5.2 surround for huge room
I am an installer for a Sonos retailer, we've sold a customer a play bar 5.1 package with the sub and two play 1s, however the room is huge and the sub can only be placed on either end of the seating area, so it ends up sounding unbalanced. The customer would like to add another Sonos sub to the system to balance out the bass with a sub on both ends. Normally this is easy in a typical surround scenario, but after agreeing with the customer, I did a quick google and seem to have discovered that 5.2 surround is not supported! Are you guys crazy??? This is like saying "no" to an effortless SUB sale, AND making this customer rethink his decision to go with Sonos for surround. He also has a Sonos connect, with a big amplifier and zone volume controller connected to speakers throughout the house, but the connect (non-amp) did not pair with the sub (I tried this before setting up the play bar) so the only solution I could come up with was to have a wireless sub kit and non-Sonos (KEF is solid sounding and compact like Sonos) subwoofer connected to the big amplifier's sub output or the Sonos connect's sub output. This would only work for playing music when they're grouped, it would still sound weird when watching TV, of course. This is no good!!! We could easily sell this customer another 2-4 Sonos SUBs for all over the home, and they aren't cheap, you guys must make a good buck when they sell, so let us frikkin sell some subs! Please explain if there is a real hard limitation or if this is just an implementation issue. If it is possible that a second sub be added to the play bar system via future software updates, and this is something being considered, we may be able to keep the 5.1 system Sonos, otherwise since it is currently impossible to have a complete solution, and we did prewire for the possibility of implementing a receiver based surround solution we would have to recommend returning the play bar, sub and play 1s in exchange for another Sonos connect that would plug into the new 5.2 receiver. Seems like you guys don't wanna sell SUBs, they really should work with any of your products, if they did, seems only natural that you'd sell more.
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+16Hi Erick,
I can't really comment on the 5.2 issue but I wanted to say that the connect doesn't pair with the SUB because it doesn't know what volume the external amplifier is outputting and so the volume of the SUB wouldn't be level with the volume of the speakers.
I apologise if you already understand that (seeing that you are part of a SONOS retailer.)
I hope that SONOS drops in at some point and implements this as I have seen many others asking for 5.2 surround sound.
I can't really comment on the 5.2 issue but I wanted to say that the connect doesn't pair with the SUB because it doesn't know what volume the external amplifier is outputting and so the volume of the SUB wouldn't be level with the volume of the speakers.
I apologise if you already understand that (seeing that you are part of a SONOS retailer.)
I hope that SONOS drops in at some point and implements this as I have seen many others asking for 5.2 surround sound.
+22Actually ...others are asking for up to 7.2 (and allowing front to be split with playbar as center and separate R/L - actual discrete 7.2).
Just chiming in with what others have asked for.....actually not me.
Just chiming in with what others have asked for.....actually not me.
+16Just chiming in with what others have asked for.....actually not me.
Thanks for the correction, Chris. 😉
+22Just chiming in with what others have asked for.....actually not me.
Not a correction .... just adding on other peoples gripes
I understand why in some situations the subwoofer pairing with the connect would not work, but in this situation it would be fine, in fact it would be the same as using the sub output on the connect, so it doesn't really make sense. Most of the time when I set up a connect with a dedicated "big" amplifier, the volume on the amp is static (and usually not easily accessible) and the connect is doing all the volume adjustment, so wired or wireless sub should work. Let us choose and make the needed adjustments, it shouldn't be so restrictive! I hope someone from Sonos that knows a bit about the internal workings can comment on if adding a second sub is even a future possibility. I don't need 7.1 or making more left and right separation, just a simple second sub playing the exact same thing as the first sub in a play bar surround set up.
As far as I've understood the playbar can just barely manage to syncronize the three wireless audio streams it takes to perform 5.1. But allowing another sub that just plays the same sub channel already prepared shouldn't put any extra load on the playbar. It would still be 5.1 though but using to subs.
Another solution that might be tolerable (if it works?) would be to get another Play X that can pair with a Sub and group it with the TV zone so it plays along with the 5.1 ... Again, definitely not ideal, just need to have that second sub receiving the same stream as the first sub, but then there's another speaker presumably playing the left right mix down that has to be somewhere... Maybe the crawl space where it won't bother anyone too much.
You could try asking over here: http://forums.sonos.com/ as there are some experts over there who might be able to help you out.
They have not changed. There still is no way to include 2 SUBs in the same "room".
Just speculating, but perhaps the reason Sonos doesn't have a 5.2 or greater is due to wireless constraints. The 5.1 setup using 5.0 ghz, while the normal whole home uses 2.4, as I understand it. 5.0 can sync the audio with tv real time, while 2.4 cannot. 2.4 has much better range though. So perhaps Sonos does not want to add a second sub because that would have application in a huge room as OP suggested, where the distance between units is rather large. In that scenario, perhaps Sonos cannot guarantee that it will work to the satisfaction level they want to provide to their customers.
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