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As someone who primarily listens to rock music, a significant portion of the sound of the music that I listen to comes from the mid range. On Sonos speakers, the bass sounds great and the treble sounds great, but the mid range is barely audible. That's where all of the guitars are, along with the vocals a lot of the time. This leads to the music sounding muddy and lifeless.

I love Sonos speakers and I’ve been a customer for years. I’ve told many people about Sonos, singing it’s praises. I think they’re high quality speakers, the features are absolutely fantastic and they’re aesthetically pleasing as well. I would love to be a lifelong customer of Sonos, outfitting every room with a Sonos setup. However, if Sonos does not make changes to accommodate the needs of listeners of genres that require good mid range frequency response, (and I would argue that all genres do, actually, it’s just more noticeable in some than in others), then unfortunately I will have to transition to another brand in order to enjoy my music. Which, again, I would really rather not have to do, given all of the things I love about Sonos.

Having researched this topic, I also know that I am not by any means the first person to bring up this issue. I feel that if Sonos wishes to stand by the values of their brand, solving this kind of issue would be fundamental. So I am wondering if and when Sonos is planning to solve this issue effectively, so I can know whether or not to continue investing in Sonos products?

Hi @Haystack_314, welcome to the Sonos Community!

Thank you for the feedback regarding your listening experience. 

It wasn’t mentioned in your post, so if you haven’t already then I would recommend you disable loudness by going to Settings → System → Products → EQ → Loudness. I’ve seen people discuss how loudness effects each genre, rock in particular, so disabling that and turning the volume up would give you a better listening experience.

If possible, I would also recommend you tune your speaker with Trueplay. Your listening environment and speaker surroundings will effect how your Sonos sounds, Trueplay will help fine tune your speakers regardless of its placement.

I hope this information helps!

Once one is past the bass and assorted gimmicks, the mid range is key to speaker/music enjoyment. I moved to Sonos from high end speakers in 2011 and have never had any reason to regret mid range performance from my play 1 units. When bonded to Sub, as suggested, Trueplay tuning is a must to get rid of mid range killing bass bloat. But on their own, play 1 units don’t need much tweaking.

I can’t speak to other models - especially 5/Era - not having heard them.

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