Can you create preset groupings?

I would not have looked for this functionality in a competing system, I simply would have gone with a Soundbar for the TV and separate hifi speakers for the turntable, either powered wireless, or small traditional amp and speakers.

It was the flexibility of adding combining rooms via wireless that was attractive since I have a long skinny four room NYC apartment and that actually pulled me to over to Sonos and to that end spending a bit more than I originally considered. I like that I can walk to the back room and still hear music later limiting it to just the kitchen or living room as needed and I dont have to run wires which are difficult in old buildings and as a renter.  Also I needed something more reliable than bluetooth for the space and something that saved shelf space over having multiple components was also a huge plus. 

As for other home theater setups that can do this, perhaps there’s not but that’s not was got me to buy in. The reputation of Sonos system being so flexible clearly misled me into thinking I could flex it into what I needed and I didnt dig deep enough into spaces like these forums to find out Sonos has ignored these requests for years. The turntable is a special edition “accessory” to their line-in feature which is a selling point of the Era100/300s. I saw plainly that I needed the Era100 to use a line in, I saw plainly that the same speakers could be used as surrounds, so as a result of already considering buying Sonos for audio around the apartment I further invested and bought a sound bar thinking I could make my apartments audio setup in the living room a part time home theater setup for movie nights. Sonos was quite vague that you are limited in how you implement those speakers and that they are single use if you want to use them for home theater. Therein lies the feature request. 

Re; the sound bar. Not that I dont think it can play music, just that I need the line in which when it’s in use as a home theater the line-in is disabled on the Era100. 

yeah I figured the extra speaker thing was a joke :) 

and I get it, it’s a niche. But I am not asking for a special color, new piece of hardware, correction to a current piece of hardware, it’s a software request. Something that even us niche with-in a niche users can be accommodated by with small outlay of resources. Especially because our niche is included in their sales model of selling accessories for a Line-in feature on speakers also earmarked for home theater use, that places my request in a category of “completing functionality.” Either allow changing of setups as originally suggested for my use case, or allow use of the linei-n audio encorder to the home theater setup.

Or I guess I just find a refurbished or used Port because $450 for a line in to the system is kinda ridiculous. 

anyhow thanks for the replies. 

Traditional AV setups that have a left, centre and right speaker handle playing stereo through just the L+R naturally and then have things like Dolby PL Music to turn stereo into surround. Along with lots of inputs, this is the way most people go. 

However if speaker wires are an issue to the rears then the above is clearly limiting. 

What may have served you better for adding a turntable and having surrounds for movies would have been a Sonos Amp. It can take an HDMI input from a TV, and rather than a sound bar, you attach passive front speakers where cabling is easier. It can also take a sub, and a pair of wireless Sonos rear surrounds. In this scenario I believe you can just turn off the surrounds for stereo use and if you sit on the same sofa as you do to watch TV, the speakers are in the right place. 

The soundbar setups do not have this flexibility… but it shows sometimes Sonos can do it. It is a shame the sound bar setups can’t match that, or have additional inputs too. 

Enabling the Line-In on a surround speaker is not possible due to the special connection between the soundbar and the surrounds.  Sonos has found that the only reliable way to connect surrounds/subs with the low latency needed for lip syncing to the video source is a one-way only, ad-hoc, 5 GHz private connection which precludes any audio (Line-In or Bluetooth) going back out from the surrounds.

Time to start a savings envelope for a used Port and leave the whole rig in home theater mode unless some decade in the future Sonos hears the cry for a switch state grouping feature and does something. 

 Does anyone in this community know of a soundbar surround system that allows the surrounds to be used as stereo speakers?  From my point of view a well setup surround system implies the surrounds are behind you.  Unless you are turning your seating 180 degrees around or employing temporary seating you’re not going to take full advantage of what stereo offers.  So some might argue that maybe the objective is to have stereo background music while doing other functions or maybe music during a party.  If that is the case make the setting for the HT room … Surround Audio - Music Playback Audio set to Full.  Yes, I know soundbars are a SQ compromise, but for most use cases music sounds good enough.

 The other scenario some have described is folks wanting to move the surround speakers to a different location and listen in stereo there.  When it comes to a quick way to execute a change from surround duty to stereo duty this does not sound like that.

 Something that does make sense and would be a win, win for both Sonos & some people would be to allow for a left, center, right & surrounds setup.  I know in my case there would be a purchase of two more Era 300 speakers in the very near future. 

Hi @tnprime 

Welcome to the Sonos Community!

I think this is a very fair point - as a result, I have asked for some changes to be made to the online store product pages detailing that Line In and Bluetooth functionality is disabled when speakers are configured as Home Theatre surrounds. I assume they would be added to the disclaimers at the bottom of the page.

As for the feature request itself, we have taken note and have passed it on, but as mentioned, it has been asked for before without result. To change the way the software currently works with a surround speaker effectively becoming subservient to the Home Theatre primary such that it would be able to provide Line-in/Bluetooth to the system at large would not be an insubstantial engineering load. It may seem easy to the non-initiated, but I assure you it would not be. Having said that, it’s not actually impossible and for all I know, our developers may already have this in the pipeline.

I hope this helps.

It’s actually in the FAQ for the product page already.  There is a similar comment on bluetooth.  I suppose you could argue that ‘set up’ is too vague, and the user won’t know that the full extent of what they would need to do to temporarily activate the line in, but I think most would get the general idea. 

Hey thanks for your response @Corry P  
My real original request in the OP was for a more intuitive and automated way to switch states rather than lengthy button pressing and erasing previously stored settings. This would seem far more doable than creating a way for the Era to ingest line-in for use while in the more complicated and intensive HT mode. Simply allowing for pairings, groupings etc to be saved and recalled even if that means for HT mode it requires 60-120 seconds of waiting for re-bonding and so forth. I personally dont want to use the line-in in HT mode, so to that end I am not bothered that it’s unavailable at that point, only that to regain use of line-in I have to toss out all the time it takes to create everything for HT mode, then back to Stereo Pair + Sub and set that back up again. These settings have to be able to be saved and restored if you wanted in a save state / restore state sort of way. 

@MoPac In my case while the surrounds reside behind the couch the way they are positioned, further back than directly behind the people seated, using them as stereo speakers they work just fine as far as placement and presentation. This is a small apartment living room /multi-use room rather than a large room with them on a sideboard behind the couch or a designated home theater room section.  Hard to describe with out photos I guess. 

The Ports  real value is not in the line, since many other devices have this feature already, but in the line out, as it’s the only device for that.  I would not get a Port if all I need is a line out.

As you know already, the Era 100 is the cheapest device with a line in function.  You could get a 3rd one of these and set it up as it’s own separate Sonos room.  You can group it with your home theatre room or just play the line in audio in the home theatre (your 3rd Era 100 stays silent).  The Move 2 might make sense if you want to move the speaker around the home at time, or use it on trips or something.

If you want to just use bluetooth, then Roam is the cheapest option.

If your TV has rca inputs, as I think many still do, then you could route the audio through your TV and play it that way.  It doesn’t sound like that’s really what you’re looking for.