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I have a 50” Samsung TV, with Sonos Beam linked to it. It’s in a large room, wall-mounted. When watching TV, the Beam is adequate. But sometimes in the evening, I end up using the room for entertaining, and playing music videos via YouTube.

When watching/listening to music on the TV, the sound isn’t really up to it. I have a high-end hi-if in the same room, but it’s not situated in a convenient spot to link the TV to it.

I’ve been researching some different Sonos add-ons, and the obvious move seemed to be to add a couple of SL’s. Thing is, I’m not really looking for a surround sound effect, moreso just a generally boosted sound quality & volume. I trialled the SL in a local shop, and found the sound quality a bit underwhelming. The Five however, sounded great. 
So the obvious (to me) move seems to be to add a pair of Fives into the room, to link wirelessly to the Beam, to boost the sound in the room.

Anyone using this combo in this way ? Any reason why it won’t do what I’m looking for ?

thanks.

The issue is that the YouTube App is stereo audio only, so unless you have a device to up-mix that audio output to 5.1 (perhaps using the Nvidia Shield, as an example), then you’re not likely to get much benefit by adding two surrounds channels for that situation. Although they would be of great benefit when playing 5.1 audio from Apps like Netflix/Prime Movies/Disney+ etc.

I think two One SL’s are pretty good for use as the Beam HT surround channels, but in my own case I found the biggest boost to my Beam HT was adding the Sonos Sub, so I would not rule that speaker out either.

A couple of issues…

  1. If you are playing music videos on YouTube, you need to bond the One SLs or Fives to the Beam as surrounds. If you just group the speakers to the Beam, you will experience a slight audio delay from the One SLs or Fives because you are still technically playing “TV audio” rather than music.
  1. Because YouTube videos are only in stereo, most of the music will still play out of the Beam. The surround speakers will play music in more of an ambient way rather than playing as a pair of full stereo speakers.

I would consider adding the Sonos Sub to the Beam first. Then add the One SLs as surrounds. This will give you a full 5.1 home theater setup. YouTube music videos will sound better, but not as good as if you streamed music directly from the Sonos app or third party app like Spotify or Apple Music. When you set the Surround Audio Music Playback setting to Full in the Sonos app, the surround speakers will act as a pair of full stereo speakers when playing music. But this setting has no effect on TV audio.

Thanks for the input so far.

 

I have a question about this comment …

 

If you just group the speakers to the Beam, you will experience a slight audio delay from the One SLs or Fives because you are still technically playing “TV audio” rather than music.

 

Is the audio delay you mention, between the Beam & Fives, or between the TV & the Sonos speakers ? If it’s just a lip-sync issue, I can probably live with that, especially if I have a far superior sound quality from the 3 bonded speakers ?

I have a question about this comment …

 

If you just group the speakers to the Beam, you will experience a slight audio delay from the One SLs or Fives because you are still technically playing “TV audio” rather than music.

 

Is the audio delay you mention, between the Beam & Fives, or between the TV & the Sonos speakers ? If it’s just a lip-sync issue, I can probably live with that, especially if I have a far superior sound quality from the 3 bonded speakers ?

If the Fives are GROUPED with the Beam, the audio from the Fives will be slightly delayed compared to the Beam. So this will cause both an audio sync issue between the Beam and Fives AND an AV sync issue between the Fives and the video playing on the TV.

If the Fives are BONDED to the Beam as surrounds, you will not experience a delay with TV or music audio. But the surrounds will not play as a pair of full stereo speakers if the audio source is a YouTube video.

Hmmm, ok, didn’t realise that. It’s the ‘grouped’ scenario that interests me most, but it sounds like it might not give me the sound quality I’m looking for. In which case, my solution may not be with Sonos.

Hmmm, ok, didn’t realise that. It’s the ‘grouped’ scenario that interests me most, but it sounds like it might not give me the sound quality I’m looking for. In which case, my solution may not be with Sonos.

I would personally choose to ‘bond’ the two surrounds, rather than ‘group’ them. Then as mentioned use something to upmix the stereo output to 5.1 audio (a Nvidia Shield will do that)  or as an alternative. you could adjust the ‘TV Level’ slider feature in the HT ‘Surround Audio’ section of the Sonos App, to shift the playing stereo output to the rear surround channels. See screenshot attached.

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