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cadd
Contributor I
October 25, 2015

Sonos Playbar sound issue? Dialogues in movies/shows are not easy to understand fully.

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.
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    91 replies

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    jdag
    Prodigy III
    March 16, 2016
    I am not sure if this will help, and I don't have experience with either Android or Chromecast. I do know that when you select a video with multiple tracks on other Plex versions, including AppleTV, FireTV, iOS and web browser, that there is an ability to change the audio track. I assume it is there for Android as well. And of course, that assumes that the video in question actually contains multiple audio tracks.
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    seanfoy
    Contributor I
    April 10, 2016
    I have exactly the same problem. Its a disgrace that this once wonderful company has brought out a product like this. Ive been a customer for 9 years. MAybe they no longer care.
    Hi Seanfoy, we'd be happy to help. Can you send us a diagnostic and reply with the confirmation number? Here's an article explaining how: How to Submit Diagnostic

    Hi there, thanks for your reply. Here is the confirmation number for the diagnostic 6076467
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    Jeff S
    Jeff S
    Retired Sonos Staff
    April 11, 2016
    I have exactly the same problem. Its a disgrace that this once wonderful company has brought out a product like this. Ive been a customer for 9 years. MAybe they no longer care.
    Hi Seanfoy, we'd be happy to help. Can you send us a diagnostic and reply with the confirmation number? Here's an article explaining how: How to Submit Diagnostic

    Hi there, thanks for your reply. Here is the confirmation number for the diagnostic 6076467

    Hi Seanfoy,

    It would be best to continue troubleshooting over the phone. Here's a support ticket: 160411-001431. Please give us a call and we'll help out. You can find our phone number and hours here.
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    Jfs
    Contributor I
    April 13, 2016
    I still think Sonos should have a SW update that lets you adjust the center channel volume just like a conventional 5.1 system. Sonos please reply to this. This would make the sound bar so much more adaptable for your users!
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      Jeff S
      Jeff S
      Retired Sonos Staff
      April 13, 2016
      I still think Sonos should have a SW update that lets you adjust the center channel volume just like a conventional 5.1 system. Sonos please reply to this. This would make the sound bar so much more adaptable for your users!

      Hi Jfs,

      Thanks for the suggestion of adding a center channel volume control to the PLAYBAR setup. We'll submit a feature request for you.
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        Victor4285
        Lyricist I
        April 14, 2016
        Sonos Team,

        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
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          BoredofBalham
          Prodigy II
          April 14, 2016
          Submit a diagnostic to Sonos and report it here.
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          AlexCh
          Lyricist I
          May 5, 2016
          Hello Sonos team,

          I take the opprtunity to emphasize previous posts.
          So, two months ago, I replaced my JVC amp (very good job for more than 15 years:P) + 2 classic speakers + chromecast by Sonos playbar.
          Unfortunately, I'm facing two important problems :

          1.
          Exact same sound issue as previous people with TV / movies
          Even though sound is quite good for music, it's very painful to get good balance between voices and other sounds for HD TV or movies read from Blueray or PC or PS4...
          It seems that no equalizer exists that would workaround the problem.
          I tried "night mode" or clear voice options but, as already said in previous posts, it does not solve anything.:(


          2.
          I cannot disable TV speakers (Panasonic TXP50VT20), it leads to overlapping sounds from TV and playbar with a tiny delay between them
          I found a workaround that consists in muting (or decreasing sound until 0) TV sound , BUT when I use TV remote controller to increase playbar sound, TV sound is increased as well, it leads to previous overlapping sound issue :@
          So , I still need to have my phone/tablet close to me to adjust playbar sound, very painful again.


          Finally,
          Q1 : Do you plan to update Sonos app to fix that ? equalizer, presets ....
          Q2 : Is there any other 3rd-party app that would allow more configuration ?
          Q3 : Any tricks to disable/workaround the 2nd issue ?

          Waiting for your feedbacks soon.

          Regards,
          Alex (missing his amp...)
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          Stuart_W
          Stuart_W
          World-Class Superstar
          May 5, 2016
          Hello Sonos team,

          I take the opprtunity to emphasize previous posts.
          So, two months ago, I replaced my JVC amp (very good job for more than 15 years:P) + 2 classic speakers + chromecast by Sonos playbar.
          Unfortunately, I'm facing two important problems :

          1.
          Exact same sound issue as previous people with TV / movies
          Even though sound is quite good for music, it's very painful to get good balance between voices and other sounds for HD TV or movies read from Blueray or PC or PS4...
          It seems that no equalizer exists that would workaround the problem.
          I tried "night mode" or clear voice options but, as already said in previous posts, it does not solve anything.:(


          2.
          I cannot disable TV speakers (Panasonic TXP50VT20), it leads to overlapping sounds from TV and playbar with a tiny delay between them
          I found a workaround that consists in muting (or decreasing sound until 0) TV sound , BUT when I use TV remote controller to increase playbar sound, TV sound is increased as well, it leads to previous overlapping sound issue :@
          So , I still need to have my phone/tablet close to me to adjust playbar sound, very painful again.


          Finally,
          Q1 : Do you plan to update Sonos app to fix that ? equalizer, presets ....
          Q2 : Is there any other 3rd-party app that would allow more configuration ?
          Q3 : Any tricks to disable/workaround the 2nd issue ?

          Waiting for your feedbacks soon.

          Regards,
          Alex (missing his amp...)

          I highly suggest you give support a call and talk through your specific issues with them
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          Arc + Sub (Gen 1) + 2 x Play 1/ Stereo Play 3s/ Era 100 Stereo in Kitchen, One Stereo in Bedroom, Play 1 stereo pair in Study, Play 1in Bathroom, Sonos Move 2
          Ryan S
          Ryan S
          Retired Sonos Staff
          May 6, 2016
          I highly suggest you give support a call and talk through your specific issues with them

          Good suggestion Stuart.




          Q1 : Do you plan to update Sonos app to fix that ? equalizer, presets ....
          Q2 : Is there any other 3rd-party app that would allow more configuration ?
          Q3 : Any tricks to disable/workaround the 2nd issue ?

          We're constantly trying to improve audio, so yes, you can expect to see changes in the future. We don't share timelines or a roadmap so unfortunately that's about the best information I can offer right now.

          On your third question, you could try plugging a headphone jack into the TV and see if that mutes the TV speakers.
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