Best answer by Ken_Griffiths
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Adjusting speaker (s) volume individually on surround system
I'm and "old" sonos newbie who has screwed-up his surround setup to the point where my wife wants it returned because it does not perform the way "we" thought it would. My system consists of a Beam & 2 Play 1 speakers. The issue is I hear the audio from my Beam only and nothing I do allows me to adjust my Play 1 speaker volume independently. I want to lower the Beam volume and independently increase the volume on my Play 1 speakers. If I use the app or the plus volume buttons on the Play 1 speakers the system volume changes. I've just submitted a diagnostics request (1302827367) in hopes they can give me some help. In the meantime - here I am - asking their user group. Thanks in advance for your assistance. Additionally I don't know the difference between a "surround system" and a "home theater system". Gumpa
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1 additional thought is the Play 1 speakers sound like they are on, just very low. Thanks Gumpa
More > Settings > Room Settings > (room name) > Advanced Audio > Surround Settings > TV Level
Thought I had done that but I'll check and give it a try. Thank You !
jgatie, again thanks for your reply. Still very frustrated. Turns out I had done just what you suggested - but I did it again yesterday just to be sure. Nothing has changed. I do get sound from both Play 1 speakers however the volume is very low still and it sounds like I'm only getting music playing in the background and not the dialogue that is the main part of the program. When I turn up the volume either using my system (non-sonos)remote or the + button on my beam it turns up the volume on the whole system, which is what I would expect. However when I just turn the volume up on my play 1 speakers using their + buttons it does turn up the volume but again on the whole system not just my play 1 speakers.
Somewhere I think I read if I had a Beam bar and wanted sound in another room I could place the play 1 speakers in that room and it would do the trick. If that's true today I'm going to change them around and tell the beam bar my play 1 speakers are in a different room to see what happens. Any other suggestions are very welcome from anyone tuned in. I appreciate your help. Guess my next step will be to call CS @ Sonos but of course it's a holiday weekend and that will have to wait till Tuesday/Wednesday. Gumpa
Somewhere I think I read if I had a Beam bar and wanted sound in another room I could place the play 1 speakers in that room and it would do the trick. If that's true today I'm going to change them around and tell the beam bar my play 1 speakers are in a different room to see what happens. Any other suggestions are very welcome from anyone tuned in. I appreciate your help. Guess my next step will be to call CS @ Sonos but of course it's a holiday weekend and that will have to wait till Tuesday/Wednesday. Gumpa
Surround sound does not mean you get dialog in the rear speakers. The rears are for directional effects, and most dialog is tied to the characters on the screen. So unless a person is speaking off camera, behind the viewer or to the side, you will not hear dialog in the surrounds. This is as designed.
Gumpa,
Assuming you are talking TV sound, you need to really play a 5.1 DD source to get the rear two channels working as intended rather than PCM 2ch stereo. If you are talking about music level, then you just need to change/switch the music audio level from 'ambient' to 'full' in the room settings... you can also retune the speakers using trueplay and tell the system that the speakers are further away from your seated position, when prompted by the trueplay process.
Assuming you are talking TV sound, you need to really play a 5.1 DD source to get the rear two channels working as intended rather than PCM 2ch stereo. If you are talking about music level, then you just need to change/switch the music audio level from 'ambient' to 'full' in the room settings... you can also retune the speakers using trueplay and tell the system that the speakers are further away from your seated position, when prompted by the trueplay process.
Thanks, My stupid. Well, that would explain what's happening here. What do you think about my second thought of "saying" the play 1 speakers are in different rooms? Can I expect full sound from them, dialogue and all? or, do you have another suggestion. Gumpa
Even if that's the case the volume from the play 1s is very low and barely audible.
KG, Thanks. Well, I'm learning a lot today. You are way over my head when speaking about "you need to really play a 5.1 DD source to get the rear two channels working as intended rather than PCM 2ch stereo." No idea what that means except maybe I bought the wrong speakers for the job. As for Trueplay - "just need to change/switch the music audio level from 'ambient' to 'full' in the room settings... you can also retune the speakers using trueplay and tell the system that the speakers are further away from your seated position, when prompted by the trueplay process." I have already made those 2 changes in the system. It did help some, but not enough. Thanks Gumpa
+1
Instead of having them as surrounds unlink them and then group together?
When I play a 5.1 movie from Netflix, for example, my rear speakers are as loud as my Beam, but it depends what you listen to. If you unbond your speakers and set them as another 'Room', you can Group them with the Beam and get another stereo playing source, but it will not be the same as surround sound. If you do this, you may experience some delay/echo effect and to counter that there is a lip-sync slider bar in the room settings that you may need to adjust in order to deal with any echo effect. Hope that helps ?
Storm3, thanks - OK I'll check the instructions to see how that's done. What did you think of my "seperate room" idea?
KG, thanks. I understand better what you mean.
Maybe lost in all this dialogue is my ultimate goal here is "NOT" that I care about or need to have a stereo or surround sound system. It's just to get a full sound source closer to where we are seating in the room so we can better hear what's going on or playing or being said. I thought having the play 1 speakers connected to the Beam and placed around the room closer to us would accomplish that. Gumpa (humor) guess I should just go back to my 8 track!. Thanks
Maybe lost in all this dialogue is my ultimate goal here is "NOT" that I care about or need to have a stereo or surround sound system. It's just to get a full sound source closer to where we are seating in the room so we can better hear what's going on or playing or being said. I thought having the play 1 speakers connected to the Beam and placed around the room closer to us would accomplish that. Gumpa (humor) guess I should just go back to my 8 track!. Thanks
OK, helpful Sonos staff, I apologize for being so ignorant on sound system set up but it's been many years sincevI've done anything with them.
I've followed your set-up directions, as best I could because some steps didn't occur as you said they would in set-up, and have now reconnected my 2 play 1 speakers and renamed them Kitchen. The green lights never appeared. Steady white did and so I proceeded and they say they are set-up. They show up in both sonos and alexa apps as such but apparently not connected to my beam playing TV program sound in my office. I've asked alexa to discover them as kitchen speakers and she does not find any new devices. At this point I'm lost after not finding directions to connect my 2 kitchen speakers to my beam & TV. So here I am again trying my best and your patience. Hopefully I'm making progress.
I've followed your set-up directions, as best I could because some steps didn't occur as you said they would in set-up, and have now reconnected my 2 play 1 speakers and renamed them Kitchen. The green lights never appeared. Steady white did and so I proceeded and they say they are set-up. They show up in both sonos and alexa apps as such but apparently not connected to my beam playing TV program sound in my office. I've asked alexa to discover them as kitchen speakers and she does not find any new devices. At this point I'm lost after not finding directions to connect my 2 kitchen speakers to my beam & TV. So here I am again trying my best and your patience. Hopefully I'm making progress.
Via the Sonos app: Tap on the Rooms tab. Find the Beam room, tap on Group. Select Kitchen to be grouped with the Beam. Tap Done. Now the two rooms are grouped and will play the same source.
There is also a way to group them using Alexa, but I do not have a Beam, so maybe someone else can post instructions.
There is also a way to group them using Alexa, but I do not have a Beam, so maybe someone else can post instructions.
@Gumpa, first off, the folks you've been talking to are not Sonos staff. There are Sonos staff on the boards, but they are labeled as such. Not a big deal, but just don't want you think anything said by a fellow user comes from Sonos directly.
Second, what is your current setup? Are your 2 Play:1s setup as surround speakers, or did you break them off into a separate room (that you are calling kitchen)? it sounds like you did. You'll only see green lights when you are setting up a speaker for the first time, or after a factory reset. Since you are just moving speakers around, in a virtual sense, you won't see green lights.
They show up in both sonos and alexa apps as such but apparently not connected to my beam playing TV program sound in my office.
If you've separated your Beam (office) from the 2 play:1s (kitchen) so they are now 2 separate rooms in the Sonos app, you will need to group them in the app to have them play together temporarily (they can be grouped and in-grouped easily as you wish). If you go to the Rooms tab, you can see the 2 rooms and the 'group' icon t put them together or take them apart.
I've asked alexa to discover them as kitchen speakers and she does not find any new devices. At this point I'm lost after not finding directions to connect my 2 kitchen speakers to my beam & TV. So here I am again trying my best and your patience. Hopefully I'm making progress.
I'm not quite sure what you're trying to do with Alexa here. If you want to group the 2 rooms (kitchen and office) together, you can do it with Alexa, but it's not as straight forward as doing it in the Sonos app. If you want to give voice commands to play music in office or in the kitchen, Alexa is the right tool for that.
One thing that is a little confusing between Sonos and Alexa, is the difference between a 'room' and a 'speaker'. With Sonos, when you bond 2 or more speakers together to form a stereo pair or surround sound speakers w/soundbar, they are collectively referred to as room. On the Alexa side of things, that room you created is referred to as speaker. So for example, assuming you're two play:1s are a stereo pair in your kitchen, that is 1 room in Sonos, and 1 speaker in Alexa.
Second, what is your current setup? Are your 2 Play:1s setup as surround speakers, or did you break them off into a separate room (that you are calling kitchen)? it sounds like you did. You'll only see green lights when you are setting up a speaker for the first time, or after a factory reset. Since you are just moving speakers around, in a virtual sense, you won't see green lights.
If you've separated your Beam (office) from the 2 play:1s (kitchen) so they are now 2 separate rooms in the Sonos app, you will need to group them in the app to have them play together temporarily (they can be grouped and in-grouped easily as you wish). If you go to the Rooms tab, you can see the 2 rooms and the 'group' icon t put them together or take them apart.
I've asked alexa to discover them as kitchen speakers and she does not find any new devices. At this point I'm lost after not finding directions to connect my 2 kitchen speakers to my beam & TV. So here I am again trying my best and your patience. Hopefully I'm making progress.
I'm not quite sure what you're trying to do with Alexa here. If you want to group the 2 rooms (kitchen and office) together, you can do it with Alexa, but it's not as straight forward as doing it in the Sonos app. If you want to give voice commands to play music in office or in the kitchen, Alexa is the right tool for that.
One thing that is a little confusing between Sonos and Alexa, is the difference between a 'room' and a 'speaker'. With Sonos, when you bond 2 or more speakers together to form a stereo pair or surround sound speakers w/soundbar, they are collectively referred to as room. On the Alexa side of things, that room you created is referred to as speaker. So for example, assuming you're two play:1s are a stereo pair in your kitchen, that is 1 room in Sonos, and 1 speaker in Alexa.
Thanks to you all for your great responses. As of now my Sonos Beam and my 2 play 1 speakers are working as I want them to. Removing the surround feature and setting the play 1s up as if they are in the kitchen and then linking the 2 rooms together in the sonos app did the trick. Many thanks to you all. All is well with Sonos. Now for Alexa and my wife. Seems all of this has resulted in Alexa regenerating herself into a split personality. I now have my wife and 2 Alexas running my house. 1 Alexa only responses to the original Dot commands and the other only controls my Sonos beam and not the play 1s or anything else. My wife agrees with me in principle that there are too many women living in the house telling us what they want us to do. Don't go there. I need to find someone, probably a 12 year old person to straighten out the Alexa issue. Again thanks to you all. Oh, to be young and smart again.
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