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connecting Sonos Beam to 3rd party sub

  • December 23, 2018
  • 2 replies
  • 27664 views
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I have just bought the excellent Sonos Beam and will shortly add 2 x Play:1 for surround sound. However, the Sonos sub is beyond my budget. I have a perfectly good Cambridge Audio sub from my old set up (and an old Onkyo amp). I know it's not straightforward but is there any way I could link the Beam to the C.A. sub? I did see this post on a U.S. site. I wondered if anyone on here had tried anything similar?......................

Since the Beam uses HDMI for its audio your TV likely has a free optical out port. Using the optical out port connect a 5.1 Audio Sound Decoder Converter to 5.1CH Analog Audio (6RCA Output). I used this one here: https://amzn.to/2rSx5T6
All you need to do is connect your RCA cable to subwoofer connection on the box and you have bass for under $50!
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    2 replies

    R
    • Ryan Chan
    • Lyricist I
    • March 3, 2019
    Did u try the solutions above? Did it work?
    J
    • jackobotzie
    • Lyricist I
    • May 1, 2019
    I did this sort of hack and here is the good the bad and the ugly...

    I connected to an old Sonos Zoneplayer Amp using a cheap PCM Adapter from Amazon...

    So it went: TV Optical -> PCM Optical to Analog Converter -> Sonos Zoneplayer -> Powered Subwoofer

    Ultimately there is a slight timing difference both when listening to music and watching TV that gives a slight reverb effect between the Beam and the L/R/Sub Channels on the Zoneplayer. Because of this I found that I needed to disconnect the Zoneplayer L/R Channels and then set the subwoofer crossover low enough to not pickup any frequencies in the vocal range...

    Even once you do this this solution for using an existing Sub is far from perfect. When adjusting the volume up and down as a group the sub volume to Beam ration needs to be retouched when group volume up and down to get good balance between the Beam and Sub.

    So the short of it, I am still looking for good deal on a Sono Sub to go with the Beam and I will move the existing Zoneplayer Amp to another room...
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