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I have a Roku TV sending its audio output from the HDMI Arc port to a Sonos Beam. Behind the couch, I have two Sonos One’s as surrounds, and a Sonos Sub.
 

We mainly watch streaming services. Surround sound on supported shows works and sounds great. But often times we come across shows where there is only audio coming from the Beam, nothing coming out of the One’s. In those cases, is there any way to force whatever’s coming out of the Beam to also come out of the One’s?  I’ve looked in 3 different places (RokuTV audio settings, Sonos app, and audio settings of the streaming service), and I can’t figure out how to accomplish this.

If there is no surround content in the mix, nothing will be heard, and I doubt if anything can be forced.

Thanks for the reply Kumar. But when I’m listening to music, the fact that the audio always comes out of all speakers tells me that the Sonos software is able to send stereo audio to all speakers even if they’re in a surround configuration. Why not the same when the audio from a tv show is PCM only or stereo only?

Most of the time you should hear some ambient audio from the rear surround speakers even while playing stereo PCM content.

From Sonos:

”If the source you’re playing isn’t in 5.1 already, your Sonos home theater speakers will perform an audio up-mix of the stereo signal to create a simulated surround sound. This means you’ll still hear most audio out of the front channels, but the rear left and right speakers will play what we determine to be ambient audio. This is most obvious in action scenes and with movies that have intense soundtracks.”


Have you tried turning up the TV Level for the surrounds in the Sonos app?

Most of the time you should hear some ambient audio from the rear surround speakers even while playing stereo PCM content.

From Sonos:

”If the source you’re playing isn’t in 5.1 already, your Sonos home theater speakers will perform an audio up-mix of the stereo signal to create a simulated surround sound. This means you’ll still hear most audio out of the front channels, but the rear left and right speakers will play what we determine to be ambient audio. This is most obvious in action scenes and with movies that have intense soundtracks.”


Have you tried turning up the TV Level for the surrounds in the Sonos app?

 

Thank you for this reply.  I will explore this today and also look into TV Level in the Sonos app again.  I did play with that setting awhile back, but let me look at it again.

 

This is usually called multi channel stereo or full channel stereo, but currently Sonos does not support this configuration.

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