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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Userlevel 1
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.
Userlevel 1
Also, should it help, my Playbar/Sub are connected to an LG 55LM7600. All movies and TV are streamed via a Plex/Chromecast 2 setup. Issue occurs with TV and movies, seems to be independent of file format, size/quality, etc. I've just submitted this issue to support along with a diagnostic.
Userlevel 1
I'd like to add my voice to this discussion - my playbar issues are identical to those laid out by cadd, japes, Crossing, jfs, and darrelld. Speak enhancement and night mode make a very slight improvement, but other sounds are far, far louder than dialogue. I have to crank volume to max while watching movies, hold my phone the entire time, ready to quickly drop the volume during action scenes to avoid ticking off the neighbors.
Also, there doesn't appear to be any actual EQ settings accessible within the Sonos app. This statement from Sonos sounds way too Apple-esque for my liking:
"The SONOS players ship with the equalization settings preset to provide the optimal playback experience. If desired, you can change the sound settings (bass, treble, balance, or loudness) to suit your personal preferences."
Well it's not optimal. Currently I have treble maxed, bass almost off (I do have the sub), both speech enhancement and night mode on, and dialogue is barely intelligible with volume at max sitting 8 feet from the playbar.
Also, there doesn't appear to be any actual EQ settings accessible within the Sonos app. This statement from Sonos sounds way too Apple-esque for my liking:
"The SONOS players ship with the equalization settings preset to provide the optimal playback experience. If desired, you can change the sound settings (bass, treble, balance, or loudness) to suit your personal preferences."
Well it's not optimal. Currently I have treble maxed, bass almost off (I do have the sub), both speech enhancement and night mode on, and dialogue is barely intelligible with volume at max sitting 8 feet from the playbar.
I have a sub with a pair of Play3 speakers, and I get the same problem where I can hardly hear what people are saying sometimes. I also find that during some ads, the surrounds sometime become overwhelming, but if I change them to the ambient setting, I can barely hear them.
I am a loyal sonos user and agree with the frustrating playbar setup. I would not recommend it until Sonos let's you adjust how much voice clarity/volume and night mode volume you want. A software upgrade that lets playbar users adjust the 5.1 effects like you can with a conventional 5.1 system. Then, if we want to raise the center channel up and lower everything else in poorly mixed movies we can!
Sonos, please tell us this is in the works!
Sonos, please tell us this is in the works!
Have exact same problem and have tried the Night Mode, which seems to make little if no difference, and the Voice Mode seems to make it tinny. I constantly have my finger on the volume key to adjust sound up and down. Very disappointed so far. My wife prefers an old Bose 1-2-3 which, despite its age, produces far better sound, good voice clarity, and very even sound without (enhances quiet sounds and cuts loud booming sounds extremely effectively). But I like Sonos and really want it to work! I read an old Sonos Playbar review and the reviewer mentioned having a Sub really helped with this situation. Does having a Sub cause the Playbar to accentuate dialog and reduce the Playbar's base because this is now handled by the Sub? While I would like to try a Sub to solve this issue it would be a very costly experiment. While I don't think the TV is enhancing sound (Samsung and the sound types are disabled when External Speaker is selected) it was last on Standard Mode which one would think just passes sound through. Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.
Userlevel 7
+22
Did you switch cable to Direct from source vs through tv
I tried the enhancements and the night sound and I did a few things with the surround sound but it's still kind of unclear. Any other solutions?
Userlevel 7
+22
japes - do you have issues on all sources? Like DVD has issue, TV doesn't etc.
if tv trouble have your tried hooking toslink direct to cable box to rule out tv processing.
if tv trouble have your tried hooking toslink direct to cable box to rule out tv processing.
Wouldn't it be easier just to try them to see what happens?
We have the same issue with our PlayBar + Sub + 2xPlay:1 setup.
The playbar muffles the dialog.
Turning on speech enhancement / night mode doesn't help.
Turning down the level of the surround speakers HAS helped a little bit, but we still have issues.
Subtitles are the way forward. It's a frustrating problem.
The playbar muffles the dialog.
Turning on speech enhancement / night mode doesn't help.
Turning down the level of the surround speakers HAS helped a little bit, but we still have issues.
Subtitles are the way forward. It's a frustrating problem.
https://sonos.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/1959
I haven't tried either one of those. How exactly do those features work? I read about it on their site so I will heck it out but does anyone have any experience with them?
Userlevel 6
+16
As for the fluctuating sound, try the night mode which is on the left of the now playing screen.
Userlevel 6
+16
Have you tried turning on Speech Enhancement in the SONOS app (the square speech bubble on the right of the TV now playing screen, TV has to be selected for it to show up)
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