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Henrik Mulvad Hansen
Contributor I
January 5, 2019
Answered

Use of Sonos Sub

  • January 5, 2019
  • 14 replies
  • 2814 views
I have some questions about the Sonos Sub. I am thinking of getting a sub for my living room Sonos setup, but it is not entirely clear for me what the ideal setup will be.

As I understand it, the Sub is aware of which Sonos speakers it ie paired with and adjusts the base and volume accordingly.

My Sonos setup in the living room consists of two Play:5 II (stereo pair), which I use for streaming music and a Sonos beam for my TV-set.

Sometimes I am using both the Beam and the play 5 speakers when I listen to music and sometimes I only use the Play 5 setup for music.

As I understand it, the SUB is connected to a speaker group - eg. If I group it to my Beam, the Sub will cover the deep tones and let the Beam concentrate of middle and high tones.

Further more it seems that changing the Sub to another Speaker set takes some time. (is this correct) and will I have to do the truetone setup every time I change the attachment for the sub?

I will of course want to use the Sub for tv and movies together with my beam, but also want to use it when I am playing music on my Play 5 set.

So what will the ideal setup be for a sub in my setup?

How will the Sub react if I group it with the Beam together with my Play 5 setup? Will it still only adjust to the Beam or will it change to reflect the attachment to both the beam and the Play 5 speakers?

Will the best setup be to attach the sub to the beam and then group the Beam with the Play 5 when I want music?

And how difficult is it to change the attachment to the beam and shift i to the Play 5 stereo pair in stead?

How you can help - Thanks!

/Henrik
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    Best answer by Chris
    I think it adds more to the Beam.

    Moving it between sets is fairly easy but yes then it messes up your Trueplay tuning which is the negative.

    To move sub from one pairing to another … lets say its paired to Beam. You go to settings … Room settings … Beam and choose … remove Sub …. it will then ask you what new zone you want to move the Sub to and it takes a few seconds and done (now its paired to the Play:5s).

    If paired with beam it will only be pulling low end from the beam - it won't effect the Play:5s if they are grouped with Beam.

    The only way to have it effect all is to pair your Play:5s with the Beam as well and have full 5.1 setup. I like this a lot for music myself (full mode).

    14 replies

    Show previous replies
    Stanley_4
    Stanley_4
    Grand Maestro
    January 5, 2019
    You can't pair the Sub with more than one room (stereo play 5 or 5.1 Beam) at a time and you have to go through the whole process of pairing and trueplay to get it to sound right at every change.

    You have two realistic options: Pick one or the other to pair with or Buy two Subs.

    You can't really use Play 5s or any other speaker as front speakers with Sonos, front and center are built into all the TV devices. You can use them as rear surrounds but that is overkill as a Play 1 pair is plenty.
    Chris
    Chris
    Lead Maestro
    January 5, 2019
    Not overkill for for music when setup as 5.1
    Respect the Queue (2)Move (3)Beam (1) Era100 (2)ARC (1)SonosOne (1)Playbar (4)Play5 (4)Play1 (3)Play3 (1)Port (2)Connect (1) Roam (2) Ace (1)Connect:Amp (4)Sonos Amp (1)Sub + (9) Echo + Smartthings; (2)Play)
    SOCalistic
    Renowned Enthusiast I
    January 11, 2019
    My experience is first Beam with sub and rear ones and now a Sonos amp with Revel speakers, sub, and rear ones. You don't want to play music designed for stereo in 5.1 and I also found using just the rears for music with some sound coming from the Beam as far from optimal for sound quality.
    I strongly recommend a sub for the Beam to improve just about everything but Sonos really needs to come out with that lower cost sub for Beam users who are paying $399 for the Beam and get sticker shock of $699 for the sub.
    I was surprised to find you can pretty easily turn off the rears in the Sonos amp since just about everyone suggested using the rears for music instead even though it doesn't also shut off the Beam, doesn't sound very good, and music coming from the back of the room is kind of odd.
    Driver28
    Lyricist III
    January 11, 2019
    Hi Henrik! I just last week got a Sub and 2 Ones to compmiment my Livingroom Playbar. I have a small Livingroom at about 25sqm. The Playbar on its own is a pretty good speaker, but not as good as a Play 5 stereo pair i would think. Pretty decentraliseras base though campares to Beam.

    Connecting Surrounds and Sub was a straight forward process. And now i use the whole setup with rears on Full mode for music. It sounds great. I’m not really sure what the center cnannel on Okaybar does when playing music but it doesn’t cause any problems. I think that your best option is to get the Sub risk free with the 100days no fuzz return policy and try it out for yourself in your home to see how it fits your needs.

    If your living room is small pair Sub to the Beam and if you don’t want surrounds you can repurpose the 5’s and use them in another room. Also. When bonding surrounds to a Beam/Playbar/Playbase when unbonding they remember their previous room config, except Trueplay tuning, so it’s easy to play around with them to find a setup for your needs. I’m sure you’re gonna keep it. I for sure am gonna keep mine 🙂
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