I’m a very satisfied user of Sonos, having a surround system with a Beam and two Era 100, plus two other Era 100 in other rooms. BUT… there is one thing that annoys me very much with the TV surround setting. There is no way to choose for a setting where the sound would come out in the same way from all the speakers. This means that when you look at TV shows, sometimes the sound comes only out of the front center Beam speaker when there is mainly speech, and then all of a sudden there is some background music in the show and then only it comes out of the rear Era speakers. Even worse when I listen to a music concert on TV, the speech (singing) comes only from the front center speaker (with some music) and only music is coming out of the rear speakers. Sorry but for me this is very disturbing and not at all the right music experience. So my simple question is to Sonos: just foresee a setting for TV sound where the sound comes out of all speakers unprocessed or unfiltered in the same way out of all speakers. I’m not a technician, but I assume this should not be too difficult to program? Thank you, would appreciate very much and advocate even more Sonos to friends and family.
Surround sound remix
What Sonos does for multichannel is reproduce the sound that the recording engineers have placed in each channel, there isn't anything Sonos can do to correct the poorly mixed and mastered content.
Atmos is a bit more complicated but the sound distribution is still the responsibility of the creator, not Sonos.
Possibly Sonos could add something like the Amp's mono option.
OK thank you for the explanation. But then yes indeed, as I said I’m sure it must be technically possible to transform this one way or the other (like you say a kind of mono setting), as an option for the user. After all, when you would use the sound from the TV instead of Sonos system, it would also broadcast the whole sound combined.
@ Sonos, any comments ?
If you want just front sound like you get from the TV just toggle the surrounds off in the app.
Might be less frustrating for problem sources and only takes a couple clicks.
Sonos comments here are rare, and may well get rarer as they work on their AI based spam filter. Calling support is the only realistic option for getting a response other than trying the Sonos Reddit.
OK many thanks for the info. However I already tried what you suggest and it doesn’t bring a satisfactory result. I’ll see if I can contact support but not very hopeful for a solution…
+9I’ve the same behaviour with the Arc and Era 300. If you check the app, it happens when the source is Dolby Digital 2.0 (usual TV broadcast). It seems (I think I read it hear) that Sonos SW detects that the content is music and try to fill the room wider with the rear speakers. If there is just dialogs the rear speaker don’t work. And when the content is 5.1 they do what the sound engineers of the film programmed.
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OK thanks for the info. I know that a solution would be to switch off the rear speakers, but then what’s the point to have rear speakers, isn’t it? I’m also used to it in the meantime, but that doesn’t mean it’s OK…
+9OK thanks for the info. I know that a solution would be to switch off the rear speakers, but then what’s the point to have rear speakers, isn’t it? I’m also used to it in the meantime, but that doesn’t mean it’s OK…
But, in audio 2.0 you shouldn’t have in fact rear speakers. It’s just the system trying to give you an extra when the content can be spread backwards. If you don’t like this behaviour, switch them off. If you want to hear also rear speakers during 2.0 content from the TV, I think it’s not possible, just in music. You can try rising the volume of the rear in the settings to feel the surrounds better.
+9Look, this is what Google AI says, I think better explained than me 😅:
Yes, a Sonos home theater system can emit sound from rear speakers for 2.0 content, but it's a simulated surround sound effect, not true surround sound. The system will up-mix the stereo signal to send ambient audio to the rear speakers, though the volume will be much lower than for true 5.1 content.
How Sonos handles 2.0 content
- Up-mixing: When the source material is stereo (2.0), Sonos will up-mix the audio to create a simulated surround effect.
- Ambient sound: The rear speakers will play ambient audio, such as crowd noise or background effects, from the stereo mix.
- Low volume: The audio from the rear speakers will be much quieter than what you hear from the soundbar, as it is an ambient effect and not a separate, discrete channel.
- Adjustable settings: In the Sonos app, you can adjust the level of the surround audio for stereo content, which is often found under "Surround Audio" or "Music Audio" settings.
What to expect
- Not the same as 5.1: The effect will not be as immersive as watching content that is encoded in 5.1 surround sound, which provides a true, distinct surround channel.
- Different from music: For music, you can often set the rears to play at the same volume as the front speakers (setting "Music Playback" to "Full"), but this setting automatically reverts to a lower "ambient" mode for TV content.
- Best for specific content: This feature is most noticeable during action scenes in movies or TV shows where there are background sounds to spread through the system.
+19Hi
Welcome to the Sonos Community!
Thank you - I've marked this thread as a feature request, and it will be seen by the relevant teams for consideration. Keep the ideas coming!
I do have a couple of thoughts on your request, however:
- We would never reduce the number of channels provided by content. We could conceivably up-mix stereo content so that the stereo channels are also played from the surround speakers, but I don’t think we’d ever mess with what channel of a 5.1 mix (or greater) goes where - any request that complicates things and is likely to cause more problems than it solves, we won’t implement. I think this would disrupt “proper” playback of surround content to such a degree (with accidental activation of the feature) that it may be more trouble than it is worth. It is not up to me, to be clear, but these are likely obstructions to the feature being implemented.
- “...just foresee a setting for TV sound where the sound comes out of all speakers unprocessed or unfiltered in the same way out of all speakers” - This what we already do. You are asking us to change that - to downmix 6 (or more) channels to one, then play that one channel from multiple drivers - it would be this that requires significant processing.
I do agree that up-mixing stereo channels to play dialogue from surround channels would help those who are hard of hearing, but I also agree with the above sentiment from other users that if a surround mix sounds bad in the way that you describe, that is likely due to how the mix was engineered at the source.
I hope this helps.
Thank you for your extensive response, I appreciate it. But I don’t agree and I’m not hard from hearing. I still find it not natural to hear speech only from the from the front center speaker. In a movie theater, it’s also not like that. But apparently I’m the only one having this feeling, so I rest my case…
+9Thank you for your extensive response, I appreciate it. But I don’t agree and I’m not hard from hearing. I still find it not natural to hear speech only from the from the front center speaker. In a movie theater, it’s also not like that. But apparently I’m the only one having this feeling, so I rest my case…
It has been like that in all my previous HT setups. Dialogs always come from the center speaker (if the characters are in first place). Try with the dialogues enhancement if you need to hear them more clearly.
But, talking about a naturally way, you usually hear the voice of your speaker in front of you. Although I hear my wife from every direction. Specially when she yells at me 😅.
No matter your preference it is the responsibility of the mixing engineer, not Sonos.
I do not want Sonos mucking about with this sort of thing as a primary listening mode, although the Sonos Ambient setting for stereo streaming isn't bad. Prefer Full or no sound myself but having the option is fine.
So maybe Sonos could look at optional settings for multichannel that folks could select. I could even see a down-mixed "party mode" with all speakers in mono being useful.
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