Discrete 5.1 vs sonos (1 Viewer)

[AlexTurton]

Hello

I need home cinema advice on a potential new setup.

I have a 5.1 setup using onkyo 608 + Boston accoutics 5.1 speakers. It was a budget system (c£600) c6 years ago.

Recently (despite all efforts to calibrate my setup) I've found the speech/dialogue somewhat lacking / muddy and hard to hear and the volume is all over the place; it wasn't always like this so I conclude perhaps something in my centre speaker has gone or perhaps the amp. So I want something new and at the same time I'm considering downsizing simplifying my living room to remove all the wires (a la Sonos)

I already have 2 Sonos play:1's in the same room as my 5.1. The play:1's are in the optimal position as rear speakers.

My question I need help with:

Will the Sonos Playbase + 2x Play:1's setup as a 5.1 be better or worse than budget discrete 5.1 setup?

I'm concerned about overall sound quality and dialogue clarity / volume. I generally use my setup for TV (sky HD dolby), Blurray via dolby on xbox one, and xbox one games.

Thanks all for your time
Alex

 

[Todd Erwin]

From what I recall, Sonos does not support any flavor of DTS, so most of your Blu-ray collection that uses DTS-HD MA will have to be downsampled to 2-channel PCM so that the Sonos system can then play it back in Dolby Pro-Logic Surround. The same thing with games that use DTS as their audio codec.

 

[FoxyMulder]

I have found from experience that a weak centre channel speaker can make dialogue hard to hear and soundtracks can suffer from inferior dynamics, I swapped my old centre out years ago for a one that matched my other speakers but was much bigger and much more powerful, it made a dramatic difference once calibrated.

The centre channel carries most of the information in a soundtrack so needs to be very good, the all in one systems are sometimes weaker in this regard especially if you try to play at higher volumes.

I am not sure if your Onkyo has Audyssey, if so I would try switching on dynamic volume, this keeps the audio fidelity intact but allows you to play films or tv at a lower volume than reference, reference is very loud, there is also another thing in there which destroys the audio and has a similar name, do not switch that on, I will take a look tomorrow, as I am in bed now, just to be sure I have the right name, it can help.

 

[Wayne A. Pflughaupt]

Assuming the center channel is not “gone,” i your receiver has a separate equalizer for the center channel, try cutting below 200 Hz boosting a bit in the 2-4 kHz range, and increasing the level 2-3 dB. That should improve dialog clarity considerably.

Regards,
Wayne A. Pflughaupt

 

[Adam Gregorich]

I know you have asked about sound quality but I think you need to look at this from a convenience factor too. The playbar gets slightly better reviews than the playbase, but the playbase has a bit better base if you are planning on holding off on the sub. If you listen to a lot of music, you will be probably happier with the playbase/bar than with the play 1s, especially if you are using a sub. There is also something to be said for simplifying the room layout. I use a playbar and sub in one room and a playbase in the other as the primary speakers for the TVs in those rooms. I don't have surrounds for either, and I have been happy with the quality of both for TV, and love them for music.