Have a hard of hearing client. A Sonos Beam is used as the main audio source with a TV, where the Sonos One Gen 2 units are sued are rear surrounds. Question is, can the Sonos One Gen 2 units be programmed in a way where they aren’t in surround mode? Where they just double the front facing audio that the Beam is producing instead?
Main reason I ask is, this retired client watches a lot of cable channels for TV content. Where much of the mixes on TV stations, aren’t mixed with Dolby 5.1. Where they are often times only stereo mixes. So the Sonos One units basically do nothing when viewing those programs on that platform/medium. He doesn’t really use Netflix & Amazon Prime & Hulu & all the streaming services that are all predominantly dolby 5.1 surround sound. He mostly watches news stations & PBS & NPR, driven off of a Comcast cable box, & all those stations really only do stereo L+R mixes.
I didn’t see anything in the Sonos app, that would allow me to do what I am writing about here. Am I overlooking that ability in the app UI, or does this option not exist?
If this option doesn’t exist yet, is it something that could be incorporated into a future firmware build?
Thanks!
No, this isn’t possible. He could unbond the Ones as surrounds from the Beam and just group the Ones with the Beam in the Sonos app, but he will experience a slight audio delay from the Ones while playing TV audio.
The delay will be the same no matter what program he is watching. You won’t be able to adjust the delay, but if your client is hard of hearing, he may not even notice it.
I think you can adjust the delay in the Beam settings using the TV Sync adjustment. You could probably get the grouped One speakers in sync with the Beam, but all would have a sync issue with the video. It depends how sensitive the client is about this.
There will be a 75ms latency for SONOS Rooms Grouped with BEAM. Beam’s latency is about 30ms. Go to System → Beam] → TV Dialog Sync. Here you can tinker with BEAM’s audio delay. It’s not a continuous adjustment, but you can improve the situation in steps. As John B, notes some people are over the top sensitive to lip sync issues, others are not. In my experience lip sync on news broadcasts is never very good to begin with.
The TV may present an option for stereo output.
Another option that may work even better in this situation is a Bluetooth transmitter attached to the TV’s TOSLINK port. Many Bluetooth hearing aids will integrate seamlessly into this arrangement. The hard of hearing person and housemates who are suffering with “too loud” will be much happier.
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