bernd _________________ Hello Bernd, We do not give out any information on any future updates or products. As soon as I know anything, I can send you that information. If you would like me to return the unit for you, please let me know. Sincerely, Keith M Sonos Support Manager. _________________ Hello Keith, dear CEO, thanks for fast fast answer, anyway it does not lead into a solution, especially it does not answer my question. Therefore I’m asking again for a clear statement, not for a weak ‘maybe sometime in future’ marketing answer. First please seriously review my statements below together with your engineering team about HD TV sets. Second please answer my clear and simple question at the end of this mail. 1. The Sonos view of PCM, DD and DTS handling on common HD TV sets is wrong, at a minimum bad market research. Most HD TV sets work in pass through or bit stream mode on their optical output. Therefore they commonly forward the given DD 5.1 or DTS 5.1 bit stream unchanged to their optical output to forward best quality. As a result of this common implementation they are forwarding DD 5.1 or DTS 5.1 to the PLAYBAR depending on the source signal. In example most audio content delivered on Blu-Ray is DTS 5.1, especially if you go for the international translations of the audio streams. For sure on some HD TV sets you can configure PCM 2 down-sampling for the optical output. As already stated this leads into down-sampling on the HD TV set and re-up-sampling on the PLAYBAR and therefore an unacceptable loss of audio quality. By design this multiple re-sampling dramatically reduces the 5.1 experience, ‘cause it’s not native 5.1 as given on the source, it’s just virtual surround quality. Anyway this is just a sad workaround to the missing DTS support on a 2k Sonos surround sound system (counting a PLAYBAR, a SUB and two PLAY:3). 2. The question asked multiple times is simple and the two possible answers are ‘YES’ or ‘NO’: Is Sonos going to offer full and hassle-free DTS 5.1 support on the currently purchased PLAYBAR hardware? Again: I’m asking some kind of a multiple choice question and the possible answers are: ‘YES, YOU CAN KEEP YOUR CURRENT PLAYBAR, WE ARE GOING TO SUPPORT FULL AND HASSLE-FREE DTS 5.1 ON THE CURRENT PLAYBAR HARDWARE.’ ‘NO, RETURN IT, WE ARE NOT ABLE, NOT WILLING, NOT SKILLED ENOUGH TO SUPPORT FULL AND HASSLE-FREE DTS 5.1 ON THE CURRENT PLAYBAR HARDWARE.’ Your options are ‘YES’ or ‘NO’ nothing in between, ‘cause I need to decide if I want to keep my current PLAYBAR or to return it on time and get my money back. Anyway I really like the Sonos PLAYBAR, the other Sonos audio stuff and the Sonos user experience, but I’m not likely to take the risk to stay with possibly clumsy hardware. Sincerely Bernd Krause ________________ Hello Bernd, I thank you for your feedback on the PLAYBAR. The design of the PLAYBAR is to work through the Optical Out of your TV. The majority of TVs do not pass DTS. They commonly will pass either Stereo or Dolby Digital, which the PLAYBAR can handle. If we receive a Stereo Signal, the PLAYBAR will upmix this signal to a virtual Surround Sound. For Dolby signals, we will play that format as a Native Dolby Digital signal. I will bring this DTS feature request up to the System Design Team. Hopefully this is something we can introduce to the PLAYBAR at some point in the future. Once again, thank you for your feedback. Sincerely, Keith M Sonos Support Manager. ________________ Dear CEO, dear Customer Service Manager, just a few days ago I bought a brand new PLAYBAR and I’m completely dissatisfied and quite upset about the big discrepancies between marketing descriptions and product features. Your website is saying : Plays all sources plugged in to your HD TV: satellite boxes, Blu-Ray players, and video game consoles. If it’s connected to your HD TV, PLAYBAR will play it. http://www.sonos.com/shop/products/playbar In simple words - and please accept my apologies about my pour English - this is a simple, but rough marketing lie. From a quick reviews it’s less than 20% of the common HD TV sets going to play properly from all inputs with the PLAYBAR. The main reason for this major lack of functionality is the missing DTS support of the PLAYBAR. As I learned from your support this is ‘failure by design’, therefore it’s seems to be an engineering problem. From my point of view you have just two options: Close the gap and correct the engineering problem by adding DTS support to the PLAYBAR. As a first result your current marketing information is (as everywhere just nearby) going to tell the truth. This way you are going to keep your customers satisfied and stop the upcoming ‘shit storm’ about the PLAYBAR. Or keep the gap, but stop the marketing lies on your website and tell the people the truth about the current PLAYBAR: It’s just a good music player looking similar to a soundbar and with some good luck it connects to your HD TV, too. It’s up to you to make the proper decisions. At this point in time I’m very likely to return my PLAYBAR in case I’m getting no valuable, reliable and convincing response telling me it’s going to have full and hassle-free DTS support on the currently purchased hardware. For sure it looks nice and quite similar to a real soundbar, but it only works fine as a music player and it’s definitively not matching the mainstream demand of the real ‘home cinema’ world and the common audio formats. Sincerely Bernd Krause
@Tua09788: Please do me a favor: Please check the 'Audio In' on your Sonos controller while listening to TV . If it's just 'Stereo' it's clear you are listening to 'Sonos Virtual Surround Sound' created from a stereo stream and not real 5.1. Please do this for different sources connected to your HD TV set. Even if the up-mixed stereo, saying 'Sonos Virtual Surround Sound', is quite powerful, it is definitively not the real 5.1 sound you can achieve this proper 5.1 operation and a properly working home cinema system. Don't get me wrong: The 'Sonos Virtual Surround Sound' is not really bad, but it's far far away from the real 5.1 sound delivered on your Blu-Rays, usually in DTS 5.1 not compatible with the PLAYBAR.

Please see a copy of a mail thread with Sonos and take a short look by yourself to figure out if they are serious about home cinema use of the PLAYBAR or not. (Support answers are weak marketing chat, the CEO is not answering at all.) _________________ Thread Titel: Stop the PLAYBAR marketing lies ! _________________ Hello Keith, dear (unknown) CEO, seen your answer and for sure I’m going to return the unit instantly. No way to keep this scrap on weak promises and marketing lies. For sure you can send me updates about new features and functionality. But I’ve learned the information on your website is inaccurate. With all required respect, but Sonos is simply lying to customers. Sincerely Bernd _________________ Hello Bernd, We do not give out any information on any future updates or products. As soon as I know anything, I can send you that information. If you would like me to return the unit for you, please let me know. Sincerely, Keith M Sonos Support Manager. _________________ Hello Keith, dear CEO, thanks for fast fast answer, anyway it does not lead into a solution, especially it does not answer my question. Therefore I’m asking again for a clear statement, not for a weak ‘maybe sometime in future’ marketing answer. First please seriously review my statements below together with your engineering team about HD TV sets. Second please answer my clear and simple question at the end of this mail. 1. The Sonos view of PCM, DD and DTS handling on common HD TV sets is wrong, at a minimum bad market research. Most HD TV sets work in pass through or bit stream mode on their optical output. Therefore they commonly forward the given DD 5.1 or DTS 5.1 bit stream unchanged to their optical output to forward best quality. As a result of this common implementation they are forwarding DD 5.1 or DTS 5.1 to the PLAYBAR depending on the source signal. In example most audio content delivered on Blu-Ray is DTS 5.1, especially if you go for the international translations of the audio streams. For sure on some HD TV sets you can configure PCM 2 down-sampling for the optical output. As already stated this leads into down-sampling on the HD TV set and re-up-sampling on the PLAYBAR and therefore an unacceptable loss of audio quality. By design this multiple re-sampling dramatically reduces the 5.1 experience, ‘cause it’s not native 5.1 as given on the source, it’s just virtual surround quality. Anyway this is just a sad workaround to the missing DTS support on a 2k Sonos surround sound system (counting a PLAYBAR, a SUB and two PLAY:3). 2. The question asked multiple times is simple and the two possible answers are ‘YES’ or ‘NO’: Is Sonos going to offer full and hassle-free DTS 5.1 support on the currently purchased PLAYBAR hardware? Again: I’m asking some kind of a multiple choice question and the possible answers are: ‘YES, YOU CAN KEEP YOUR CURRENT PLAYBAR, WE ARE GOING TO SUPPORT FULL AND HASSLE-FREE DTS 5.1 ON THE CURRENT PLAYBAR HARDWARE.’ ‘NO, RETURN IT, WE ARE NOT ABLE, NOT WILLING, NOT SKILLED ENOUGH TO SUPPORT FULL AND HASSLE-FREE DTS 5.1 ON THE CURRENT PLAYBAR HARDWARE.’ Your options are ‘YES’ or ‘NO’ nothing in between, ‘cause I need to decide if I want to keep my current PLAYBAR or to return it on time and get my money back. Anyway I really like the Sonos PLAYBAR, the other Sonos audio stuff and the Sonos user experience, but I’m not likely to take the risk to stay with possibly clumsy hardware. Sincerely Bernd Krause ________________ Hello Bernd, I thank you for your feedback on the PLAYBAR. The design of the PLAYBAR is to work through the Optical Out of your TV. The majority of TVs do not pass DTS. They commonly will pass either Stereo or Dolby Digital, which the PLAYBAR can handle. If we receive a Stereo Signal, the PLAYBAR will upmix this signal to a virtual Surround Sound. For Dolby signals, we will play that format as a Native Dolby Digital signal. I will bring this DTS feature request up to the System Design Team. Hopefully this is something we can introduce to the PLAYBAR at some point in the future. Once again, thank you for your feedback. Sincerely, Keith M Sonos Support Manager. ________________ Dear CEO, dear Customer Service Manager, just a few days ago I bought a brand new PLAYBAR and I’m completely dissatisfied and quite upset about the big discrepancies between marketing descriptions and product features. Your website is saying : Plays all sources plugged in to your HD TV: satellite boxes, Blu-Ray players, and video game consoles. If it’s connected to your HD TV, PLAYBAR will play it. http://www.sonos.com/shop/products/playbar In simple words - and please accept my apologies about my pour English - this is a simple, but rough marketing lie. From a quick reviews it’s less than 20% of the common HD TV sets going to play properly from all inputs with the PLAYBAR. The main reason for this major lack of functionality is the missing DTS support of the PLAYBAR. As I learned from your support this is ‘failure by design’, therefore it’s seems to be an engineering problem. From my point of view you have just two options: Close the gap and correct the engineering problem by adding DTS support to the PLAYBAR. As a first result your current marketing information is (as everywhere just nearby) going to tell the truth. This way you are going to keep your customers satisfied and stop the upcoming ‘shit storm’ about the PLAYBAR. Or keep the gap, but stop the marketing lies on your website and tell the people the truth about the current PLAYBAR: It’s just a good music player looking similar to a soundbar and with some good luck it connects to your HD TV, too. It’s up to you to make the proper decisions. At this point in time I’m very likely to return my PLAYBAR in case I’m getting no valuable, reliable and convincing response telling me it’s going to have full and hassle-free DTS support on the currently purchased hardware. For sure it looks nice and quite similar to a real soundbar, but it only works fine as a music player and it’s definitively not matching the mainstream demand of the real ‘home cinema’ world and the common audio formats. Sincerely Bernd Krause
I have the full 5.1 setup (2xplay3, subwoofer, and playbar). Ben what TV do you have? And it does say stereo, but I'm by no means an audiophile and it sounds good to my ears.

Please see a copy of a mail thread with Sonos and take a short look by yourself to figure out if they are serious about home cinema use of the PLAYBAR or not. (Support answers are weak marketing chat, the CEO is not answering at all.) _________________ Thread Titel: Stop the PLAYBAR marketing lies ! _________________ Hello Keith, dear (unknown) CEO, seen your answer and for sure I’m going to return the unit instantly. No way to keep this scrap on weak promises and marketing lies. For sure you can send me updates about new features and functionality. But I’ve learned the information on your website is inaccurate. With all required respect, but Sonos is simply lying to customers. Sincerely Bernd _________________ Hello Bernd, We do not give out any information on any future updates or products. As soon as I know anything, I can send you that information. If you would like me to return the unit for you, please let me know. Sincerely, Keith M Sonos Support Manager. _________________ Hello Keith, dear CEO, thanks for fast fast answer, anyway it does not lead into a solution, especially it does not answer my question. Therefore I’m asking again for a clear statement, not for a weak ‘maybe sometime in future’ marketing answer. First please seriously review my statements below together with your engineering team about HD TV sets. Second please answer my clear and simple question at the end of this mail. 1. The Sonos view of PCM, DD and DTS handling on common HD TV sets is wrong, at a minimum bad market research. Most HD TV sets work in pass through or bit stream mode on their optical output. Therefore they commonly forward the given DD 5.1 or DTS 5.1 bit stream unchanged to their optical output to forward best quality. As a result of this common implementation they are forwarding DD 5.1 or DTS 5.1 to the PLAYBAR depending on the source signal. In example most audio content delivered on Blu-Ray is DTS 5.1, especially if you go for the international translations of the audio streams. For sure on some HD TV sets you can configure PCM 2 down-sampling for the optical output. As already stated this leads into down-sampling on the HD TV set and re-up-sampling on the PLAYBAR and therefore an unacceptable loss of audio quality. By design this multiple re-sampling dramatically reduces the 5.1 experience, ‘cause it’s not native 5.1 as given on the source, it’s just virtual surround quality. Anyway this is just a sad workaround to the missing DTS support on a 2k Sonos surround sound system (counting a PLAYBAR, a SUB and two PLAY:3). 2. The question asked multiple times is simple and the two possible answers are ‘YES’ or ‘NO’: Is Sonos going to offer full and hassle-free DTS 5.1 support on the currently purchased PLAYBAR hardware? Again: I’m asking some kind of a multiple choice question and the possible answers are: ‘YES, YOU CAN KEEP YOUR CURRENT PLAYBAR, WE ARE GOING TO SUPPORT FULL AND HASSLE-FREE DTS 5.1 ON THE CURRENT PLAYBAR HARDWARE.’ ‘NO, RETURN IT, WE ARE NOT ABLE, NOT WILLING, NOT SKILLED ENOUGH TO SUPPORT FULL AND HASSLE-FREE DTS 5.1 ON THE CURRENT PLAYBAR HARDWARE.’ Your options are ‘YES’ or ‘NO’ nothing in between, ‘cause I need to decide if I want to keep my current PLAYBAR or to return it on time and get my money back. Anyway I really like the Sonos PLAYBAR, the other Sonos audio stuff and the Sonos user experience, but I’m not likely to take the risk to stay with possibly clumsy hardware. Sincerely Bernd Krause ________________ Hello Bernd, I thank you for your feedback on the PLAYBAR. The design of the PLAYBAR is to work through the Optical Out of your TV. The majority of TVs do not pass DTS. They commonly will pass either Stereo or Dolby Digital, which the PLAYBAR can handle. If we receive a Stereo Signal, the PLAYBAR will upmix this signal to a virtual Surround Sound. For Dolby signals, we will play that format as a Native Dolby Digital signal. I will bring this DTS feature request up to the System Design Team. Hopefully this is something we can introduce to the PLAYBAR at some point in the future. Once again, thank you for your feedback. Sincerely, Keith M Sonos Support Manager. ________________ Dear CEO, dear Customer Service Manager, just a few days ago I bought a brand new PLAYBAR and I’m completely dissatisfied and quite upset about the big discrepancies between marketing descriptions and product features. Your website is saying : Plays all sources plugged in to your HD TV: satellite boxes, Blu-Ray players, and video game consoles. If it’s connected to your HD TV, PLAYBAR will play it. http://www.sonos.com/shop/products/playbar In simple words - and please accept my apologies about my pour English - this is a simple, but rough marketing lie. From a quick reviews it’s less than 20% of the common HD TV sets going to play properly from all inputs with the PLAYBAR. The main reason for this major lack of functionality is the missing DTS support of the PLAYBAR. As I learned from your support this is ‘failure by design’, therefore it’s seems to be an engineering problem. From my point of view you have just two options: Close the gap and correct the engineering problem by adding DTS support to the PLAYBAR. As a first result your current marketing information is (as everywhere just nearby) going to tell the truth. This way you are going to keep your customers satisfied and stop the upcoming ‘shit storm’ about the PLAYBAR. Or keep the gap, but stop the marketing lies on your website and tell the people the truth about the current PLAYBAR: It’s just a good music player looking similar to a soundbar and with some good luck it connects to your HD TV, too. It’s up to you to make the proper decisions. At this point in time I’m very likely to return my PLAYBAR in case I’m getting no valuable, reliable and convincing response telling me it’s going to have full and hassle-free DTS support on the currently purchased hardware. For sure it looks nice and quite similar to a real soundbar, but it only works fine as a music player and it’s definitively not matching the mainstream demand of the real ‘home cinema’ world and the common audio formats. Sincerely Bernd Krause
Interesting you said that stereo music comes through all 3 channels, when you should have 6. When I play music it upmixes to all 6, which is why I asked. I have a Panasonic Viera PLASMA. It converts a DD5.1 signal to DD2.0 stereo. It can't handle a DTS signal. If you are happy with what you have, I'm curious how you found and were interested in this thread. I strongly encourage you to NEVER connect your blu-ray player directly to PLAYBAR as, if you do, you may never be satisfied again. There is a world of difference between true 5.1 and upmixed 2.0. Without true 5.1 I wouldn't considert the PLAY:3 surrounds and would think twice about investing in the SUB.

Please see a copy of a mail thread with Sonos and take a short look by yourself to figure out if they are serious about home cinema use of the PLAYBAR or not. (Support answers are weak marketing chat, the CEO is not answering at all.) _________________ Thread Titel: Stop the PLAYBAR marketing lies ! _________________ Hello Keith, dear (unknown) CEO, seen your answer and for sure I’m going to return the unit instantly. No way to keep this scrap on weak promises and marketing lies. For sure you can send me updates about new features and functionality. But I’ve learned the information on your website is inaccurate. With all required respect, but Sonos is simply lying to customers. Sincerely Bernd _________________ Hello Bernd, We do not give out any information on any future updates or products. As soon as I know anything, I can send you that information. If you would like me to return the unit for you, please let me know. Sincerely, Keith M Sonos Support Manager. _________________ Hello Keith, dear CEO, thanks for fast fast answer, anyway it does not lead into a solution, especially it does not answer my question. Therefore I’m asking again for a clear statement, not for a weak ‘maybe sometime in future’ marketing answer. First please seriously review my statements below together with your engineering team about HD TV sets. Second please answer my clear and simple question at the end of this mail. 1. The Sonos view of PCM, DD and DTS handling on common HD TV sets is wrong, at a minimum bad market research. Most HD TV sets work in pass through or bit stream mode on their optical output. Therefore they commonly forward the given DD 5.1 or DTS 5.1 bit stream unchanged to their optical output to forward best quality. As a result of this common implementation they are forwarding DD 5.1 or DTS 5.1 to the PLAYBAR depending on the source signal. In example most audio content delivered on Blu-Ray is DTS 5.1, especially if you go for the international translations of the audio streams. For sure on some HD TV sets you can configure PCM 2 down-sampling for the optical output. As already stated this leads into down-sampling on the HD TV set and re-up-sampling on the PLAYBAR and therefore an unacceptable loss of audio quality. By design this multiple re-sampling dramatically reduces the 5.1 experience, ‘cause it’s not native 5.1 as given on the source, it’s just virtual surround quality. Anyway this is just a sad workaround to the missing DTS support on a 2k Sonos surround sound system (counting a PLAYBAR, a SUB and two PLAY:3). 2. The question asked multiple times is simple and the two possible answers are ‘YES’ or ‘NO’: Is Sonos going to offer full and hassle-free DTS 5.1 support on the currently purchased PLAYBAR hardware? Again: I’m asking some kind of a multiple choice question and the possible answers are: ‘YES, YOU CAN KEEP YOUR CURRENT PLAYBAR, WE ARE GOING TO SUPPORT FULL AND HASSLE-FREE DTS 5.1 ON THE CURRENT PLAYBAR HARDWARE.’ ‘NO, RETURN IT, WE ARE NOT ABLE, NOT WILLING, NOT SKILLED ENOUGH TO SUPPORT FULL AND HASSLE-FREE DTS 5.1 ON THE CURRENT PLAYBAR HARDWARE.’ Your options are ‘YES’ or ‘NO’ nothing in between, ‘cause I need to decide if I want to keep my current PLAYBAR or to return it on time and get my money back. Anyway I really like the Sonos PLAYBAR, the other Sonos audio stuff and the Sonos user experience, but I’m not likely to take the risk to stay with possibly clumsy hardware. Sincerely Bernd Krause ________________ Hello Bernd, I thank you for your feedback on the PLAYBAR. The design of the PLAYBAR is to work through the Optical Out of your TV. The majority of TVs do not pass DTS. They commonly will pass either Stereo or Dolby Digital, which the PLAYBAR can handle. If we receive a Stereo Signal, the PLAYBAR will upmix this signal to a virtual Surround Sound. For Dolby signals, we will play that format as a Native Dolby Digital signal. I will bring this DTS feature request up to the System Design Team. Hopefully this is something we can introduce to the PLAYBAR at some point in the future. Once again, thank you for your feedback. Sincerely, Keith M Sonos Support Manager. ________________ Dear CEO, dear Customer Service Manager, just a few days ago I bought a brand new PLAYBAR and I’m completely dissatisfied and quite upset about the big discrepancies between marketing descriptions and product features. Your website is saying : Plays all sources plugged in to your HD TV: satellite boxes, Blu-Ray players, and video game consoles. If it’s connected to your HD TV, PLAYBAR will play it. http://www.sonos.com/shop/products/playbar In simple words - and please accept my apologies about my pour English - this is a simple, but rough marketing lie. From a quick reviews it’s less than 20% of the common HD TV sets going to play properly from all inputs with the PLAYBAR. The main reason for this major lack of functionality is the missing DTS support of the PLAYBAR. As I learned from your support this is ‘failure by design’, therefore it’s seems to be an engineering problem. From my point of view you have just two options: Close the gap and correct the engineering problem by adding DTS support to the PLAYBAR. As a first result your current marketing information is (as everywhere just nearby) going to tell the truth. This way you are going to keep your customers satisfied and stop the upcoming ‘shit storm’ about the PLAYBAR. Or keep the gap, but stop the marketing lies on your website and tell the people the truth about the current PLAYBAR: It’s just a good music player looking similar to a soundbar and with some good luck it connects to your HD TV, too. It’s up to you to make the proper decisions. At this point in time I’m very likely to return my PLAYBAR in case I’m getting no valuable, reliable and convincing response telling me it’s going to have full and hassle-free DTS support on the currently purchased hardware. For sure it looks nice and quite similar to a real soundbar, but it only works fine as a music player and it’s definitively not matching the mainstream demand of the real ‘home cinema’ world and the common audio formats. Sincerely Bernd Krause
@Tua09788 I'm sorry to say this, but with just 'Stereo' input you are not getting the full benefit out of your full 5.1 Sonos System you bought for the full money. Even with stereo input it sounds quite OK, but with DTS 5.1 it's going to be much better. You are going to feel the difference. Unfortunately I'm in a similar unlucky situation with an old Sony KDL-40Z5800, but going to return the PLAYBAR until Sonos solved the DTS issue. Switching a HD TV set's optical output to PCM 2.0 Stereo is just a quick and dirty workaround. For sure the Sonos support wants customers to believe this is a solution, but it’s not addressing the issue, it’s just about hiding the weakness of the Sonos 5.1 implementation.

Please see a copy of a mail thread with Sonos and take a short look by yourself to figure out if they are serious about home cinema use of the PLAYBAR or not. (Support answers are weak marketing chat, the CEO is not answering at all.) _________________ Thread Titel: Stop the PLAYBAR marketing lies ! _________________ Hello Keith, dear (unknown) CEO, seen your answer and for sure I’m going to return the unit instantly. No way to keep this scrap on weak promises and marketing lies. For sure you can send me updates about new features and functionality. But I’ve learned the information on your website is inaccurate. With all required respect, but Sonos is simply lying to customers. Sincerely Bernd _________________ Hello Bernd, We do not give out any information on any future updates or products. As soon as I know anything, I can send you that information. If you would like me to return the unit for you, please let me know. Sincerely, Keith M Sonos Support Manager. _________________ Hello Keith, dear CEO, thanks for fast fast answer, anyway it does not lead into a solution, especially it does not answer my question. Therefore I’m asking again for a clear statement, not for a weak ‘maybe sometime in future’ marketing answer. First please seriously review my statements below together with your engineering team about HD TV sets. Second please answer my clear and simple question at the end of this mail. 1. The Sonos view of PCM, DD and DTS handling on common HD TV sets is wrong, at a minimum bad market research. Most HD TV sets work in pass through or bit stream mode on their optical output. Therefore they commonly forward the given DD 5.1 or DTS 5.1 bit stream unchanged to their optical output to forward best quality. As a result of this common implementation they are forwarding DD 5.1 or DTS 5.1 to the PLAYBAR depending on the source signal. In example most audio content delivered on Blu-Ray is DTS 5.1, especially if you go for the international translations of the audio streams. For sure on some HD TV sets you can configure PCM 2 down-sampling for the optical output. As already stated this leads into down-sampling on the HD TV set and re-up-sampling on the PLAYBAR and therefore an unacceptable loss of audio quality. By design this multiple re-sampling dramatically reduces the 5.1 experience, ‘cause it’s not native 5.1 as given on the source, it’s just virtual surround quality. Anyway this is just a sad workaround to the missing DTS support on a 2k Sonos surround sound system (counting a PLAYBAR, a SUB and two PLAY:3). 2. The question asked multiple times is simple and the two possible answers are ‘YES’ or ‘NO’: Is Sonos going to offer full and hassle-free DTS 5.1 support on the currently purchased PLAYBAR hardware? Again: I’m asking some kind of a multiple choice question and the possible answers are: ‘YES, YOU CAN KEEP YOUR CURRENT PLAYBAR, WE ARE GOING TO SUPPORT FULL AND HASSLE-FREE DTS 5.1 ON THE CURRENT PLAYBAR HARDWARE.’ ‘NO, RETURN IT, WE ARE NOT ABLE, NOT WILLING, NOT SKILLED ENOUGH TO SUPPORT FULL AND HASSLE-FREE DTS 5.1 ON THE CURRENT PLAYBAR HARDWARE.’ Your options are ‘YES’ or ‘NO’ nothing in between, ‘cause I need to decide if I want to keep my current PLAYBAR or to return it on time and get my money back. Anyway I really like the Sonos PLAYBAR, the other Sonos audio stuff and the Sonos user experience, but I’m not likely to take the risk to stay with possibly clumsy hardware. Sincerely Bernd Krause ________________ Hello Bernd, I thank you for your feedback on the PLAYBAR. The design of the PLAYBAR is to work through the Optical Out of your TV. The majority of TVs do not pass DTS. They commonly will pass either Stereo or Dolby Digital, which the PLAYBAR can handle. If we receive a Stereo Signal, the PLAYBAR will upmix this signal to a virtual Surround Sound. For Dolby signals, we will play that format as a Native Dolby Digital signal. I will bring this DTS feature request up to the System Design Team. Hopefully this is something we can introduce to the PLAYBAR at some point in the future. Once again, thank you for your feedback. Sincerely, Keith M Sonos Support Manager. ________________ Dear CEO, dear Customer Service Manager, just a few days ago I bought a brand new PLAYBAR and I’m completely dissatisfied and quite upset about the big discrepancies between marketing descriptions and product features. Your website is saying : Plays all sources plugged in to your HD TV: satellite boxes, Blu-Ray players, and video game consoles. If it’s connected to your HD TV, PLAYBAR will play it. http://www.sonos.com/shop/products/playbar In simple words - and please accept my apologies about my pour English - this is a simple, but rough marketing lie. From a quick reviews it’s less than 20% of the common HD TV sets going to play properly from all inputs with the PLAYBAR. The main reason for this major lack of functionality is the missing DTS support of the PLAYBAR. As I learned from your support this is ‘failure by design’, therefore it’s seems to be an engineering problem. From my point of view you have just two options: Close the gap and correct the engineering problem by adding DTS support to the PLAYBAR. As a first result your current marketing information is (as everywhere just nearby) going to tell the truth. This way you are going to keep your customers satisfied and stop the upcoming ‘shit storm’ about the PLAYBAR. Or keep the gap, but stop the marketing lies on your website and tell the people the truth about the current PLAYBAR: It’s just a good music player looking similar to a soundbar and with some good luck it connects to your HD TV, too. It’s up to you to make the proper decisions. At this point in time I’m very likely to return my PLAYBAR in case I’m getting no valuable, reliable and convincing response telling me it’s going to have full and hassle-free DTS support on the currently purchased hardware. For sure it looks nice and quite similar to a real soundbar, but it only works fine as a music player and it’s definitively not matching the mainstream demand of the real ‘home cinema’ world and the common audio formats. Sincerely Bernd Krause
When I listen to music the play3s are in other rooms. I only use the them as rears when I watch a movie. For me adding the sub does wonders. Originally when I bought Sonos I had some questions and found answers at http://forums.sonos.com/ before this site was made available. There are some pretty helpful ppl out there. I came close to returning my original sonos stuff but found out my Comcast modem/router was the problem. I came across this thread because its the 4th most active. On the Sonos forums not having hires 24bit audio support created the same emotion that this thread has.

Please see a copy of a mail thread with Sonos and take a short look by yourself to figure out if they are serious about home cinema use of the PLAYBAR or not. (Support answers are weak marketing chat, the CEO is not answering at all.) _________________ Thread Titel: Stop the PLAYBAR marketing lies ! _________________ Hello Keith, dear (unknown) CEO, seen your answer and for sure I’m going to return the unit instantly. No way to keep this scrap on weak promises and marketing lies. For sure you can send me updates about new features and functionality. But I’ve learned the information on your website is inaccurate. With all required respect, but Sonos is simply lying to customers. Sincerely Bernd _________________ Hello Bernd, We do not give out any information on any future updates or products. As soon as I know anything, I can send you that information. If you would like me to return the unit for you, please let me know. Sincerely, Keith M Sonos Support Manager. _________________ Hello Keith, dear CEO, thanks for fast fast answer, anyway it does not lead into a solution, especially it does not answer my question. Therefore I’m asking again for a clear statement, not for a weak ‘maybe sometime in future’ marketing answer. First please seriously review my statements below together with your engineering team about HD TV sets. Second please answer my clear and simple question at the end of this mail. 1. The Sonos view of PCM, DD and DTS handling on common HD TV sets is wrong, at a minimum bad market research. Most HD TV sets work in pass through or bit stream mode on their optical output. Therefore they commonly forward the given DD 5.1 or DTS 5.1 bit stream unchanged to their optical output to forward best quality. As a result of this common implementation they are forwarding DD 5.1 or DTS 5.1 to the PLAYBAR depending on the source signal. In example most audio content delivered on Blu-Ray is DTS 5.1, especially if you go for the international translations of the audio streams. For sure on some HD TV sets you can configure PCM 2 down-sampling for the optical output. As already stated this leads into down-sampling on the HD TV set and re-up-sampling on the PLAYBAR and therefore an unacceptable loss of audio quality. By design this multiple re-sampling dramatically reduces the 5.1 experience, ‘cause it’s not native 5.1 as given on the source, it’s just virtual surround quality. Anyway this is just a sad workaround to the missing DTS support on a 2k Sonos surround sound system (counting a PLAYBAR, a SUB and two PLAY:3). 2. The question asked multiple times is simple and the two possible answers are ‘YES’ or ‘NO’: Is Sonos going to offer full and hassle-free DTS 5.1 support on the currently purchased PLAYBAR hardware? Again: I’m asking some kind of a multiple choice question and the possible answers are: ‘YES, YOU CAN KEEP YOUR CURRENT PLAYBAR, WE ARE GOING TO SUPPORT FULL AND HASSLE-FREE DTS 5.1 ON THE CURRENT PLAYBAR HARDWARE.’ ‘NO, RETURN IT, WE ARE NOT ABLE, NOT WILLING, NOT SKILLED ENOUGH TO SUPPORT FULL AND HASSLE-FREE DTS 5.1 ON THE CURRENT PLAYBAR HARDWARE.’ Your options are ‘YES’ or ‘NO’ nothing in between, ‘cause I need to decide if I want to keep my current PLAYBAR or to return it on time and get my money back. Anyway I really like the Sonos PLAYBAR, the other Sonos audio stuff and the Sonos user experience, but I’m not likely to take the risk to stay with possibly clumsy hardware. Sincerely Bernd Krause ________________ Hello Bernd, I thank you for your feedback on the PLAYBAR. The design of the PLAYBAR is to work through the Optical Out of your TV. The majority of TVs do not pass DTS. They commonly will pass either Stereo or Dolby Digital, which the PLAYBAR can handle. If we receive a Stereo Signal, the PLAYBAR will upmix this signal to a virtual Surround Sound. For Dolby signals, we will play that format as a Native Dolby Digital signal. I will bring this DTS feature request up to the System Design Team. Hopefully this is something we can introduce to the PLAYBAR at some point in the future. Once again, thank you for your feedback. Sincerely, Keith M Sonos Support Manager. ________________ Dear CEO, dear Customer Service Manager, just a few days ago I bought a brand new PLAYBAR and I’m completely dissatisfied and quite upset about the big discrepancies between marketing descriptions and product features. Your website is saying : Plays all sources plugged in to your HD TV: satellite boxes, Blu-Ray players, and video game consoles. If it’s connected to your HD TV, PLAYBAR will play it. http://www.sonos.com/shop/products/playbar In simple words - and please accept my apologies about my pour English - this is a simple, but rough marketing lie. From a quick reviews it’s less than 20% of the common HD TV sets going to play properly from all inputs with the PLAYBAR. The main reason for this major lack of functionality is the missing DTS support of the PLAYBAR. As I learned from your support this is ‘failure by design’, therefore it’s seems to be an engineering problem. From my point of view you have just two options: Close the gap and correct the engineering problem by adding DTS support to the PLAYBAR. As a first result your current marketing information is (as everywhere just nearby) going to tell the truth. This way you are going to keep your customers satisfied and stop the upcoming ‘shit storm’ about the PLAYBAR. Or keep the gap, but stop the marketing lies on your website and tell the people the truth about the current PLAYBAR: It’s just a good music player looking similar to a soundbar and with some good luck it connects to your HD TV, too. It’s up to you to make the proper decisions. At this point in time I’m very likely to return my PLAYBAR in case I’m getting no valuable, reliable and convincing response telling me it’s going to have full and hassle-free DTS support on the currently purchased hardware. For sure it looks nice and quite similar to a real soundbar, but it only works fine as a music player and it’s definitively not matching the mainstream demand of the real ‘home cinema’ world and the common audio formats. Sincerely Bernd Krause
@Ben If I understood it correctly, your Panasonic HD TV is only capable of down-mixing any input to PCM 2.0 and therefore not a perfect match to the PLAYBAR. Are you likely to keep the PLAYBAR without DTS 5.1 support ? I'm returning mine tomorrow as soon as Sonos explained how to clean up the internal cache on their devices.