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dani365
Contributor I
April 24, 2019

Poor speech clarity with Playbar

Hi Guys,

I've had the playbar for about 5 years. It works fine when listening to music but when it come to movies, the speech is not always audible. For this reason I stopped using the player and consider changing to another brand. Before I do so, I would appreciate any recommendations to address this issue.

For the record the playbar is connected to my projector and I usually watch movies off of a mini pc.

Thanks in advance,
Daniel
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    14 replies

    UKMedia
    UKMedia
    April 24, 2019
    I normally have to increase the volume of my PlayBar volume when switching from Music to TV, have you tried just turning the volume up? 😛 If you are experiencing normal background sound but low voice, then I suggest you enable 'Speech Enhancement' as per this article: https://support.sonos.com/s/article/1948?language=en_US
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    Remember: Sometimes Red Wine helps :)
    dani365Author
    Contributor I
    April 24, 2019
    Hi thank you for the reply, I have tried the volume, speech enhancement and the night settings with little to no effect.
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    UKMedia
    UKMedia
    April 24, 2019
    Have you checked the Audio settings on your movie source?
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    Remember: Sometimes Red Wine helps :)
    dani365Author
    Contributor I
    April 24, 2019
    I use my headphones now to watch movies and the audio is fine. So I don't think the issue is the movie source. Most times I stream Netflix off of the mini pc
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    Peagle
    Peagle
    Enthusiast II
    April 24, 2019
    I use my headphones now to watch movies and the audio is fine. So I don't think the issue is the movie source. Most times I stream Netflix off of the mini pc

    I had the same issue, unfortunately not much to add other than my experience. Constant turning up during dialog, turning down during loud scenes. Kind of a pain especially when kids are sleeping as you need to be quick with the remote. I adjusted every setting, different sources, different apps to no avail. In the end swapped out playbar for a 2.1 set up and this fixed it for me and saved my sanity (I also had issues with the sonos sub sound but that's a different topic).

    Lots of threads on this issue if you search FWIW.
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      Airgetlam
      Airgetlam
      April 24, 2019
      I'm with UKMedia on this. If you're sending only a stereo signal to your PLAYBAR, then you wouldn't be getting the optimum sound from the center channel, but it would sound great on headphones.

      While you're watching a movie, open up your controller, go to ...More and select Settings, then About My Sonos System, and see what it says under the the area dedicated to the PLAYBAR, after the words Audio In: If it says Stereo, you need to adjust the settings on your mini pc so it is sending a Dolby Digital signal to the PLAYBAR/TV set.
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      Bruce
      Peagle
      Peagle
      Enthusiast II
      April 24, 2019
      Sonos moderators why did you silently delete my response?
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      Jeff S
      Jeff S
      Retired Sonos Staff
      April 24, 2019
      Sonos moderators why did you silently delete my response?

      Hi there,

      Your posts were caught by the spam filter, we're not deleting your posts manually.
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      Help others find useful content by clicking the like button and selecting the best answer to your question.
      Airgetlam
      Airgetlam
      April 24, 2019
      Which I'm going to guess has been turned up recently, due to the increase in spam we've been experiencing. 🙂
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      Bruce
      dani365Author
      Contributor I
      April 25, 2019
      ok so I checked and under Audio In it says 'Stereo.' The playbar is hooked up directly to the project via the optical cable so the mini pc recognizes the projector and not the sound bar. Not sure if this makes a difference but any advice on how to proceed from here will be appreciated.
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