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Sonos Amp with Bowers and Wilkins 685 S2, my Sonos Play Ones sounding as good?

  • 13 March 2019
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So I have a Sonos amp with BW 685 S2 bookshelf speakers. I’m finding the other speakers in my Sonos group, play ones and 1s, in stereo pair are sounding full and sometimes better than the 685s.

Now, I know the 685 S2 are great speakers and should be worlds better, but why am I underwhelmed? Is there something I may have setup incorrectly? I have them with 4 bi wire cables on the speaker, with 2 on the amp end with banana plugs. They don’t sound bad, just a bit underwhelming especially compared to the Sonos ones

Sometimes I think getting rid of them and just having a Sonos 5 in their place would round out my speaker and music much better


So you understand my set up better, here is how I have it in the same room:

Group 1: 5.1 beam, sub, and two play 1s
Group 2: two Ones on the sides
Group 3: two BW 685 S2 with amp in the middle


For movies obviously I use just group one, but when listening to music I like to group them all together for a surround affect. I added the 685s because the center sound was lacking from the beam in music especially when all speakers set to full.


Any ideas?
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Best answer by AjTrek1 13 March 2019, 20:21

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3 replies

Userlevel 7
Hi rondocap

My suggestion is to ditch the bi-wire and go single wire using some really great speaker cable. The crossovers in the BW 685 S2 should be able to do all the heavy lifting to deliver great sound. It's worth a try:8

Note: Be sure to power down the Sonos Amp before making any changes

Cheers!
Userlevel 2
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Would you recommend I connect the bi wire posts with plain speaker cable, and have one set of wires from the hi posts to the amp? Or do I need to use the terminal or jumper bridge to connect them?
Userlevel 7
Hi rondo cap

Don't over think my suggestion 😉 Just run a good gauge speaker wire; preferably with banana plugs from the Sonos Amp to each speaker. I use Sewell Silverback cables but you can use whatever you like: https://sewelldirect.com/silverback-speaker-wire-by-sewell-enhanced-loud-oxygen-free-pure-copper-259-strand-count-6-ft-terminated

Cheers!