TruePlay for TV only

“but not for Music: most notable there’s a delay between the TV and surrounds, makes the music sound live instead of crisp.”

How exactly are you streaming music to the Beam setup? Is it through an app on the TV or a connected TV streaming device?

Music source is always Apple Music via AirPlay (iOS).  But keep in mind the delay is only there with TruePlay on, so doesn’t seem like it’s related to the streaming source unless I’m missing something.  There's other audible differences with TruePlay on, seemingly EQ related (more bass etc).  I’ve not dug into more but I imagine the delay is likely there  purposefully (for both TV/Music), likely the front (bream) firing later than the back (surrounds) to compensate for the back being so much further to reach the sofa as the tuned sweet spot, but I’m guessing here.  

If you are using AirPlay to stream Apple Music from your iPhone to the Beam and the Music Playback setting in the Sonos app is set to Full, there should be zero delay from the surround speakers with or without Trueplay enabled.

My understanding was that Surround Distance settings are effectively the delay/timing.  And that if you do tune via TruePlay it affects that as well as EQ, but you can further tweak both, so I’m no surprised that the delay/timing is affected.  But that would be counter to what you’re saying.  Why wouldn’t Trueplay affect timing/delay of the front & surround given it would optimize based on the mic location of my iPhone where it was tuned in the room in the initial position when calibrating?

As a point of reference both Left and Right are set to More than 10 feet (3m) in my settings for the Surround Distance.

This Sonos Staff answer does say TruePlay affects timing (just not balance).  So again, not surprised that it does, just looking for a way to only do that for TV.  

The Surround Distance setting only affects the volume of the surround speakers, not the delay/timing.

From the Sonos website regarding Surround Distance:

Use this to tell Sonos how far away your surround speakers are from your main listening position. Changing the surround distance will adjust the overall volume of TV and Music playback on the surround speakers.

How large is your room? What is the distance between the Beam and the surround speakers?

You will have a delay in sound to the rear speakers if you’ve got them set as another room, and grouped them to the room with the Beam. I just say this for clarification, to be sure you have them set as surrounds?
Surround distance, AIUI, is how far (wide) to the left and right surround speakers are located from the listening position. And you can only set these if Trueplay is disabled. 
 

With the new app, you can actually adjust these settings WITH Trueplay enabled now.

Oops! I wonder what else I’ve not discovered and I’m missing out on! 

The Surround Distance setting only affects the volume of the surround speakers, not the delay/timing.

Good catch - my bad assumption there.  Looks like Surround Distance AND Music Level and TV Level only affect volume.  Nonetheless, from staff answer seems like TruePlay does affect timing.  That would actually make more sense then that the delay is there for TruePlay.

How large is your room? What is the distance between the Beam and the surround speakers?

Roughly 25’x35’?  So > 35ft between the Beam and surrounds.  

You will have a delay in sound to the rear speakers if you’ve got them set as another room, and grouped them to the room with the Beam. I just say this for clarification, to be sure you have them set as surrounds?

No other room involved, Beam, Era 100s and Sub mini all bonded to 1 room, and yes the Era 100s are set as surrounds.

I read all of the posts here and I‘m not sure if I missed something… but as far as I know a trueplay setup also includes recognizing the distance between front and rear speakers to adjust multichannel signal ouput. 
And if that hasn’t changed there also are two rouns of trueplay for ht setups… one for tv mode with fixed hearing position and one for music by walking arround the room. 
But imo the front - rear distance primarily has (or had) effect on tv mode because in the past music mode always was stereo and so I would have expected that the front - rear distance won’t affect or won’t be part of the music mode trueplay setup at all.

Ok, but now there’s atmos music in the house and maybe because of that reason the distance now also affects music mode. Just my suspicion… but if so, I would expect trueplay to use it just for atmos music signals. 
 

Just my part of some brainstorming… 😉

Hi @Schlumpf 

You may find this interesting: https://tech-blog.sonos.com/posts/trueplay-spectral-correction/

This sounds more like the issue isn’t so much trueplay tuning as it is that OP has multiple listening areas in the room.  Trueplay is set where the listener is in the couch, which is often ideal.  However,  when listening to music in the kitchen, you are no longer in the ideal listening position and the trueplay tuning actually makes the audio worse. So it wouldn’t actually be separate tuning for TV and music, but tuning for multiple listening areas in the room?

Although I don’t recall it ever bothering me, my kitchen and living room are laid out pretty similar to OPs and I use to have my surrounds also located in the kitchen, about 10 feet behind the couch.  I later switched it so that I had surrounds right behind the couch and a separate pair of speakers for the kitchen.  I liked this much better, as I could just group kitchen and living room together for music to get the best sound in both rooms.  I’ve actually removed kitchen speakers entirely now though, as I prefer just to have a front stage of audio from the living room, for the entire space.

I think it’s more than that.  While some people like yourself enjoy a front stage music experience, others like myself enjoy an immersive music experiment - not only because of my location can be in different areas in a large room, but there’s other people there as well.  If I wanted perfect personal audio and mobility I could wear headphones.  The experience here is for not just one person to enjoy Music, but others as well, and not be planted to the sofa.  

I think Sonos recognizes the duel nature of surrounds given Surround settings include different levels for Music vs TV, and Music Playback as Full vs Ambient.  This provides one with good customization.  It’s just that TruePlay currently does’t play in that customization (it’s all or nothing).  I could see that TruePlay only makes sense if you are planted in one spot, but given the other settings you'd think there would at least be a way to have TruePlay enabled only with TV / turned off with Music.

Re: your suggestion as well as the answer from @Corry P:  I could also find multiple TruePlay profiles just as useful, if I could associated a profile with Music and one with TV - presuming I’m able to tune the Music profile to be less sensitive to location.

I think we can all agree TV audio can be optimized for one general location in a room - the sofa.  Having a great surround sound experience during movies on the sofa is better than one this just ok everywhere.  But I don’t think assuming Music should always be optimized for one location is correct, nor should it be at a cost to a better audio experience watching TV (namely turning off TruePlay).  Hence why I’m having to fiddle toggling between the two, and why I think this can be improved.

As a side note… I do like the concept of different TruePlay profiles for types of audio, but that gets into a slippery slope of customizations very quickly (e.g., Game vs Movie, Music Genre, etc..).  Maybe Sonos AI can solve this for us in the future by automatically adjusting EQ for us :)