Sonos Trueplay: What is it? How can you use it?

Sonos’ audio calibration technology aims to tune your Sonos system to suit your room to deliver the best possible sound

Which Sonos products are compatible?

Trueplay works with Sonos’ One, Play:1, Play:3, both generations of Play:5 as well as the Playbar, Playbase and the new Beam soundbar. You’ll also need an IOS device (IOS 7 and above) to do the measuring.

In order for Trueplay to work reliably, the microphone in the measuring device needs to be consistent; otherwise it could result in tuning discrepancies. Sonos found the mics in Apple devices to be very consistent from device to device, unlike Android devices, which had significant differences. This is why an IOS device is needed for the tuning process. After that you can listen to a Trueplay-optimised speaker using your Android controller as usual.

How does Trueplay work?

Trueplay listens for any alterations to the sound, so it can correct it. It does this by having your speaker emit a series of tones and sweeps across the frequency range, with the microphone on your IOS device recording the results. It isn’t mapping your room like an AV receiver’s calibration process would do, but listening to the soundwaves and the way they behave in a room. It listens to lots of cross sections across the frequency range, taking an accurate map of the frequency shifts and making any necessary changes. If your speaker is in a room with a lot of glass, high frequencies won’t die away as quickly, while a speaker tucked in a corner might find its lower frequencies are amplified. Trueplay’s job is to balance this out.

Set-up

Trueplay is found in the Room Settings of the Sonos app, and any speaker that is yet to go through the Trueplay process will be marked with a red dot (if it’s in a stereo pair, they will be tested as one). Testing takes about three minutes for the first time and then around a minute or so for each additional speaker.

Firstly, your environment will be measured to make sure it is quiet enough, and once you’ve got the all clear, the test tones will sound. You’ll need to walk around your room, slowly moving your IOS device up and down through the air, with a slight concentration on any specific listening areas you have in the room. The app does a good job of prompting you if you’re doing things wrong, and will tell you if you need to move around more, or move the device faster or slower. You’ll only have to perform the Trueplay procedure once per speaker, but if you reposition your speaker you should, of course, retune it.

What differences will I hear?

If your speaker is in a good place, you might not hear any changes whatsoever. After completion Trueplay will let you know whether any big or minimal tweaks have been made. If you don’t like the changes, you have the option to switch off Trueplay, with EQ settings still available after the process has finished should you wish to make further changes.