Sonos Beam (Gen 1) review: Alexa and Google AssistantĪlexa was responsive from across a large room to typical requests: it told me the weather, set a timer and turned on a Wemo Switch. The Beam also works with Siri thanks to Apple's AirPlay 2 technology. I encountered some problems with my LG OLED TV and the Beam when using voice controls the command for turn on TV didn't work. Upping the ante of these channels will produce a more forthright delivery that allows detailed soundscapes to really shine.For example, you can tell it to turn on the display or adjust the volume. It's can be worth giving the height channels a boost for more nuanced fare, too, as the atmospheric and reverb effects frequently deployed in height channels often contain a lot of high frequency information, which is the portion of our hearing that typically starts to decline as we age. As such, the effect of increasing the volume of these channels is more variable than with the Arc but is nonetheless extremely beneficial for certain types of content, including action films and games. The Beam Gen 2 reproduces overhead and surround sounds from two front-facing speaker arrays with psychoacoustic HRTF (head-related transfer function) technology to give the impression of height. If you have high or uneven ceilings turning up the volume of these drivers can massively improve the immersive performance of your Sonos Arc. In the case of the former, this can be particularly useful as the upward-firing speakers in the Arc project overhead effects by bouncing sound off your ceiling. Thanks to a recent update, you can now adjust the loudness of both the physical height drivers of the Sonos Arc and the virtual equivalents of the Beam Gen 2. Mistake 5: missing the new height adjustment feature The added bass boost can give an authoritative, weightier more engaging sound to music and games that is particularly welcome if you don't have a separate sub. That said, on the EQ page of the Sonos app is a toggleable 'Loudness' option that, broadly speaking, delivers genuine tonal enhancement.Įssentially, at low volumes Loudness boosts the high and low frequencies to which we're less sensitive in order to give a flatter perceived response. Unlike other manufacturers, Sonos doesn't offer content-specific modes, and it's easy to understand why – they're rarely successful and the processing involved often results in a synthetic sound with chaotic timing. Once set up, most people expect their soundbar to perform equally well regardless of whether they're watching a film, listening to music or gaming, but we'd urge you not to shy away from tweaking your settings after the initial set-up to get the best from your content. Mistake 4: not playing with the 'Loudness' feature But, thanks to its sophisticated implementation, you could quite happily leave this setting on for anything from whisperingly dark superhero films to gonzo style documentaries. It's a great go-to for costume dramas where hushed tones and microphone-swamping fabrics thwart even the most diligent of sound mixers. While you won't want to leave this on all of the time, it's very good at lifting speech without colouring the overall tonality too much and veering into harshness. The sparkling centre channel transparency of a Sonos soundbar can immensely help with this but, inevitably, varying levels of speech clarity combined with how busy the soundscape is and the overall style of the mix can mean that even a top-quality, room-tuned soundbar is foiled by mumbly vocals.īut before you resort to subtitles, delve into the Sonos app and find the 'speech enhancement' feature. There's nothing more frustrating than not being able to clearly hear dialogue when watching a TV show or movie. Mistake 3: not trying the speech enhancement feature In PCM you'll only hear the audio in stereo but sending bitstream means your Sonos soundbar will be able to receive those lovely Dolby formats, including Atmos. You can find this option in the audio settings of TVs, Blu-ray players and streaming sticks. The Sonos app gives you confirmation of the type of audio format that you're currently listening to on the Now Playing page, so if what you're playing should be Dolby Atmos but the app says otherwise (likely 'PCM', '5.1' or '2.0'), then it's time to delve into the settings of your TV and Blu-ray player.Īny source device you have needs to be set to output bitstream audio. Feeling underwhelmed by the spacial performance of your Dolby Atmos Sonos soundbar when watching Atmos content? Whether you're gunning for virtual Atmos from the Sonos Beam Gen 2 or the full-fat version via the Sonos Arc, the first port of call should be checking whether you're actually receiving Atmos via your HDMI eARC connection in the first place.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |