Surround sound for TV/ music with record player using connect amp and passive rears? Is this really impossible?

  • 4 August 2018
  • 2 replies
  • 518 views

Userlevel 1
My house has multiple sets of hardwired passive speakers in the ceiling. One of those sets is over the sofa and is intended to serve as rear speakers in a 5.1 system as well as music speakers. Another set is a few feet away in the kitchen - these are only for music. The kitchen and living area are all one room.

My current setup is a Yamaha 7.1 system with 2 zone output and a phono preamp built-in, plus a 1970s era Technics 1200 record player. I am using this to drive 2 Polk floorstanding speakers and a center channel, plus a wired sub. I was also using this to drive the rear surrounds and the zone 2 for the kitchen speakers. But it's never sounded great and it's fairly complex and takes up a lot of space.

I recently picked up a couple of connect: amps and am using those to drive the rear speakers and the kitchen speakers. They sound great with streaming music, much better than the Yamaha could make them sound for whatever reason. I bought a $20 preamp and plugged in the record player to one of the line-in inputs, and that also sounds great on the ceiling speakers with the connect: amps.

But now I have 2 separate systems in one room. Records and streaming music on the ceiling speakers, and TV with 3.1 sound using the Yamaha. I want to be able to watch 5.1 TV again, and I want to be able to listen to music from all of the speakers (kitchen, rear surrounds, and fronts). In other words, I want one system for both music and TV.

I'm at a loss as to how to do this. The Yamaha has pre-outs, so I ran the pre-out for the rears to the line in on one of the amps. I got awful delay issues, whether listening to a radio via the tuner or TV. This is apparently to be expected with sonos.

I am willing to ditch the Yamaha and associated 3.1 speakers and instead spend the money to buy a playbar and a sonos sub. I don't think I will lose any sound quality vs my current system. This will work for 5.1 sound and streaming music if I use the system in "boost" mode with everything hardwired together via ethernet. But if I want to plug the record player into one of the amps, it won't work because the line-in is disabled in boost mode. And there is no place to plug a record player RCA jack into a playbar. So apparently I have to choose between either a 5.1 setup with Sonos but no way to tie in a record player, or keeping my current setup of having one system for streaming music and records and a completely separate 3.1 system for TV.

I feel like I'm missing something. What I want to do (both listen to music, including from vinyl, and watch TV in 5.1 using a single set of speakers) isn't that complicated or unusual. I'm willing to give up my tuner, floor standing speakers, center channel, and wired sub. But I have speakers built into the ceiling and I can't easily give those up. Is it really impossible to do this seemingly simple task of using one set of speakers to listen to both 5.1 and music from a line-in source if I have a set of passive speakers in the mix with Sonos? What am I doing wrong?

This topic has been closed for further comments. You can use the search bar to find a similar topic, or create a new one by clicking Create Topic at the top of the page.

2 replies

Just received my Pro Ject Essential yesterday. While my situation is simpler than yours, I have a similar problem. To enable line in when connecting the turnable to the Play 5s, I had to stop using them as surround speakers, disconnecting them from the Playbase. So, now i have two systems in one room. As a result, I am returning the turnable so I can get surround sound for the TV and one sound system in the room. I am sure there is a really good techno reason for this. Still, going to return the turntable and restore order.
Userlevel 1
Badge +1
But now I have 2 separate systems in one room. Records and streaming music on the ceiling speakers, and TV with 3.1 sound using the Yamaha. I want to be able to watch 5.1 TV again, and I want to be able to listen to music from all of the speakers (kitchen, rear surrounds, and fronts). In other words, I want one system for both music and TV.

I am willing to ditch the Yamaha and associated 3.1 speakers and instead spend the money to buy a playbar and a sonos sub. But if I want to plug the record player into one of the amps, it won't work because the line-in is disabled in boost mode

Except that you have two Connect:AMPs and it's only disabled for the Connect:AMP powering the surrounds. The simple solution would be to just use the line-in from your kitchen for your record player. This is pretty much the setup I currently have except with a Sonos Beam instead of the Playbar/Sub.

In any case, if I was you I wouldn't be getting the Playbar and Sub. I'd instead wait for the new AMP use your current two front speakers and sub. That way you get 4:1 surround on your TV via HDMI AND two usable sets of RCA in with one in your kitchen, the other next to your TV. The new AMP also costs less than the Playbar + Sub