When my wife and I are watching TV, we are noticing that we are having some difficulty fully understanding what the people in the show are saying. It's as if it's not fully clear or as my wife would describe it, it's a volume issue where the dialogue is being overwhelmed by other sounds perhaps.
It's gotten to the point that we need to turn on sub-titles at times. We don't notice this issue with other TV's/watching TV on a computer, so I think this is isolated to the Sonos playbar.
Also, I've noticed when watching movies that the sound fluctuates a lot, in which in an entire movie I have to hold the remote to adjust the sound up and down. It's like the explosion scenes are way too loud but the speaking scenes are not loud enough so we turn it up to try to hear what they are saying and then something loud happens and it's somewhat jarring to us when we are watching the show.
Is this an acoustics issue? Calibration issue?
We have 1 Playbar, 2 Play 1's as surrounds, the Playbar is wall mounted right beneath our Samsung 55" LED Smart TV.
Sonos Playbar sound issue? Dialogues in movies/shows are not easy to understand fully.
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I'll answer. Basically yes. Or at least within 10 or 15 minutes of the problem. There's only so much data that can be included in the diagnostic, I think that 15 minutes of data is included. He'd be looking through that file to see what information the PLAYBAR is receiving (or not), or if there's a error code popping up from somewhere else. But if it's not while the PLAYBAR is in use, then there won't be any data from the PLAYBAR for him to look at 🙂
Keith, does the diagnostic need to be done whilst the Playbar is in use?
Hi there, AdrianSyd. Thanks for posting and for the diagnostic report. It seems the PLAYBAR is not getting a signal at all from the TV. When you submitted this report were you experiencing the problem? If so, I would check your TV Audio settings to determine what the PLAYBAR should be receiving. Thanks!
Hi Sonos, I have had the same issue with voice sound. When we are watching TV, we have constant difficulty understanding audio re what people are saying…. We too sit there with the remote in hand constantly having to turn up to hear voice and then turn down re background sounds so as not to wake the kids. Definitely not what we signed up for. We have read all the previous posts and I must say for a premium product to only offer telephone support during business hours is not very helpful…
My wife spent 2 hours on the phone with support last Thursday only to be told that Sonos is only as good as the device sending the sound – not very helpful, thanks. Both devices were purchased at the same time and the TV is a Samsung 48” Smarf Full HD 3D LED. Can you please assist with a resolution to this problem as we’re at the point of throwing out the Playbar and buying something else – just os we can hear what people are saying on TV…. Crazy after spending $1,000 on a supposedly top notch speaker.
Background is:
Sonos Playbar purchased Dec-14 (issues has been the same since day 1)
Samsung TV UA48H6400 specs https://www.comx.co.za/SAMSUNG-UA48H6400-specifications-92695.htm
Sonos Diagnostic Info submitted today: 8475017
Your assistance would be much appreciated.
My wife spent 2 hours on the phone with support last Thursday only to be told that Sonos is only as good as the device sending the sound – not very helpful, thanks. Both devices were purchased at the same time and the TV is a Samsung 48” Smarf Full HD 3D LED. Can you please assist with a resolution to this problem as we’re at the point of throwing out the Playbar and buying something else – just os we can hear what people are saying on TV…. Crazy after spending $1,000 on a supposedly top notch speaker.
Background is:
Sonos Playbar purchased Dec-14 (issues has been the same since day 1)
Samsung TV UA48H6400 specs https://www.comx.co.za/SAMSUNG-UA48H6400-specifications-92695.htm
Sonos Diagnostic Info submitted today: 8475017
Your assistance would be much appreciated.
Hello there, Dson. Thanks for posting and welcome to the Community. What exactly are you experiencing? The post you quoted, explains the frustrations of another user about audio quality from their TV. If you'd like I would be happy to take a preliminary look at a diagnostic report. Be sure to submit the report when experiencing the problem, this makes the errors much easier to find in the logs.
Additionally, please reply with the confirmation number it gives at the end. Much appreciated.
Additionally, please reply with the confirmation number it gives at the end. Much appreciated.
I am a new customer to Sonos. I love the way the music sounds, but as everyone else on this thread has already said, including my wife who complains to me every night about this issue, the TV/Netflix/Movie dialogue is terrible. This issue needs to be resolved. I am surprised that it's been 5 months since the first post and there still isn't a solution in place?
This particular issue is making one of our favorite past times a pain. One of the main reasons we purchased Sonos was to enhance our movie/TV audio experience, not make it worse. I expected more out of a $700 speaker to say the least.
Regards,
Andrew - TX
Exactly same issue, i am considering selling and buying a different soundbar
I have the same issue with voice sound. My optical is running directly from cable box and my tv speakers are set to OFF. The only option on the cable box I have is to run audio in PCM or 5.1. Dialog improves greatly when PCP (stereo) is selected but my Audio input in Sonos app shows Stereo now. Obviously. So either 5.1 or good dialogue volume.
I've got an EDID emulator on the way as well to see if I can coax 5.1 out of my TV optical out but not holding my breath..
Be a good time to become acquainted with your TV full manual and the settings menus.
Hello all, just ordered a Sonos Playbar so was a bit disappointed when reading the opening post!. Some great info in this thread, I'll be turning all the audio options off om my TV when it turns up and hope for the best..
Great advice from TonyDancer! That should be included in the Sonos system set-up guide. In my LG 4K TV I turned off all the audio enhancement options as "smart audio", "ultra surround" etc. + set the TV EQ to flat level on all frequencies. Dialogue improvement is remarkable. Thanks much
Sound is quite good for music, but it's awful to get a good balance between voices and other sounds
I tried "night mode" or clear voice options but, as already said in previous posts, it does not solve anything
Paulcrame, did you turn off your TV surround and then select audio output from the TV to be "bit stream" or "Raw". Do those if you have not yet. My Sonos Playbar sounds amazing after I did that.
Let me know.
--Brian Smith
I have the same sound issue as previous people with TV / movies
Sound is quite good for music, but it's awful to get a good balance between voices and other sounds
I tried "night mode" or clear voice options but, as already said in previous posts, it does not solve anything
Sound is quite good for music, but it's awful to get a good balance between voices and other sounds
I tried "night mode" or clear voice options but, as already said in previous posts, it does not solve anything
What do you mean turn off surround sound on the TV?
Using your TV remote go in to the Audio and find "surround Sound" (If it has it, check your user manual) and turn it to OFF. What happens is the TV Processes the sound before the Playbar has a chance to process the sound and it mucks it up. The Playbar should have a RAW Bitstream coming into it. I thought I had a pice of shit Playbar. Then I saw this thread and it is awesome sounding now.
Hope that helps.
--Brian S
What do you mean turn off surround sound on the TV?
The sound bar should be the only one processing sound. Sonos setup fails to instruct the user to turn off your TVs surround sound. Then change output to raw (mine says bitstream but I believe is same thing). Use Tonydancers post as the best way as it helped my sound bar tremendously.
If you need any help let me know. I'd be glad to send you screen shots of how I fixed my sound bar. Email me at bsmithw6@gmail.com
Glad I found this thread. I thought I bought a POS sound bar. Sonos, you MUST put the instructions in the setup to turn off surround sound on the TV. Now my sound bar sounds awesome. I've had it for about 3-4 months and had to turn on close caption to watch movies, sports, pretty much everything. Now speech is crystal clear.
Hey Boredo - Yeah, I'm up on the latest everything... in my questions above I requested help finding those settings. I am aware of google and I know how to "look around the screen." I was asking the community for help. Thanks.
The latest software update improved the centre channel considerably.if you think it is still bad then your hopes are truly dashed. You have updated the software?
If you are unable to locate a basic feature why not take a look around the screen or use Google where you will learn a considerable amount to enable you to get the best out of your speakers amd how to use them. You may find one, or more, of your settings are causing your problems.
If you are unable to locate a basic feature why not take a look around the screen or use Google where you will learn a considerable amount to enable you to get the best out of your speakers amd how to use them. You may find one, or more, of your settings are causing your problems.
Hi all - I've got mediocre dialog sound on the Playbar as well - I'm running it from a projector to a bridge... but the voices are muffled.
As I'm direct out of a TV I seem to have different set-up. Can anyone direct me to the app based access to speech enhancement and night sound please?
Thanks -
I agree with everything said - I've been on the Sonos system a long time and I'm pretty galled by the lack of upgrades for the problems mentioned above. Hard to get the thousands of dollars out and feeling rather stuck to this system for my home theater setup as a result. I'd like to see Sonos oak-up and sort this stuff out.
As I'm direct out of a TV I seem to have different set-up. Can anyone direct me to the app based access to speech enhancement and night sound please?
Thanks -
I agree with everything said - I've been on the Sonos system a long time and I'm pretty galled by the lack of upgrades for the problems mentioned above. Hard to get the thousands of dollars out and feeling rather stuck to this system for my home theater setup as a result. I'd like to see Sonos oak-up and sort this stuff out.
Plus as of today, you get Trueplay for Playbar.
I'm the previous poster who had pre-sales questions about setting up a Playbar and AppleTV — and concerns about dialogue clarity. I've now purchased a Playbar and must say that I've very impressed with the product and dialog clarity is very good, and enhanced significantly when both Speech Enhancement and Night Sound are turned on in the Sonos app. The Sonos Speech Enhancement approach might be technically more sophisticated than having volume control over the center channel?
Definitely think the playbar needs a setting to adjust the volume of the centre channel. On my previous surround sound you could adjust the level of every one of the speakers depending on the distance it was from the seating area. This problem with the dialogue seems to be exaggerated when the seating area is quite far from the playbar.
Sonos staff, adding to complaints by many others - the speech sound quality on Playbar is dreadful and I'm surprised that Sonos is basically ignoring it. While I have tried to enhance sound following all the SONOS recommendations I haven't yet tried Tony Dancer's suggestion as it sounds like a lot of fiddling to fix a problem that Sonos should be resolving for all users.
I hope someone at Sonos is doing something about it as because it is such black mark against an otherwise excellent product range.
Joe
I hope someone at Sonos is doing something about it as because it is such black mark against an otherwise excellent product range.
Joe
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