How to use Beam and Sonos Ones for surround sound

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I’m having an issue - my Beam and two Sonos Ones are connected, they all play music, but the Beam is only playing TV audio, not the Sonos Ones.... the beam is connected to the TV through ARC. What am I doing wrong?! I thought the Sonos Ones could connect to Beam for a surround sound effect?

Rear Surrounds

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AirgetlamAnswer

You have to be sure that your TV is getting a 5.1 signal, and then passing that signal on to the Sonos.

Open up the Sonos app, and select ...More. The go to Settings, and click on "About my Sonos system". There should be a listing for your Beam that has a line that says (and I'm hazy on this, not at home to check) Audio In. Next to that should be either Stereo or Dolby Digital 5.1. If the former, then we need to look at the data that's being sent to the TV, if the latter, you probably just need to go in to the room settings area of the app, under the Beam, and adjust the volume of the rear "surround" speakers. Or if you have an iOS device, run TruePlay on your system.

If it says "stereo", then what are you watching on your TV? Is it a local TV station that you're getting over the air? Or is it a cable box that's feeding the TV? Or some other device?

Some stations, will only send a stereo signal, so you have to be careful about what you're watching when you're checking these things. For me, it's often News programs and the like that are only in stereo, and not in true 5.1 sound, although that's less and less the case these days.

Good luck!

Bruce

AirgetlamAnswer

You have to be sure that your TV is getting a 5.1 signal, and then passing that signal on to the Sonos.

Open up the Sonos app, and select ...More. The go to Settings, and click on "About my Sonos system". There should be a listing for your Beam that has a line that says (and I'm hazy on this, not at home to check) Audio In. Next to that should be either Stereo or Dolby Digital 5.1. If the former, then we need to look at the data that's being sent to the TV, if the latter, you probably just need to go in to the room settings area of the app, under the Beam, and adjust the volume of the rear "surround" speakers. Or if you have an iOS device, run TruePlay on your system.

If it says "stereo", then what are you watching on your TV? Is it a local TV station that you're getting over the air? Or is it a cable box that's feeding the TV? Or some other device?

Some stations, will only send a stereo signal, so you have to be careful about what you're watching when you're checking these things. For me, it's often News programs and the like that are only in stereo, and not in true 5.1 sound, although that's less and less the case these days.

Good luck!

Bruce

L

LLP79Author

Contributor I

Thanks so much Bruce, really appreciate your help!! Will check that out.

Airgetlam

It's a lot of fiddly work up front, but once you have it set up, you won't likely need to touch it again until it "breaks". For me, it was the TV manufacturer who sent out a firmware update that reset the settings I'd entered in on the TV. Not supposed to happen, but people do make mistakes.

Continue to post if you run into issues. There's a lot of people here who like to help out where possible. 🙂

Bruce

J

JoseFerraro

Contributor I

Hello I am having the same issue. I have a Sonos Beam with two Sonos Ones for rear left and right speakers. My TV is an LGSK8100. The Beam is connected via an HDMI ARC connector. Configuring has been very glitchy but I eventually reached the point where all three are fine tuned which was successful. I got a nice surround sound chime at the end.

However when I use the TV sound is only outputted from the beam and the two Sonos Ones remain silent. I checked the About My Sonos System and the Audio In section for the Sonos Bean says 'Silence'. How can I change this to Dolby or even Stereo? If that is the way to get the two Sonos Ones to work with the Beam.

I try to edit TV settings but the Sonos App just tells me that the TV is already set up. On the TV menu the sound output is set to HDMI ARC (auto).

Airgetlam

Did you check the "About My Sonos System" while the TV was on? It would indeed say "silence" when the Beam isn't receiving/playing a signal (when the TV is off). You'd have to be watching something at the time, preferable a recent movie, broadcast in Dolby Digital.

Bruce

J

JoseFerraro

Contributor I

Thanks for the reply Airgetlam. That was the issue. Ive noticed that the source quality of the Dolby 5.1 seems to vary. I think one one occasion just after setting and watching a dolby video the rear (Sonos One) speakers were so quiet it sounded like there was no sound. Via the EQ setting on the Sonos app volume is at 100%. When I used true tune I remember there was a loud robust chime from the beam and both sonos one speaker but I have yet to experience that level of involvement of the rear speaker yet when watching a movie on Net Flicks or Amazon Prime. Is there another setting method to boost the volume of the rear speakers when receiving Dolby 5.1?

Airgetlam

No, unfortunately there's a lot of variability of the 5.1 signal based on the sound engineer who encoded the show. Once you've TruePlayed your speakers, you've set the baseline, then feel free to add any changes as you see necessary.

I often have issues between watching a movie and a football game, or formula one, and it's just the way the broadcaster encoded the signal, it's not a problem within Sonos. So I've set a happy medium, where I don't get blown out of the water (mostly) by the surrounds.

Do your setup on movies that you think you're going to watch more of that type. For me, it's things like Star Wars, or Jurassic Park that are the kind that I watch. Then I'm set when watching a Marvel movie, or Harry Potter films, or even a long time favorite of mine to show off surrounds, Saving Private Ryan. However, if I choose to set up based on other films, like Predestination, a sleeper hit that I really enjoy, then most other films aren't set up properly. So you just have to find where you're happy. It's not a problem with Sonos, much as it would be fun to blame them, but I had the exact same issue back when I had a Sony surround system with an A/V receiver and discrete speakers.

Bruce

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