Home Audio - Help Me Improve My Experience

[IamSpartacus]

Ok I'm looking to improve my home audio experience both with regard to Home Theatre and music streaming. I'm no audiophile who needs to absolute best audio experience and will notice the very subtle differences. That being said, I am looking to find a good mix of quality and convenience both for myself and my wife.

A few years back my home threatre setup in my living room consisted of nothing more than Vizio sound bar. Nothing spectacular obviously but much better than the build in TV speakers that seem to be getting worse with each passing model year.

Last year I upgraded my home threatre setup to a Denon AVS-S710W 7.2Ch receiver and a 3.1 speaker setup of Dayton Audio front (L, M, R + sub) speakers. The quality, at least in my experience, while certainly better was nothing that rocked my world (no pun intended). I found I had even bigger issues with the large octave range when it came to TV/Movies where I'd have to be constantly raising and lowering the volumes during certain scenes. My wife especially hates this. I may be doing something wrong here or maybe the issue is my content (mainly remuxes) but this is not the experience I'm after. I just want some decent sounding audio that is simple to use and doesn't require much user intervention once the media has begun.

On top of this, I'd like to upgrade our home music playing experience at home. I'd like to integrate this as much as possible into the audio devices I use for video streaming. It is for this reason I'm intrigued by Sonos because I could just get a soundbar for each TV and integrate those for music playback in each room from my phone. I haven't found many reviews though when it comes to audio quality when it comes to video playback.

Can anyone share their experience with Sonos devices both for music and video playback and/or recommend me some other similar products that could help improve my home audio experience?

@K D I remember seeing you had some Sonos devices on your network. Care to share your experience with them?

 

[K D]

I have been using Sonos for the past 3 years and I am loving it. Audio Quality is not audiophile grade but better than a lot of other options. I know it is subjective, but I'm perfectly satisfied.

Living Room : Sonos Playbar + Sonos Sub + 2 10" In-Ceiling Speakers for rear channel(Using Sonos Connect AMP)
Master Bedroom : Sonos Playbar+ Sonos Sub + 2 Sonos Play 1 for rear channel
Home Office : Sonos Playbar for TV + 2 10" In-Ceiling Speakers (Using Sonos Connect AMP) connected to my workstation via Sonos Connect
Guest Bedroom 1 & 2 : 2 8" In-Ceiling Speakers (Using Sonos Connect AMP)
+ I have a couple of play 5s in basement/gym/Garage

The whole thing is integrated with Control4 and now Alexa. Playing Music is dead simple. Any phone in my "Media/Guest" wifi using the Sonos App can play music to Any one Zone (Room) or combination of Zones. The TVs are connected to the playbar via TOSLink cables. When the TV is switched on, it automatically pauses any other music playing and switches to the TV input.

It integrates really well with Control4 and I can use the Control4 remote and apps to control Sonos, play music etc. Spotify integration is very tight but I dont use it much. Integrates well with google play music as well as Amazon music. there are a few other cloud music services as well but I dont use them. I set it up a couple of years ago and never have looked into it after that. I just use amazon, google and my local music from my NAS.

It was pretty much plug and play and the Control4 integrator used my phone to set it up initially. He just set up the Master Bedroom and Living Room. I added the others later and it was real easy with no hassles.

Sonos doesnt play well when used in a Multi VLAN Network. When I switched from a Cisco SG200-50 to an All-Unifi setup, I encountered frequent dropouts, players not showing up etc... and the biggest problem was packet storms bringing down my entire network. Solution was simple once I figured out what was going on.

Ensure that each Sonos device has only one connection. If you are using a wired connection to Sonos then disable the wireless radio on the device. Get a Sonos Link (I forget what it's called now) and plug it into your switch. That will act as kind of a wireless AP just for your sonos devices.

The only negative is that there is usually a 0.5 to 1.5 second lag in the audio starting for the first time. Once audio playback starts, there is no issue. I barely notice it when watching TV or playing music. But it bothers me when I'm video or voice calling from my workstation. If the other party has been quiet for a while and they suddenly start talking, There are 2 seconds of silence and they have to repeat what they say. It annoys the heck out my SO.

All said, I have recommended Sonos to several of my friends and family and everyone has been satisfied so far.

 

[nkw]

Google "sonos soundbar dts" for why after buying a house full of Sonos gear I won't buy anymore of their stuff. It is one thing to be obnoxiously expensive because your devices are the best and your stuff 'just works'. It is another to decide to ignore your customers and churn out an inferior product so you can save $1.00/unit on a $900 piece of hardware.

If I had to do it all over again I would go Chromecast ecosystem (audio, home, etc.).

My $0.02.

 

[K D]

I personally have not had problems in playing 5.1 audio either from Blu-Ray or from BluRay -Rips. I assume it's because either my TV or the myriad of set top boxes that I have are able to transcode to Dolby Digital.

It checked all my boxes
1. Good Sound
2. Ease of Use
3. Tight integration with my home automation.

For Fun, If my security system goes off, then Every speaker in my house blasts different music at full volume, including one that is in my deck and the entire street can hear + All lights on with Hue Lights Flashing Red.

It was not funny when I forgot to turn off the alarm in the morning and stepped on to the balcony for a smoke and got locked out. :-/

 

[Kryax]

Check your receiver for dynamic audio type options. Even TV's sometimes have the option to adjust the audio to a more flat sound. I know I sometimes have issues with my movies where people talking is hard to hear but the action gets too loud.

 

[IamSpartacus]

@nkw Does that mean that if I have media files that only have DTS as the single audio track that it won't play on a Sonos playbar or would Plex/Emby for example transcode the audio knowing that the playbar can't handle it?

@K D Thank you for that very detailed response. You have quite the setup. I won't be doing anything nearly as expansive as that. Just looking to have some good audio on my TV's that can double as music playback devices when we have company.

 

[K D]

Not sure whether the setting is in Plex or in FireTV, but there is a place where you will select your player's audio codecs. You need to unselect DTS in it. Then it will auto transcode. i have several Rips where DTS is the only audio track and I get multichannel output.

 

[nkw]

@nkw Does that mean that if I have media files that only have DTS as the single audio track that it won't play on a Sonos playbar or would Plex/Emby for example transcode the audio knowing that the playbar can't handle it?

At least for Plex, yes it can transcode to Dolby Digital/AC-3 (which the Playbar does support). That setting is usually set on the client (whether or not it can accept DTS) some of which will believe they are capable of dealing with DTS even though the Playbar attached to them does not which can cause issues. I seem to recall there were some clients for which the best you could get was 2.0 without fiddling with device profiles. Here are some older threads that discuss some of the issues:

Plex for samsung with Sonos Playbar
Sonos and Plex 5.1 • r/PleX
DTS 5.1 and Roku Setttings

 

[Twice_Shy]

Concerning your problem with 'octave range' (thats frequency, what youre describing with volume is dynamic range) see if there is some kind of "night theater" mode available. Sony receivers have it, many others do - sometimes with silly things added (like theatre simulation reverb effects which i dont like) but they reduce the dynamic range so that it's not like a cinema with the idea that at night nobody is listening to extremely loud levels but they still want to hear the speech and such.

I dont know about the other things, sorry....