Sonos Trueplay Now Works With iPhone 14 Models

I’d be very interested in the results of a randomized, double-blind study comparing unmodified vs Trueplay-modified sound.

I find it really odd that it didn’t already work with the 14. I wonder what the issue was?

It's not really anyone's "fault"

Sonos has to do a great deal of testing to tune their algorithm to the specific characteristics of the phone's microphones and it just takes time.

I'm a Sonos fanatic, and I'm not even sure what Trueplay does for the room in which we have our home theater. Maybe it sounds, "better," or maybe it's a placebo? The speakers are incredible, however, and occasionally during a movie the surround is so real it convinces our dog someone's outside, or it literally "feels," like something is moving through the room. So, maybe Trueplay works? I'm just not sure I could tell the difference.

I could explain what Trueplay is intended to do here but I feel this would be a great opportunity to share Peter Pee's YouTube channel. He does brilliant dives into Sonos (and other audio tech) and he doesn't make you wait till the end of his videos for the "answers" to questions. He gives you a summary and then goes into details for those who really want that. An honest audio engineering evangelist. (And I have no affiliation, just respect from another audio engineering professional.)

https://www.youtube.com/c/peterpee

Within a number of his Sonos focused videos he covers Trueplay function and implementation.

I’d be very interested in the results of a randomized, double-blind study comparing unmodified vs Trueplay-modified sound.

I'm a Sonos fanatic, and I'm not even sure what Trueplay does for the room in which we have our home theater. Maybe it sounds, "better," or maybe it's a placebo? The speakers are incredible, however, and occasionally during a movie the surround is so real it convinces our dog someone's outside, or it literally "feels," like something is moving through the room. So, maybe Trueplay works? I'm just not sure I could tell the difference.

I don't know about that. I've jacked up the volume on my surrounds just to get them to do anything. Even with a good 5.1 source, I feel like they are under utilized. It's a rather disappointing experience when what you want is surround sound and 90% of the audio comes from a couple center channels on the soundbar. I just don't agree with that kind of multi channel experience.

Your system may not be tuned right, but it sounds like you're expecting loud continuous sound out of the surround channels, and that's not how it is supposed to work. Akin to people who used to complain bitterly about black bars at the top and bottom of their 4:3 TVs when watching movies, who felt that they were somehow being ripped off because the screen wasn't full.

Surround channels are there to play the sounds that the producer and director wanted to put behind you or around you. Subtle amounts of sound from the surround channels heighten the immersion (like, say, crickets when the main characters are standing in a field at night) - loud continuous sound from the surround channels pulls you out of that immersion and pulls your focus to that speaker. Some movies handle surround very well, but plenty of others not so much. And if what you're watching is two people on screen, close-up, talking, you want their voices to only be coming from the center channel drivers.

On a Sonos system, when playing (2-channel stereo) music, as opposed to watching movies, you can have the sound more evenly distributed around the room by going into settings and changing the surrounds from "ambient" to "full" (ambient is the default) - this setting affects only 2-channel audio (so, mostly music), not 5.1/Atmos movies/video. This will fill the room with music, rather than keeping the focus at the front. It lessens the stereo imaging a bit, but I like having the music all around me.

Don't turn the surrounds way up "to get your money's worth" from a movie / your system, you're just setting yourself up for a mediocre experience. If you want sound from all the speakers all the time, maybe check out some action movies? But for proper use of surround, google "movies with best surround sound" or similar (though you have to watch out for people simply going on how much low frequency there is - some people's appreciation of home theater begins and ends with the subwoofer). Blade Runner 2049 gets recommended a lot, for good reason. The pod racing scene in Star Wars: Phantom Menace will run all the pods around you, each with different sounding engines.

I was somewhat skeptical myself. However, you can reset to factory and then listen to a few things... then use Trueplay to do its thing and listen to the same things. I definitely notice a fairly meaningful difference. I didn't expect it to be dramatic but I would claim dramatic to my ears and for my purposes (which is mostly music).

Of course, in a "blind" test, someone could manually change EQ and fool someone that a Trueplay-type process was run. But the idea here is that maybe a program can "listen" within each owners room to tweak settings to try to make these speakers sound as good as they can in that room.

This kind of idea has been around for a long time. A receiver I bought about 10+ years ago came with a long wire to a mic that was supposed to be put in the prime listening position to auto-adjust my speakers to optimal listening from that spot. iPhones now claim to do AppleTV video calibration for TVs (usually a multi-hundred dollar service by an in-home tech). HomePods claim to do the same for audio. I give Sonos some faith (too) that they can actually squeeze more out of their speakers by this process. Else, my discerning ears are effectively fooled by using it.

Given that it is FREE, even if it is a placebo, Sonos owners can easily give it a try themselves and hear or not hear a difference. No big loss either way... but possibly a gain- imagined or actual- like using an iPhone to adapt AppleTV video quality... and all of the "magic" we mostly accept accomplished by HomePods.

There a number of similar, and arguably more sophisticated system available for other speakers too. I would hope they are more sophisticated as they cost more than a Sonos play 5 or even in some cases a whole house system. Sonorworks, Genelec GLM and Trinnov to name a few. But they all work in a similar way to some degree - there’s a microphone to sample the frequency response of the room, a box of tricks that calculates driver time alignment, crossovers, some eq and way to counter any peaks or dips in the desired frequency response curve - which is usually aimed to be flat as most of these systems are used in high end mixing and mastering studios.

So whether subtle or a mild placebo. Considering it is free, built in and a breeze to use then can’t complain much about True-play*.

I’ve over 25 sonos speakers inc two 5.1 systems in the house, the difference true play makes is mostly down to the room and positioning. But mostly it improves the overall performance, optimised for placement. When you have a two sub system it also manages that as well as adjusting crossovers with the Arc.

*There will always be a few entitled c***s who have little experience of it and expect it to do the work of a $10k Trinnov system on their tiny $200 speaker, but they are a special breed best kept in their moma’s basement.