Sonos Playbar
- Thread starter londonbairn
- Start date
In my modest living room it's enough, on low volume the dialogue dose get a little washed out if there is background rumble going on. Switching to night mode sorts this.
Louder day time viewing is great although lacks the final punch in explosions. Not worth another £600 just to add the last half second of chest slapping thud. In a larger room and on a better wage, I would add a sub.
Louder day time viewing is great although lacks the final punch in explosions. Not worth another £600 just to add the last half second of chest slapping thud. In a larger room and on a better wage, I would add a sub.
I'm interesting in this for my new TV, primarily for the night mode though, where it doesn't surprise you with loud noises.
This is quite important for me as I live with a musician and if I'm watching really late at night I sometimes just wear my headphones so I can relax without worrying about the noise jumping too high and waking them. It would be nice to be able to simple watch at a reasonable level and have the equipment make sure there's no super loud shrieks or explosions.
It does seem pretty expensive for what it is too. I was originally looking at cheaper £100-£300 soundbars. I'm not sure how much extra utility I'd get out of it compared to one without networking. Being in a tiny studio apartment, the only thing I can think may potentially be beneficial is adding an extra sonos 1 in the kitchenette so I can listen over the noise of the cooking and extractor fan without pumping up the volume in the lounge...hmmm
This is quite important for me as I live with a musician and if I'm watching really late at night I sometimes just wear my headphones so I can relax without worrying about the noise jumping too high and waking them. It would be nice to be able to simple watch at a reasonable level and have the equipment make sure there's no super loud shrieks or explosions.
It does seem pretty expensive for what it is too. I was originally looking at cheaper £100-£300 soundbars. I'm not sure how much extra utility I'd get out of it compared to one without networking. Being in a tiny studio apartment, the only thing I can think may potentially be beneficial is adding an extra sonos 1 in the kitchenette so I can listen over the noise of the cooking and extractor fan without pumping up the volume in the lounge...hmmm
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Very nice but so expensive, I'd love to see a head-to-head with the newly released Arcam Solo Bar (which is still hefty expensive) but has support for Dolby True-HD and DTS-HD which Sonos doesn't
The problem I have with soundbars is that they really need a square room that you sit in the middle (back) of to work effective, if you have an odd shaped room or sit at "one end" say then apparently they don't work very well.
The problem I have with soundbars is that they really need a square room that you sit in the middle (back) of to work effective, if you have an odd shaped room or sit at "one end" say then apparently they don't work very well.
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If the Arcam sounds as good as their r-Cube portable battery speaker then it should be very good. Sonos and Arcam are aiming at different markets though, so I'm not sure quite how useful a head-to-head shootout would be. After all, would you put up a people carrier against sports coupe?
It's only really those soundbars using reflected/bounced sound to create virtual speakers that struggle in odd shaped rooms. "Straight-ahead" type bars don't really have an issue. They work the same as a conventional centre speaker.
The higher-end Yamaha soundbars have sound wave targeting, so the beams can be directed to a reflection point as long as there's a solid surface to bounce off. Cheaper soundbars don't have this.
There's a Podcast on AV Forums right now, bizarrely dated 19th Nov 1984 but I think that's in reference to an item on cassette tape, that talks about LG's attempt to join the multi-room speaker market.
The LG Music Flow product range includes three wireless speakers very similar in size to Sonos Play: 1, 3 and 5. There's a bridge product (R1 @ £49) to form a mesh network, but the speakers also work with Wi-Fi and Bluetooth* (*point to point only at this stage, I think). It's being priced head-on against the equivalent products from Samsung, and the speakers are priced at £20 less than the equivalent Sonos product.
There's a couple of interesting points; first, the speakers seem to support 24/192 so those with high def audio files might be catered for. But the second thing is what will interest people weighing up the Sonos Playbar...
LG's equivalent is priced at £499 and that includes a wireless sub. The soundbar has the same ability as Sonos to add the smaller speakers as rears too. The system is 4.1 rather than 5.1, and like Sonos it only supports DD in bitstream format. But there is HDMI in & out, a USB and a line input as well as the optical. Richers have a package deal of the soundbar, R1 mesh hub and a pair of the small wireless speakers for £600.
The LG Music Flow product range includes three wireless speakers very similar in size to Sonos Play: 1, 3 and 5. There's a bridge product (R1 @ £49) to form a mesh network, but the speakers also work with Wi-Fi and Bluetooth* (*point to point only at this stage, I think). It's being priced head-on against the equivalent products from Samsung, and the speakers are priced at £20 less than the equivalent Sonos product.
There's a couple of interesting points; first, the speakers seem to support 24/192 so those with high def audio files might be catered for. But the second thing is what will interest people weighing up the Sonos Playbar...
LG's equivalent is priced at £499 and that includes a wireless sub. The soundbar has the same ability as Sonos to add the smaller speakers as rears too. The system is 4.1 rather than 5.1, and like Sonos it only supports DD in bitstream format. But there is HDMI in & out, a USB and a line input as well as the optical. Richers have a package deal of the soundbar, R1 mesh hub and a pair of the small wireless speakers for £600.
Pretty crazy new effect implemented when you scroll past it on a computer screen
http://www.theverge.com/2015/1/23/7876777/sonos-sound-wave-logo
I wonder if the update is indicative of hardware update, I hope so!
http://www.theverge.com/2015/1/23/7876777/sonos-sound-wave-logo
I wonder if the update is indicative of hardware update, I hope so!
The "pulsing effect" is nothing more complex/clever/innovative than simply a design choice to use thin diagonal lines that a fixed pixel display has trouble rendering when scrolled. Anyone with a graphics program can make a similar image and it'll work in the same way. It's not magic.
I am also considering a playbar right now but Im not plannig on paying £600 for it. For those interested in getting one of these check out amazon spain (I assume I can mention them as OC don't sell Sonos playbars ? although if Im contravening the rules here Im sorry I will delete it ), with the Euro devalued the playbar is currently around £500 delivered. Sonos have confirmed they will honour the waranty in the UK, so no issues there. The biggest bargain is actually the Play 5 at the moment, less than £250.
One other point of consideration is the optical pass thru on your TV. You need to check that your TV will pass through 5.1 dd and more helpfully ignore the EDID on optical pass thru. a lot of Samsungs until recent frimware updates did not support 5.1 dd optical pass thru (and still do not ignore the EDID). The problem is the EDID from the TV back to the source. When you plug the TV to the source via HDMI it reports the audio formats it supports via EDID. The TV may only support 2.0 PCM or 2.0 DD and it will report this via EDID back to the source. If the source automatically changes its audio output based on the what the TV tells it then you will not get 5.1dd out of the source and hence not through the optcial to the soundbar. Luckily some sources can be forced to 5.1dd output (regardless of TV support) the SKy HD box is an example of this. This is how you can get 5.1dd to the soundbar through a Samsung TV, update the firmware and force the Sky box / any other source to 5.1dd (effectively ingnoring the EDID back from the TV). Those with Sony TVs will not have to worry so much, from my limited research on Sony TVs they handle the optical pass thru much better.
EDIT, you can also just use cheap HDMI audio extractor with preset EDID modes to force 5.1dd, these can be picked up for around £25.
One other point of consideration is the optical pass thru on your TV. You need to check that your TV will pass through 5.1 dd and more helpfully ignore the EDID on optical pass thru. a lot of Samsungs until recent frimware updates did not support 5.1 dd optical pass thru (and still do not ignore the EDID). The problem is the EDID from the TV back to the source. When you plug the TV to the source via HDMI it reports the audio formats it supports via EDID. The TV may only support 2.0 PCM or 2.0 DD and it will report this via EDID back to the source. If the source automatically changes its audio output based on the what the TV tells it then you will not get 5.1dd out of the source and hence not through the optcial to the soundbar. Luckily some sources can be forced to 5.1dd output (regardless of TV support) the SKy HD box is an example of this. This is how you can get 5.1dd to the soundbar through a Samsung TV, update the firmware and force the Sky box / any other source to 5.1dd (effectively ingnoring the EDID back from the TV). Those with Sony TVs will not have to worry so much, from my limited research on Sony TVs they handle the optical pass thru much better.
EDIT, you can also just use cheap HDMI audio extractor with preset EDID modes to force 5.1dd, these can be picked up for around £25.
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I never said it was magic
I've seen it used many times before in art pieces, but not in a company logo.
It's still quite an interesting application in so much as the effect could be said to represent sound waves, which actually relates to the product. As opposed to just being just a neat optical illusion when used elsewhere.