Home Theater Advice - 4K, Dolby Vision, HDR, Atmos & more...

Glad you’re enjoying your Sonos but this isn’t true at all. In fact the opposite is true. Even a really quite low end separates set up will sound better than Sonos. The premium you pay for Sonos is for the ecosystem, the convenience and the brand. The sound quality is of course fine, but it’s very much the ‘premium consumer’ sound and it’s easily beaten with even quite cheap Chinese hifi separates. But again, that’s not what you’re paying for.

I’ve no doubt that’s true for the bar itself, as separates will get you a wider front sound stage without question (I’m hoping the newly rumoured Arc replacement next year will improve that), but it’s not true for the Sub Gen3 and the ERA 300s. The set-up as a whole is what I’m talking about, and the 300s alone are considered some of the best standalone speakers available. As rears they’re head and shoulders above similarly priced regular bookshelf speakers.

As I mentioned, coming from a mid-priced 5.1.4 set-up into this one, which is around a grand cheaper than what those separates and AVR is priced at, the Sonos is at worst comparable and honestly generally a bit better performing for a lot less hassle. The separates will always give you more control and flexibility, but you do need to know a lot more to make the most of that bandwidth. And obviously room size and shape and preferred sound will factor into the results (I did flatten out the curve a bit and make the Sonos sound more “accurate” but I was over-ruled on giving it a bit more oomph, which the Sonos sound techs seem to prioritise by default). You can play with the Sonos settings a little but they’re very restrictive.

It does come from above, but it’s not so unidirectional as dedicated heights. It’s like you’re sat in a bubble of sound, and you can hear it move around and over you.

I like the voice of god effect from height Atmos a lot. This isn’t better, it's a different effect but it’s more noticeably all-encompassing, and certainly not the standard surround effect.

Never tried a Beam, so dunno.

Yeah I've got a Samsung Q950-A sound bar which I think is comparable to ARC, although it has rears with upward and outward-firing drivers. I occasionally but only rarely get clear height stuff, but in general the bubble effect is really good, and better for Atmos than other content.

Shame games can't seem to do Atmos without horrendous lag (on Xbox at least) so I stick with 7.1 uncompressed.

So here's a little story about my cheapskatism.

In the house where I've stayed for six months, I had a very old 22" TV, barely Full HD, that never saves my settings for whatever reason, and no sound setup other than the crappy TV speakers. But i knew i was going to move out very soon, so i didn't bother with any upgrades, I just used what was already there. It was painful enough that i never used it, mind. Just played on the laptop instead.

Now (well, a couple months ago) I moved to a new house. "New" is kinda wrong, it's a pretty old house overall, but it will do for... the next year, I guess? When mortgages are more affordable, I'll move out again.

In here, I found... an old 22" TV, barely Full HD. I guess these are very common here for whatever reason. Gonna face a lot of expenses in the next few months, so I don't wanna upgrade just yet. And frankly there isn't enough space for a proper setup anyway. My dream 50" TV will have to wait until I have my own home. Still, I'm likely going to stay here for longer than last time, so I guess it's worth making it a little bit better. So I thought, the TV is Full HD already, it actually saves my settings this time, and I only have a Series S anyway, let's at least put a semi-decent speaker in there and call it a day. Again, without spending anything. All I had to spare is a laptop soundbar. It barely passes as acceptable, but still much better than the TV speakers.

Only... as we all know, the Series X|S has no audio out anymore. Need to use the TV out. And all it has (guess how old it must be) is coaxial out for digital input, while RCA out is only for analog input. The sound bar has USB in, or the standard 3.5mm jack. It also supports Bluetooth audio, but the console doesn't. Not very convenient. I guess Bluetooth audio would not be good enough for games anyway.

So in the end, again not wanting to spend any sizeable amount of money, I went and bought for 10 euro a DAC converter from Amazon. The console is connected to the TV via HDMI, then the converter gets coaxial audio in from the TV, and sends the audio out to the 3.5mm stereo input on the soundbar.

I honestly thought it would at least introduce lag or some shit, but... it's been surprisingly good so far. And at least my setup has been ever-so-slightly improved.

Looks perfect to me.

Add me to the list of admirers.

Do you live in an IKEA showroom?

Very clean setup. I’m going the opposite route, maximalist shambles.

This is maybe a random question, but where do you all lie on the creator’s intent vs striking colors debate?

About a month ago, I got an S90C. I love it, but honestly I spend like half my time with it messing around with the settings.

I’m coming from a Sony X900E, which was a great TV, but it wasn’t the TV I wanted at the time. I either really wanted a Samsung QLED or an LG OLED, but I let all the “best bang for your buck” reviews sway me towards the Sony. It took some time for me to appreciate the color accuracy it provided, and near the end of my time before the upgrade, I loved its picture quality. Not so much the buggy Android TV software or 2 HDMI 2.0 ports.

Fast forward to last year when Samsung releases their QD-OLED line, bringing the best of both of the TVs I wanted over the Sony. Had to jump in when the price was right.

Like I said, I’m constantly flipping between the accurate Filmmaker movie mode and Original+HGIG HDR gaming mode, and like, the standard HDR10+, Movie and Game modes. The “correct” modes look good, and lot like the Sony I moved on from, but I love how the colors pop in the other punchy video presets. I’ve tried combinations of the various settings, turning on Dynamic Tone Mapping in the accurate modes, or changing the color volume to Warm2 from standard or cool to see if I find a good middle ground.

At the end of the day, I think I’m gonna go with the full-Samsung HDR10+ pop modes because why did I upgrade if I want it to perform like my old TV? Seems like I’d not be making the most of it by nerfing the brightness and color volume. But I was curious how others felt about it.

TL;DR wish TVs were simultaneously 4K and vibrant, but also dumb

In general. With films, it’s easier to go Filmmaker mode. But depending on the subject, either the Filmmaker or the Movie mode might be brighter. Then it’s like, do I want how it’s meant to be seen, or how I actually prefer. 7/10 times, the latter wins.

I was rocking HGIG for games for awhile and thought “yeah, this looks right..” then the demon in the back of my head was like “fuck that, you want that NEON light,” so I switched over and was like “yeaaaaah.”

Maybe it doesn’t help that I’m using Star Wars and Tekken 8 as my bases.

But the desire to ask a question formed from going to see Dune 2 and hating how dim everything was. I was like “my TV’s picture is better than this.” And that’s both the old Sony and the new Samsung.

I just do whatever Vincent tells me to do

Like Dougs said try to pick something and just leave it otherwise you will end up like me and be sitting there for 2 hours flicking between a single setting trying to decide what your prefer.

Yeah, having come from a plasma, I much prefer a warm, more natural tone. It's immediately obvious when my teenage son has been playing around with the settings, as he likes a more vibrant picture.

I also have an S90C (65"). I have it set to Game mode for gaming, and Filmmaker mode for everything else.

I do find some content, even at night, a tad dark on some scenes but find it more likely to happen on TV shows than films for some reason.

We rewatched Dune at the weekend and even the dark scenes in that were fine, same when we watched Super8 the weekend before and that has a lot of nighttime scenes. There are times when I think it could do with a little bit of a lift, and had contemplated tweaking the gamma settings, but really I can see what's going on and I don't want to ruin the rest of the picture for those odd scenes.

Movie mode is AFAIK very close to filmmaker mode, so I'll give that a try, but what I like and you like are subjective. My settings may be more accurate, and as intended, but if you prefer other modes you should use them and just enjoy the TV as it's a cracking set.