Can Amp be used as Home Theater 5.1 brain?

Do you mean a CONNECT:AMP, or the as yet unreleased Sonos Amp?

The answer is a definite no on the former, and a modified no on the latter. The CONNECT:AMP does not have the ability to accept a 5.1 signal and interpret it.

The upcoming Sonos Amp, based on the information posted by Ryan S in the Announcements section of this forum, will only allow you to have a 4.1 system, so you'll be lacking the Center speaker, which they say would be a "phantom" combination from Left and Right speakers.

There's no indication that I can recall that you'll be able to output a 5.1 signal to another device, either.

Hi arianf

I assume you are referring to the soon to be released Sonos Amp. The Sonos Amp will support L/R and Sub (all 3rd party components upfront ) but will bond with Sonos One, Play 1, Play 3, Play 5 as surrounds. That's not the same 5.1 that you currently get with the Playbar that creates a pseudo center channel...but close enough that you may not notice. Yes it is AirPlay2 compatible.

Cheers!

Wait. The PLAYBAR doesn't create a pseudo anything, to my knowledge. It is supposed to have a Right, Center and Left all built in to the same enclosure (as does the Beam and PLAYBASE).

Do you mean a CONNECT:AMP, or the as yet unreleased Sonos Amp?


I'm referring to the Sonos Amp, as I mention... I'm curious about using the HDMI Arc port, which only the Sonos Amp has, if I'm not mistaken.

Wait. The PLAYBAR doesn't create a pseudo anything, to my knowledge. It is supposed to have a Right, Center and Left all built in to the same enclosure (as does the Beam and PLAYBASE.

I'm a bit old school in that respect. As much as I enjoy my Sonos (and I really love them, if that's possible) before that I always had dedicated separates up front. That said I have a pair of Gen 2_Play 5's (w/sub) in the same room as my Sonos HT that are dedicated to music. When I employed my separates I could select stereo mode for music and the center channel was not used. To my ear the Playbar/Playbase/Beam do not reproduce the stereo separation for music that I like. But as I said..I'm old school 🆒

Cheers!

arianf, I think my original answer, along with AjTrek1's response should cover that for you :)

AjTrek1, just because they're in the single enclosure doesn't change the fact that there's a set of speakers dedicated to each channel. You just can't change their separation 🙂

Hi arianf

I assume you are referring to the soon to be released Sonos Amp. The Sonos Amp will support L/R and Sub (all 3rd party components upfront ) but will bond with Sonos One, Play 1, Play 3, Play 5 as surrounds. That's not the same 5.1 that you currently get with the Playbar that creates a pseudo center channel...but close enough that you may not notice. Yes it is AirPlay2 compatible.

Cheers!

Hmmm, what's the difference between surround vs what the Playbar creates?

Wait. The PLAYBAR doesn't create a pseudo anything, to my knowledge. It is supposed to have a Right, Center and Left all built in to the same enclosure (as does the Beam and PLAYBASE.

If this is true, and there is no difference... then the Sonos Amp, effectively is able to give your home theater system AirPlay 2 functionality. Which is currently not possible! Because even if you add a Sonos One, to your system 5.1, you'd need to change the configuration of the system to play as a group of speakers (since the Sonos One needs to be the brains). Then when you watch TV, you'd need to regroup the system as 5.1 from playbar, which disables AirPlay 2. Lots of back and forth configuration to have 5.1 and AirPlay 2. I'm hoping the Sonos Amp will be able to solve this

EDIT: Just realized, you didn't mention that the Sonos Amp can bond with the PlayBar... so I guess if it's unable to bond with the PlayBar then it won't have the center channel. So the Sonos Amp is unable to do what I want, shoot.

OK arianf

Not to add confusion let me clarify...

I'm quite a bit older than most. When I first started listening to music there were no remote controls you had to get up, walk across the room and change the input. As a matter of fact cassettes tapes weren't invented (if you know what they are). As for CD's...they were a bunch of Sci-Fi. In fact Microsoft wasn't even in existence..and let's not talk about Apple :?

So for the sake of continuity..my old school thinking aside..the Playbar, Playbase and Beam in today's world offer as much separation L/C/R as can be expected from any soundbar. Sonos IMO does it better than most.

However, as Airgetlam said using the Sonos Amp in the manner he and I have suggested will give you 4.1 and not 5.1. But as I said with a set of good 3rd party front speakers and matching sub attached to the Sonos Amp then bonded to Sonos One's Play 1's. Play 3's or Play 5's as surrounds you'd be hard pressed to find better. Of course you get Airplay2 to boot!

Cheers!

AjTrek1 and I may be of the same age 🙂

Great discussion, everyone.

I understand the problem you're trying to solve here, arianf, to be that you want to get AirPlay 2 and HDMI-ARC support with your Playbar 5.1. The short answer is that the new Amp will not solve what you're looking for it to do.

In order to get the AirPlay 2 and HDMI-ARC input from the Amp, it'll need to be your main home theater device in the setup. Starting with a single Amp, you'll have left and right channels that are outputting audio, and it could be to one or two pairs of speakers (unamplified). You can add to that single Amp a pair of Sonos players that are capable of being home theater surrounds, which includes the Play:1, Play:3, Play:5 gen2, Sonos One, Connect:Amp, and additionally one of the new Sonos Amps when it's released.

And on top of that, you can add a third party subwoofer on the Amp's output or the Sonos Sub.

The only way that you can bond a Sonos Amp into a room with a Playbar, Playbase, or Beam is as a satellite speaker (which means AirPlay 2 compatibility would still be determined by the home theater main speaker). There isn't an option to add any Sonos device with a Sonos Amp as a center channel.

For your existing setup, you could use an Amp instead of your Playbar, which could give you the HDMI-ARC and the AirPlay 2 compatibility. Though there would only be 4.1 total unique channels (assuming you've added in the surrounds and Sub) there is a simulated center channel which may work out for you, depending on what you're watching, there may not even be center audio in the stream.

You could also group that 4.1 setup with another Sonos device, like your Playbar. However, if you're grouping them together, you'll get your 5.1 audio out of the Amp and it's bonded players, but the audio stream that's sent to the Playbar will be treated as if it were in a different room and could be out of sync and will also be not counted on when the audio image is being constructed.

Thanks Ryan for putting everything into the right perspective for arianf. To you Airgetlam for helping me to remember...this ain't the late 50's or 60's decade for that matter:8

Thank you for the thorough answer Ryan! Happy I reached out to you!

I miss watching my tubes glow and I hated the newfangled 8 Tracks...

I'm also in the camp that wants to be able to set up an optimal stereo image with my system. Tried Play 3s and 1s in mono, hated the mono sound, tried a Play 5 with the single point stereo it provides and it is decent. I don't have a Beam, Bar or Base but I've listened to them and for me they are great for TV but marginal for music.

Going to a pair of 1s, 3s or 5s set in good locations with respect to my listening spot gives me a much better sound from the system. Nothing wrong with the actual reproduction, it is just the stereo image that I am missing.

I'm fussing about the Sonos Amp, lots of money to replace a working AVR system but it does let me keep my rather nice speakers and use four out of the five and my matching subwoofer. If I am looking at it correctly it will also let me continue to use my DBX sub-harmonic synthesizer which will be great.

Just remember - if you plug anything into the Analog input of Sonos Amp it will be no different than Play:5 analog input as far as adding minor delay.

AjTrek1 and I may be of the same age :)
I'm probably only slightly younger :-)
I'm looking forward to the Sonos Amp. I'll use it with two tower speakers, probably Kef's, Sonos Sub, and two sonos ones in the rear. I'm using a Beam now but really want true stereo separation.
I'm thinking of connecting a turntable to the amp too.

Hey SOCalistic

So you think you're only slightly younger....do you remember 8 inch floppy discs :8

I'm looking forward to the Sonos Amp as well. Unfortunately, I don't think you'll be able to use it with a Sonos Sub...3rd party yes. I say that based upon this excerpt from the Sonos AMP announcement:

Use Sonos Amp to power your installed speakers as a separate Sonos room, or bond it with a pair of Sonos Ones, Play:1s, Play:3s, or Play:5s to become a surround sound setup that you can use with your TV. You can also use Amp to add your speakers as rears to a Sonos home-theater setup (by wirelessly bonding an Amp with Beam, Playbar, or Playbase) or use two Sonos Amps (one for the front right and left channels, the other for the rear channels) for surround sound.

I plan to use it with a pair of my "old school" Definitive Technology BP20's and matching powered sub (small end-table size ;)) and retire the "50lb" Sony DA 777ES they're currently connected to. LOL

Cheers!

I do remember 8 inch disks as well as 8-track :-)
I'd be pretty surprised if you couldn't use the Amp with the Sonos sub. That would piss of a lot of Sonos customers.
But I'm looking around and not seeing any references to it.

Of course you willl be able to use the Sonos amp with Sonos Sub. And also with any third party powered sub.

Of course you willl be able to use the Sonos amp with Sonos Sub. And also with any third party powered sub.

@Chris

I took SOCalistic's comment on using a Sonos Sub natively as you would via bonding with a Sonos speaker. I can't find any information on how to use the Sonos Amp with a Sonos Sub in the release notes at the link below. Please explain because obviously I'm missing something in those notes. Thanks!

https://en.community.sonos.com/announcements-228985/introducing-sonos-amp-6812069

Cheers!

https://en.community.sonos.com/announcements-228985/introducing-sonos-amp-6812069#post16263379

https://en.community.sonos.com/announcements-228985/introducing-sonos-amp-6812069#post16263379

Confirmation is in above post from Ryan (1st question)

There is no reason you won't be able to bond a Sonos Sub with the Sonos Amp. Bond just like you would bond surrounds.

@Chris

Thanks for the clarification_cool! I'll have to suggest to Ryan that he include that little tid-bit in the release notes :8

Cheers!