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Sonos Move on and off-axis measurements (an interesting case study)

txbdan

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Apr 21, 2020
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Thanks for the review. I picked up a Sonos Move and a B&W Formation Flex for a casual bedroom setup. My opinion is tonally the Sonos is extremely pleasant while the B&W has the standard zingy sound you get from B&W speakers (it has the 600 series tweeter supposedly). That said the bass region sounds extremely tubby and bloated on the Sonos. It's got a smaller woofer than the Formation Flex but feels like it's playing at least 10-15hz lower in room.

I find both of these kind of unbearable to listen to anything higher than ~70db listening level. With the Sonos, the boomy and tubby sounding bass just dominates the sound, and with the B&W I can't stand the rising treble. But if you put a gun to my head I would rather listen to the Sonos.

That said I'm surprised just how wide the Sonos dispersion is. While it's no Homepod with 8 tweeters, with it's a single downward firing tweeter but feels like its multiple tweeters in that it sounds almost omnidirectional, and the directivity graph really helps show how this is happening with the dispersion widening below 2.5K. The B&Ws are very directional, which in some ways is a good thing, because otherwise the treble response would be a real problem, but it does make it sound very small. IMO the Sonos in mono sounds bigger image-wise than a stereo pair of the Flex, which is interesting.

Did you do the TruePlay autoEQ on the Move? It generally fixes the bass, at least with my SONOS Ones. I think the Move now has Auto TruePlay via a recent firmware update.
 

jonfitch

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Sep 2, 2019
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Did you do the TruePlay autoEQ on the Move? It generally fixes the bass, at least with my SONOS Ones. I think the Move now has Auto TruePlay via a recent firmware update.

I think that only works on wifi right? I generally use 3rd party streaming apps to avoid adds lol, which the Sonos app doesn't support.

I tried using some hacks to get sound to go through wifi but its pretty janky and sound tends to drop out, so I just default to bluetooth. I think I read somewhere that autotuning doesn't actually work over bluetooth with Sonos.

Not sure about B&W, but there is a built in EQ app that works on both wifi and bluetooth so its a little more functional than Sonos. On the flip side, no power button and (the standby still consumes a lot of power) so the Formation almost needs a smart power switch timer just to turn it off when not in use, since it runs very hot on standby. I'm worried about the thing cooking itself overnight.
 

txbdan

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Apr 21, 2020
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I think that only works on wifi right? I generally use 3rd party streaming apps to avoid adds lol, which the Sonos app doesn't support.

I tried using some hacks to get sound to go through wifi but its pretty janky and sound tends to drop out, so I just default to bluetooth. I think I read somewhere that autotuning doesn't actually work over bluetooth with Sonos.

Not sure about B&W, but there is a built in EQ app that works on both wifi and bluetooth so its a little more functional than Sonos. On the flip side, no power button and (the standby still consumes a lot of power) so the Formation almost needs a smart power switch timer just to turn it off when not in use, since it runs very hot on standby. I'm worried about the thing cooking itself overnight.

I *think* the new firmware update allows it to work over bluetooth as well. I use my Sonos speakers almost exclusively using AirPlay over wifi and it works great. That way you can use any app you want and just send it over to the speakers. Granted, I also like Sonos radio. The Indie Chill or whatever station is pretty solid. I digress.
 
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