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Avid Contributor II
Oct 18, 2025 12:24 AM UTC
Answered

Playing Spotify through Sonos

So if I play Spotify through my TV app it sound will go through all my speakers Arc and One SLs. But if I play Spotify through my Sonos App only sound will pass through my Arc and sounds light any ideas?

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Airgetlam
AirgetlamAnswer
Oct 18, 2025 1:25 AM UTC

Two different input methods. One is coming through the TV input (usually HDMI) and treated as regular TV input (Sonos doesn’t ‘know’ what is coming in, just that it is). The Sonos will play whatever it is handed, without converting. So if the TV is handing it stereo, it will play stereo, mostly through the two ‘front’ speakers in the soundbar. 

However, when you’re streaming via the Sonos app itself, the input is coming from the servers owned by Spotify directly to the Sonos, without being filtered by the TV. Since Sonos ‘knows’ what kind of stream it is, you can easily set the surrounds to ‘full’ rather than ‘ambient’, and get full stereo out of both the sound bar and the surround speakers. 

Bruce

4 replies

Airgetlam
AirgetlamAnswer
Oct 18, 2025 1:25 AM UTC

Two different input methods. One is coming through the TV input (usually HDMI) and treated as regular TV input (Sonos doesn’t ‘know’ what is coming in, just that it is). The Sonos will play whatever it is handed, without converting. So if the TV is handing it stereo, it will play stereo, mostly through the two ‘front’ speakers in the soundbar. 

However, when you’re streaming via the Sonos app itself, the input is coming from the servers owned by Spotify directly to the Sonos, without being filtered by the TV. Since Sonos ‘knows’ what kind of stream it is, you can easily set the surrounds to ‘full’ rather than ‘ambient’, and get full stereo out of both the sound bar and the surround speakers. 

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Bruce
Airgetlam
Oct 18, 2025 1:29 AM UTC

Just as a note, I’ve done a bunch of simplifying there, but the basics are correct. Two different input methods to the Sonos. And, two different ‘players’ as well. 

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Bruce
ECN315Author
Avid Contributor II
Oct 18, 2025 2:19 AM UTC

Got it thanks Bruce for your time comments. Sonos is great for sound and when it works it works well but it comes with its own intricacies. As it just happened I switched Spotify over from my tv to Spotify on the Sonos App and lo and behold I am now getting a stronger fuller sound through my rear SL ones 

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Airgetlam
Oct 18, 2025 2:52 AM UTC

As I said, two different inputs. So the signal is treated differently. Glad you’ve found your preferred method. 

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Bruce