I changed 3 settings on my Sonos soundbar to instantly improve the audio performance

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ZDNET's cardinal takeaways

• Your listening room's layout has a immense interaction connected your soundbar's Dolby Atmos performance.
• There are respective audio features that tin assistance amended dialog clarity.
• Building retired your Sonos location theatre tin assistance with audio clarity and robustness.

Sonos' webpages and fashionable reviews are afloat of specs, but respective real-life factors impact your soundbar's show much than you'd think. Factors specified arsenic placement, your content's audio format, and your room's size and furnishings each impact your soundbar's output. 

I usage my Sonos Arc and Arc Ultra soundbars, Era 300 speakers, Sub 4 subwoofer, and Ace headphones daily, but achieving implicit restitution required immoderate adjustments. I'm yet acceptable to stock the secrets.

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Start with your soundbar's placement. Regardless of whether you person a flagship Arc oregon Arc Ultra, oregon a smaller Beam oregon Ray, determination matters. Ensure your soundbar is arsenic adjacent to oculus level arsenic imaginable and centered connected your TV. If you tin assistance it, support your soundbar retired of a cabinet; you privation dependable to disperse passim the country alternatively than beryllium confined wrong a space.

1. Problem: Dolby Atmos doesn't dependable immersive

The reason: A deficiency of height

Dolby Atmos is an object-based spatial audio format. However, movie theaters get it close due to the fact that they person speakers embedded successful the ceiling, adding tallness and achieving an immersive acquisition that mimics sounds coming from supra you. You don't person ceiling speakers, but your Arc oregon Arc Ultra has upfiring speakers to make this illusion astatine home.

The fix: Increase the tallness transmission volume

This 1 is the astir difficult. If you person vaulted ceilings oregon your soundbar setup doesn't let for overmuch abstraction betwixt the soundbar and your TV, your upfiring speakers volition struggle. However, you tin summation the measurement of your Arc oregon Arc Ultra's tallness channels to effort to marque them louder and much noticeable. 

The caller and awesome Era 300 is cleanable for medium-to-large rooms.

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A acceptable of rear speakers tin assistance importantly grow the horizontal level of your Dolby Atmos experience, and the Era 300 has an upfiring tweeter for added tallness effect, if your abstraction tin accommodate it. 

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Neither the Sonos Ray nor Beam (Gen 2) has dedicated upfiring speakers, but their guardant and side-facing channels assistance with expanding your content's soundstage. Either compact soundbar is an upgrade from your TV's bladed speakers, but the Beam (Gen 2) is the champion compact enactment from Sonos (when it's connected sale).

2. Problem: Dialogue isn't clear

The reason: Toggle Speech Enhancement, Night Mode, oregon Loudness

There are respective ways to code this occupation by playing with a fewer audio features. Starting small, you tin crook connected Speech Enhancement, which decreases bass and increases mids, which is typically wherever dialog resides. You tin besides crook connected Night Sound alongside Speech Enhancement to further trim bass. 

Ensure your soundbar's Loudness diagnostic is off, arsenic it tin besides amplify non-dialogue sounds. If you're inactive not proceeding arsenic intelligibly arsenic you'd like, you tin trim the soundbar's bass effect successful its EQ settings. You tin find each these features successful the Sonos app.

Jada Jones/ZDNET

From my experience, rear speakers and a sub, particularly a subwoofer, mitigate this occupation entirely, since the further audio channels let the soundbar to absorption connected mids and the sub to grip bass. 

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If you're this heavy into the Sonos ecosystem and privation to ticker TV without bothering your housemates oregon neighbors, see buying the Sonos Ace headphones. They are compatible with the Sonos Arc, Arc Ultra, Beam, and Ray, and play the aforesaid audio format arsenic the soundbar's output. 

3. Problem: Something conscionable sounds 'off'

The fix: Re-calibrate TruePlay

TruePlay is Sonos' acoustic tuning diagnostic that helps your speakers execute to their champion by accounting for your room's size, furniture, and layout. If you're similar me, your rooms aren't the cleanable quadrate with minimal furnishings similar the exemplary rooms connected the Sonos website. 

You'll privation to tune your talker with TruePlay to relationship for the walls adjacent your soundbar and the sectional-sized obstruction successful your listening area. If you ever rearrange your listening area, whether that beryllium the speakers oregon the furniture, tally a caller TruePlay calibration.