Question

CONNECT:AMP As Surround Rear Left & Right

  • 17 February 2017
  • 2 replies
  • 3549 views

I just bought a house that has speakers in the ceiling in some rooms, and I would like to use the two in the living room as rear left and rear right in a 5.1 setup using the PLAYBAR, SUB, and the CONNECT:AMP to run the two existing wired speakers.

This how-to from SONOS states that you must have both the PLAYBAR and CONNECT:AMP wired into the network in order to do this, however my wireless router is in one room, the PLAYBAR is in the living room, and the CONNECT:AMP is in the utility closet that all the ceiling speakers go to in the exact opposite side of the house than where the wireless router is located.

https://sonos.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/2248?_ga=1.15565233.622813009.1487300518

Is there really no way to get the CONNECT:AMP to do rear left & right without physically wiring it together with the PLAYBAR and instead only using wireless?

I even bought a BOOST hoping it would help, but it didn't.

Tech support said it absolutely needed to be wired in via ethernet cable to work because of latency issues. If latency is a problem, then how do the PLAY:1, PLAY:3, OR PLAY:5 speakers work wirelessly in a surround setup?
My apologies for the long post, but I'm shooting for the moon hoping there's some kind of hack out there to get it to all work wirelessly even if there are some latency issues.

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2 replies

Yes it has to be a wired link. The Play speakers communicate over 5GHz wireless when used as surrounds. This has low latency. The Connect:Amp does not have a 5Ghz radio.

Personally I don't think ceiling speakers work great as surrounds anyway. Don't use them just because they are there. I suggest you consider a pair of Play:1s.
To be clear:
- the system needs to be in 'BOOST Setup', i.e. with one component wired (not necessarily a BOOST)
- there has to be a wired path between the PLAYBAR and the CONNECT:AMP

So it's possible for the PLAYBAR to be wired to the CONNECT:AMP, but for neither of them to be wired back to the router (so long as some other device is wired to the network).