Arc Ultra and two Era 300 in theatre mode, plus line-in

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I have an Arc Ultra and 2 Era 300. What I want to do is 1) to get the home theatre setup, having the Era’s as surrounds - this is easy to do - and also 2) use the Era’s 300 as a stereo pair, using my turntable connected to one Era via line-in. This works easily, but it seems I cannot have options 1 and 2 configured through the app? If I configure the Era’s as surrounds, then it seems I lose the line-in for the turntable, and the stereo pair. I can’t understand this Sonos limitation (or perhaps I’m too clumsy?)

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jgatieAnswer

It’s important to understand what is at work here. When adding surrounds/Subs, in order to maintain sync with the video, the radios are reconfigured to a low latency, one-way dedicated 5 GHz connection from the soundbar to the surrounds and Subs. This requires a series of handshakes to get right, which is why adding surrounds/Subs takes a bit of time, and the fact this is a one-way only connection eliminates the use of Line-In or Bluetooth on the surrounds. The reverse happens when the surrounds/Subs are removed. So therefore, a quick toggle between the two is not possible. They could place a hot button that does the add/remove at the touch of the button, but that is not going to speed up the actual process, and doesn’t save much from the system menu commands we have today.

jgatieAnswer

It’s important to understand what is at work here. When adding surrounds/Subs, in order to maintain sync with the video, the radios are reconfigured to a low latency, one-way dedicated 5 GHz connection from the soundbar to the surrounds and Subs. This requires a series of handshakes to get right, which is why adding surrounds/Subs takes a bit of time, and the fact this is a one-way only connection eliminates the use of Line-In or Bluetooth on the surrounds. The reverse happens when the surrounds/Subs are removed. So therefore, a quick toggle between the two is not possible. They could place a hot button that does the add/remove at the touch of the button, but that is not going to speed up the actual process, and doesn’t save much from the system menu commands we have today.

Airgetlam

You can’t do ‘both’ through the app, easily.

You could, if you wanted, remove the surround speakers from being bonded to the Arc Ultra each time you wanted to use them as stereo only, and use the line in, but when they’re set up as surrounds, the line in is turned off, and the best you can do is go into the surround settings for the Arc, and set the surrounds to ‘full’ rather than ‘ambient’ and adjust the volume between the two for when you play music.

When you remove/add speakers, you change the setup. Part of this removes any TruePlay settings, along with state changes to where the surround speakers get their WiFi.

Sonos has been asked many, many times, for an ability to make this process ‘easier’, basically since the first soundbar, back in 2011. So far, there’s been no indication that they want to, or it makes sense.

edited to add that @jgatie ’s explanation above is great, and happened whilst I was typing ;)

Bruce

R

rmmrAuthor

Contributor I

Thanks! It’s just disappointing, even understanding the limitation itself. I do much more music than films in my daily life, I really hope Sonos can do better - why did I not investigate this before purchasing the Arc Ultra, why! :(

Stanley_4

Grand Maestro

Instead of the complications of switching, which get old fast, or doing without which is also not a good choice why not buy an Era-100 and use it as your input?

Second choice would be a used but S2 compatible Connect or the more expensive Port?

R

rmmrAuthor

Contributor I

Well, just to let you know that I ended up returning the Arc Ultra (fine piece of HiFi art btw). I love the stereo sound on the 2x Era 300 & my music. On the other hand, surrendering the Eras to surround, setting them as Full when playing my discs over the arc and Era’s does just not cut it, it’s like listening to a massive one only speaker in the space I got.

Thanks so much for your comments btw, I learned a lot for you,

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