Unexpected sub impact in Ambient music playback mode


Userlevel 2
Badge +2

From searching I’ve found this mentioned before but unfortunately there were no follow ups so forgive the repeat.

I've just picked up a pair of Ikea Symfonisk bookshelf speakers for the rear surrounds and am finding them to be a great complement to my Arc and Sub for watching TV. I have been experimenting with the Music Playback setting (for non-TV listening), and its Ambient and Full options, and having tried both I am definitely leaning towards Ambient as I think I prefer the slightly more localised sound that it allows, and in contrast the Full setting just sounds a bit too much 'everywhere' for my liking.

However, I've noticed an unexpected downside - the Ambient setting appears to reduce the sub output slightly for some reason. I first suspected it audibly but it became much more obvious when holding my hand over the sub's output hole where it is easy to actually feel the difference.

Why would it do this? The Music Playback option description implies that it only affects the surrounds so why is the sub being tweaked also? I could perhaps understand if it was the opposite behaviour e.g. if Full mode lowered the sub slightly so as not to overdo things given that a full-spectrum feed was being provided to the rear speakers in addition to the sub handling low frequencies, but this isn't the case.

Presumably this is by design, but why? (Or is it a bug?)


2 replies

Userlevel 7
Badge +18

I can’t comment on why it does it, but the simple fix is in Settings for the room. Sub Audio offers you the option to increase the Sub’s output. 

Userlevel 2
Badge +2

I can’t comment on why it does it, but the simple fix is in Settings for the room. Sub Audio offers you the option to increase the Sub’s output. 

 

Unfortunately that affects the TV sound too - you can't have separate TV and Music settings when it comes to the sub and I ideally want to avoid toggling settings back and forward when I switch sources. It's the 'Option 1' in the @IdealMunki’s linked post (but I'd prefer Option 3!).

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