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I purchased an Arc and Sub to replace my receiver based 5.1 system and have been pretty impressed so far.  I have some existing B&W in-ceiling rears so today I added an Amp to power them.

First disappointment was finding out the line-in is disabled when in surround mode.  I can’t find anything on the product page mentioning this. Major bummer as I was planning to connect my turntable to the Amp.

But most importantly I’m getting no sound out of the rears in the surround configuration.  Nothing with Dolby Atmos, nothing when streaming music, and nothing when I run the Architectural test tone.  If I separate the Amp from the system it plays 2-channel audio and the Architectural test tone no problem.  Add them back to the Arc + Sub system and nothing.

Setup is:

LG OLED eARC to Arc Soundbar (wireless)

Sub Gen 3 (wireless)

Amp (hardwired)

Any suggestions would be majorly appreciated.  Thanks.

Don’t hardwire the Amp. Keep it wireless. When acting as surrounds, the Amp is designed to communicate wirelessly with the Arc.

Thanks for the reply.  I’ll give it a shot. 

FYI when adding the Amp to the existing system as surrounds, the Sonos app says Amp must be hardwired.

The predecessor of the Amp, the Connect:amp, needed to be wired, the Amp does not, unless you disabled wifi in the Arc settings.

Sonos does state the line-in does not work when the Amp is used for surrounds: “Note that Amp’s SUB output and line input are disabled when Amp is used as TV surround speakers.”

https://support.sonos.com/en-us/article/set-up-your-sonos-amp

Could be mentioned more clearly on the product page, I suppose.

The predecessor of the Amp, the Connect:amp, needed to be wired, the Amp does not, unless you disabled wifi in the Arc settings.

Sonos does state the line-in does not work when the Amp is used for surrounds: “Note that Amp’s SUB output and line input are disabled when Amp is used as TV surround speakers.”

https://support.sonos.com/en-us/article/set-up-your-sonos-amp

Could be mentioned more clearly on the product page, I suppose.

Oddly the setup animation in the app says Amp must be connected directly to the router.

As for the line inputs, none of the consumer facing pages say anything about this limitation.  The main page (Amp: The Wireless Streaming Amplifier | Sonos) points to the user guide (SONOS User Guide | Amp), which contains a link to the line-in set up (Use Line-In on Sonos | Sonos). I don’t see any link to the page you posted.

Maybe it’s just me but I don’t think consumers should have to sift through support pages to find this out prior to dropping $700.  Can you tell I’m a bit butt-hurt about this?  LOL. Hopefully there is some kind of fix in the works.  For now I just have to uncouple the Amp when I want to listen to vinyl.  It works but far from the seamless integration they are advertising.

Oddly the setup animation in the app says Amp must be connected directly to the router.

As for the line inputs, none of the consumer facing pages say anything about this limitation.  The main page (Amp: The Wireless Streaming Amplifier | Sonos) points to the user guide (SONOS User Guide | Amp), which contains a link to the line-in set up (Use Line-In on Sonos | Sonos). I don’t see any link to the page you posted.

Maybe it’s just me but I don’t think consumers should have to sift through support pages to find this out prior to dropping $700.  Can you tell I’m a bit butt-hurt about this?  LOL. Hopefully there is some kind of fix in the works.  For now I just have to uncouple the Amp when I want to listen to vinyl.  It works but far from the seamless integration they are advertising.

 

From the main Amp page, under Use Amp for home theater there is a link to the limitations page in this sentence: “Note that if you use two Amps in this configuration, there are some limitations on how they can be wired to your network.”

I wouldn’t count on there being a fix.  It’s been asked for going back to the Connect:Amp, and it appears the special bond between the two Home Theater products does not allow the Amp to retain any line-in/line-out functionality.

As a follow up, I ran a spare cat 6 from the Amp’s bridge to the Arc and everything started working.  Then I reset the Amp and per @GuitarSuperstar suggestion, set everything back up fully wireless. Oddly this time the Sonos app didn’t prompt me to hardwire the Amp (although it did crash several times when I chose the Arc as the device to join with).  Everything working now and Dune sounds badass with the surrounds.  Thanks for the replies and suggestions.  Cheers.

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