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Sonos 9.1.4 Theater Mini-Review

If this is “working as designed” they’d better have a *really* good explanation
I've decided it won't matter to me, I have hearing loss in left ear above 4khz, so I'm forever turning up the center channel anyway and treble...what I'm noticing here is I'm fine with default, without speech enhancement...even without Trueplay. Music is much better now after doing resets with the new software.

I also found setting in the app to turn down the surrounds in both music and movies, which I'm going to do some tuning with this weekend to achieve more balance

In sum, I can't do better without going full separates and finding a really short center channel speaker that will fit between my UST and bottom of screen...not easy.

but yeah, at least give us volume controls by channel to dial our systems in, they already give us surrounds, height adjustments, why not FR/FC/FL?
 
I've decided it won't matter to me, I have hearing loss in left ear above 4khz, so I'm forever turning up the center channel anyway and treble...what I'm noticing here is I'm fine with default, without speech enhancement...even without Trueplay. Music is much better now after doing resets with the new software.

I also found setting in the app to turn down the surrounds in both music and movies, which I'm going to do some tuning with this weekend to achieve more balance

In sum, I can't do better without going full separates and finding a really short center channel speaker that will fit between my UST and bottom of screen...not easy.

but yeah, at least give us volume controls by channel to dial our systems in, they already give us surrounds, height adjustments, why not FR/FC/FL?
Ahhh ok. I am blessed/cursed with essentially perfect hearing (tested not long ago), so… if they’re intransigent with this I’ll probably end up getting a Q990D instead.
 
Ahhh ok. I am blessed/cursed with essentially perfect hearing (tested not long ago), so… if they’re intransigent with this I’ll probably end up getting a Q990D instead.
Watch that Andrew Robinson link I posted before, he talks about the Q990D.

Mines sounding pretty good now after I reset. Once you get your stuff, make sure to manually check for firmware updates again, even after each does its initial firmware update....then do Trueplay.
 
Watch that Andrew Robinson link I posted before, he talks about the Q990D.

Mines sounding pretty good now after I reset. Once you get your stuff, make sure to manually check for firmware updates again, even after each does its initial firmware update....then do Trueplay.
Oh I’ve seen it. I am… not his biggest fan. In no way meaning to dispute your experience or anything, but you know how in that comparison segment where he mentions the Q990D he also talks about how he prefers the Arc Ultra’s neutrality over the Bravia Quad’s “excited” sound? Fair enough, except in his video on the Quad he was talking about how neutral the Quad was. And his own measurements of all three systems show the Q990D as the most neutral. (Also, as a gamer, it does irk me that *no one but Rtings* mentioned the Quad’s latency being roughly double that of the other two systems’.)

Anyway, I appreciate you experimenting and talking to Sonos. I think my fundamental problem is I very much want a simple low-profile solution, but I also want it all to be as exactly correct as you could get with separates and Dirac. I’d buy a hypothetical Revel Arc in a heartbeat. Sadly I think the anti-soundbar elitism keeps those brands from building such a thing, believing (probably correctly) that it wouldn’t sell to the only people who’ve ever heard of their brands, and the mass market brands are not aiming at, nor are particularly concerned with the opinions of, people who read ASR and know what a spinorama is.
 
Oh I’ve seen it. I am… not his biggest fan. In no way meaning to dispute your experience or anything, but you know how in that comparison segment where he mentions the Q990D he also talks about how he prefers the Arc Ultra’s neutrality over the Bravia Quad’s “excited” sound? Fair enough, except in his video on the Quad he was talking about how neutral the Quad was. And his own measurements of all three systems show the Q990D as the most neutral. (Also, as a gamer, it does irk me that *no one but Rtings* mentioned the Quad’s latency being roughly double that of the other two systems’.)

Anyway, I appreciate you experimenting and talking to Sonos. I think my fundamental problem is I very much want a simple low-profile solution, but I also want it all to be as exactly correct as you could get with separates and Dirac. I’d buy a hypothetical Revel Arc in a heartbeat. Sadly I think the anti-soundbar elitism keeps those brands from building such a thing, believing (probably correctly) that it wouldn’t sell to the only people who’ve ever heard of their brands, and the mass market brands are not aiming at, nor are particularly concerned with the opinions of, people who read ASR and know what a spinorama is.
Yep, same page. I think Sonos is as close as any to perfecting...they may be able to get there with current hardware and better software...but if they tweak the software to allow integrating separate front L/R (ERA 100/300s), I think it would be a multiplier. Frankly surprised they haven't done it.
 
A couple of weeks from now you'll hear Andrew Robinson extolling the virtues for a purist 2 channel system...
He's an excellent reviewer/salesperson.

Have you noticed why sound-bars are rarely reviewed in the same time as a full sized speakers?

It's because "A great pair of bookshelf speakers should last for years and deliver better performance than you can get from all-in-one blue tooth and wi-fi tabletop speakers"

Reference: https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/reviews/best-bookshelf-speakers/

One wouldn't review motorbike alongside a mountain bike, or a pickup truck alongside a tractor... but one would talk about the pros and cons to "help assist a purchase decision"
 
Update: “something went wrong” with Trueplay, every time. Will attempt rebooting.
Edit: Deleting and reinstalling the app made it work.
 
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Ok. I wasn’t *going* to measure it, then I got slapped in the face with dialogue so I did: I measure a 7dB boost to the center channel relative to L/R/Lrs/Lrr/Rrs/Rrr.

For the sake of interest and to contribute to the available data, I took HouseCurve measurements with both my Q950A and the full Arc Ultra set. First is the Q950A, second is the arc Ultra, green with trueplay, gray without. As you can see, I didn’t level match the two.
IMG_6790.png
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Ok. I wasn’t *going* to measure it, then I got slapped in the face with dialogue so I did: I measure a 7dB boost to the center channel relative to L/R/Lrs/Lrr/Rrs/Rrr.

For the sake of interest and to contribute to the available data, I took HouseCurve measurements with both my Q950A and the full Arc Ultra set. First is the Q950A, second is the arc Ultra, green with trueplay, gray without. As you can see, I didn’t level match the two.View attachment 422129View attachment 422128
Yep. Post that 7db finding in the Sonos thread. I assume your Q950A is reasonably channel matched and doesn't slap you in the face?

Is your room treated? I'm jealous of that 250 - 750 range, I can't get that in any room without a lot of finagling due to SBIR issues. Let me know if you have a method. Or are you putting the speakers further out in the room, off the wall?
 
Yep. Post that 7db finding in the Sonos thread. I assume your Q950A is reasonably channel matched and doesn't slap you in the face?

Is your room treated? I'm jealous of that 250 - 750 range, I can't get that in any room without a lot of finagling due to SBIR issues. Let me know if you have a method. Or are you putting the speakers further out in the room, off the wall?
Yeah the Arc is about 1.5’ away from the wall, on my TV stand. Not treated. Actually it’s very live, but like I said, I’ve grown more concerned with aesthetics over time .
Edit to add: Yeah my Q950A is channel matched within about .5dB. Samsung gives you controls for center, side, wide, top, rear, rear side, rear top, and woofer levels.
 
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It really seems that Sonos is missing the mark on not allowing users more control of the different channel volumes. There is some discussion on the sonos forums about allowing the 300 independent volume control - https://en.community.sonos.com/home...-is-silent-with-arc-ultra-6923569?tid=6923569 and I don't understand why they wouldn't do that with some of the other drives. Especially the front Left Right and Center from the Ultra.
 
Yeah the Arc is about 1.5’ away from the wall, on my TV stand. Not treated. Actually it’s very live, but like I said, I’ve grown more concerned with aesthetics over time .
Edit to add: Yeah my Q950A is channel matched within about .5dB. Samsung gives you controls for center, side, wide, top, rear, rear side, rear top, and woofer levels.
Would you mind checking a few scenes when you have a moment? Black Panther 1:41:15 for 1 minute, ship enters cavern, elevator pans to top then dialog over background music…except I’m not getting any music in 5.1…sounds like guys talking in a box, no ambient sounds
 
Would you mind checking a few scenes when you have a moment? Black Panther 1:41:15 for 1 minute, ship enters cavern, elevator pans to top then dialog over background music…except I’m not getting any music in 5.1…sounds like guys talking in a box, no ambient sounds
Ahhh I'm sorry, I would but I already boxed everything back up.
 
What are you getting instead? I see Samsung is releasing an F version of their system
Q990D. My god the WiFi flakiness. Took me hours to get it connected and I am *very* concerned it’ll flake out again. In the meantime though I did take a HouseCurve reading. This is in its “Adaptive” sound mode; green is with “SpaceFit Sound Pro” on, gray is off.
IMG_6848.png


I went and listened to the Bravia Quad too; Rtings’s measurements look bright, and it sounds bright, but god, they’re not kidding about the spatial sound mapping. That system sounds *huge*. I was sorely, sorely tempted by that, and I haven’t ruled out bringing one home and comparing in situ. My brain says the sound signature would get fatiguing, but my nerd self wants it badly.
 
Q990D. My god the WiFi flakiness. Took me hours to get it connected and I am *very* concerned it’ll flake out again. In the meantime though I did take a HouseCurve reading. This is in its “Adaptive” sound mode; green is with “SpaceFit Sound Pro” on, gray is off. View attachment 422881

I went and listened to the Bravia Quad too; Rtings’s measurements look bright, and it sounds bright, but god, they’re not kidding about the spatial sound mapping. That system sounds *huge*. I was sorely, sorely tempted by that, and I haven’t ruled out bringing one home and comparing in situ. My brain says the sound signature would get fatiguing, but my nerd self wants it badly.
What did the virtual center sound like? Was dialog decent?
 
What did the virtual center sound like? Was dialog decent?
So the caveats: it was in the middle of a Best Buy, I did not have control, I was shown a trailer for Rings of Power, and I was not in the sweet spot. They were mounted on parts of a Sony TV display, a few feet further apart front to back than they were side to side. They were keeping boxes there so I was standing a few feet behind the center.

The center image wasn’t as fully anchored as it would be with a discrete center (occasionally I’d perceive bits of voices localized to the speakers, but FWIW I’ve always had that exact experience with 2-channel separates, and I’ve never quite figured out if that’s normal or if something about my brain doesn’t quite cooperate with stereo imaging); it was also somewhat less tangible, for lack of a better word. “Phantom” is apt, you can absolutely tell it’s there, but you can also absolutely tell that it’s not quite real. That being said, I thought it felt more tangible than I’d expected. I suppose the best way of putting it is that the gushing reviews are, as usual, overstating its amazingness, but I don’t think the lack of a center is a major problem. It’s more of a trade-off. I’d point you toward the Rtings measurement, though, the system does apply a positive slope to the response on the center channel. Someone on AVS also measured it at +3dB relative to the other channels, and Sony doesn’t let you adjust that either. Less obnoxious an imbalance than Sonos applies, anyway.

My impression, ultimately, is that the spatial mapping is a parlor trick, but it’s a really, really good parlor trick. It comes at the expense of tonal neutrality, though. Whether that’s because Sony doesn’t accept neutrality as a goal or because they couldn’t make it work physically, I can’t say. It’s also possible that it’s inherent to the spatial mapping; now that I think about it, every virtual spatial effect I’ve ever heard makes the sound brighter and somewhat more hollow, from Dolby Headphone to Dolby Virtual Speaker to Apple Spatial Audio. My understanding is a lot of spatial information is carried in the treble, anyway ‍♂️
 
Yeah, I’ve tried several 2.1 systems for TV, never quite get the solid center/dialog I need. It’s inverse of current Sonos.

Well I’m crossing fingers that Sonos software improves…or they allow addition of separates for the front, which would be no brainer….but that request has been around for years apparently
 
Yeah, I’ve tried several 2.1 systems for TV, never quite get the solid center/dialog I need. It’s inverse of current Sonos.

Well I’m crossing fingers that Sonos software improves…or they allow addition of separates for the front, which would be no brainer….but that request has been around for years apparently
Yeah in my case with an A95L the Quad can use the TV to reinforce the center image, so it theoretically is less of an issue. No one seems to agree if it actually sounds better or worse, though.

My fingers are also crossed for you. Sonos seems too convinced of its own brilliance. It’s funny how TVs have started to get with the program and at least offer the option of Filmmaker Mode to turn off most of the “enhancement” features and give a reasonably accurate picture, but with audio they’re still messing around.
 
Yeah in my case with an A95L the Quad can use the TV to reinforce the center image, so it theoretically is less of an issue. No one seems to agree if it actually sounds better or worse, though.

My fingers are also crossed for you. Sonos seems too convinced of its own brilliance. It’s funny how TVs have started to get with the program and at least offer the option of Filmmaker Mode to turn off most of the “enhancement” features and give a reasonably accurate picture, but with audio they’re still messing around.
I found my Google TV based projector had enabled DTS DRC (Dynamic Range Compression) and it was greatly contributing to the problem. Turning it off brought back ambient music and sound effects on Atmos and DD5.1...not sure why a DTS setting would impact Atmos and DD but there it is.

I can still measure the imbalance but overall experience for TVs/Movies is great now. I am still pursuing getting complete channel match, will post back on that next week.
 
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