Weird audio quality with surround when playing music in tv mode

  • 1 December 2021
  • 6 replies
  • 863 views
K

Hi,

I've recently switched over to Sonos and purchased a Beam (Gen2) and two One SL's (for surround). Everything sounds good except in one scenario.

When playing music through Spotify or any music/radio app through my NVIDIA Shield, the audio quality from the rear speakers is very inconsistent. It sounds as if the volume of the rear speakers is constantly adjusting based on what's currently playing. To me it sounds as if when there are vocals in a song, the rear speakers are trying to suppress the sound but it's failing to do so, resulting in a very muddy sound quality and also heavily fluctuates in volume while doing so. This is very noticeable and a bit annoying.

When playing music through the Sonos app this doesn't happen.

So it appears this issue only occurs when playing music in "tv mode”, i.e. through an external device which is my NVIDIA Shield in this case. Playing music natively through the Sonos app produces great quality and both surround modes (ambient and full) work fine.

Is there any explanation for this?

My setup:

LG C1 55”
NVIDIA Shield
Beam (Gen2) + 2x One SL (set as rears for surround)
Connected via HDMI eARC

 

6 replies

ratty

With a 2-channel signal through the HDMI input the Beam will have to synthesise a signal for the surround speakers, based on what it thinks the TV program material might contain. The sound processing involved could do unwelcome things to pure music content when one’s used to a traditional 2-channel stereo presentation.

I suggest you play music directly on the Beam, either using the Sonos app or ‘casting’ from the Spotify app.

Ken_Griffiths

There is an option in the Beam’s room settings to adjust, or even switch off the audio to it’s surrounds. See ‘Settings/System/[Beam Room Name]/Surround Audio’, perhaps see if that assists.

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K

With a 2-channel signal through the HDMI input the Beam will have to synthesise a signal for the surround speakers, based on what it thinks the TV program material might contain. The sound processing involved could do unwelcome things to pure music content when one’s used to a traditional 2-channel stereo presentation.

I suggest you play music directly on the Beam, either using the Sonos app or ‘casting’ from the Spotify app.


I figured this is what's happening, as music through the Sonos app plays perfectly fine. It's a bit annoying but not a dealbreaker. Was hoping there is a solution for it, but if not then I'll just play all music through the app.

 

There is an option in the Beam’s room settings to adjust, or even switch off the audio to it’s surrounds. See ‘Settings/System/[Beam Room Name]/Surround Audio’, perhaps see if that assists.


I've tried playing with all these settings but none seem to have any effect. I could turn off the rear speakers obviously, but I do prefer the room filling audio that full music mode delivers in surround.

Ken_Griffiths

There have been some suggestions here in the community for TV stereo upmixing to all speakers - I think the Nvidia Shield supports that in its advanced sound-out settings (see screenshot), so perhaps try that feature and see if that solves/helps with your issue.

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K

There have been some suggestions here in the community for TV stereo upmixing to all speakers - I think the Nvidia Shield supports that in its advanced sound-out settings (see screenshot), so perhaps try that feature and see if that solves/helps with your issue.

I've just tried this and although it does make the rear speakers sound a bit better, it also seems to apply the upmixing to the center channel, which makes voices sound a lot less clear compared to upmixing off. Speech Enhancement sadly isn't enough to remedy this.

So it's either muddied and inconsistent rears or way less clear dialogue :confused:

For now I'm just using the Sonos app to listen to music, but it would be nice to have the “full” surround mode from music and apply that to tv mode, where all speakers play the same full sound when watching tv or listening to music from a hdmi source.

Ken_Griffiths

@Kashiro,

Sorry to hear that the Nvidia Shield’s the stereo up-mixing didn’t work for you. It was worth a try, I guess.

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