LG G1 to connect:amp

Is37,
One of the first things to mention here is, if you plan to use your ceiling speakers for HT front surrounds (and phantom center) you cannot do that with the older Sonos Connect:Amp, but it can be done with the newer Sonos Amp - which will connect to your TV over HDMI-ARC (not HDMI) or Optical port (with an adapter - supplied separately).

However there are some options to use your older Connect:Amp and ceiling speakers for use as Sonos HT rear surrounds. See below:

Ceiling speakers are most often used as the ‘rear’ surrounds with a Sonos HT setup and the older Connect:Amp in that situation needs to be cabled to either the main HT (front) device.

For the front left/right and center HT channels, you need to use such devices as a Sonos Arc, Beam, PlayBase, Playbar or the newer Sonos Amp, all of which connect to the TV optical port.. although the newer Sonos products (Arc/Beam/Amp) connect also over HDMI-ARC (not HDMI) (recommended).

So the issues here are that things depend on what HT channels you plan to use the ceiling speakers for … if it’s front surrounds your Connect:Amp will not do those channels… if it’s rear surrounds, then you first need a main Sonos HT product to connect to your TV and you will need to cable things if you wish to use your Connect:Amp for your Sonos HT (rear channel) ceiling speakers.

Note, whilst the optical-to-HDMI adapter is sold separately with the Sonos Amp. I understand it is currently supplied with both the Arc and Beam HT products (I guess that is subject to change, so perhaps check before any purchase).

I have connected the TV cables to the connect:amp through regular audio in L/R and no sound seems to come out (using old TV)

That can work with some TV’s (but most TV RCA plugs I’ve seen are often for audio-in (not audio-out)), but you may need to set the audio output to the RCA port in the old TV settings (perhaps?) …in any event you will certainly experience a 75+ms audio-delay with line-in audio to the Connect:Amp, which will just likely give you lip-sync issues with the video on screen. The older Connect:Amp device was not designed to handle TV audio… ideally you need a dedicated Sonos HT product.

Essentially though a new AMP with HDMI-Arc should work fine if I am not wrong? New to the HT world and only ever used sonos for music prior to this. Looking at getting the new amp and then running that through the new TV as it should eleviate the problems. With the new amp would 4 speakers is still do-able is that correct?

If you connect all 4 of your ceiling speakers to the new Sonos Amp (which in turn is connected to your TV via its Optical or HDMI-ARC port) you will get 3.0 audio (that’s the front left/right channels only to your ceiling speakers and ‘muxed’ in with that, will be a ‘phantom’ center channel - I’m not sure that would sound ideal. 
 

Depending perhaps on the position of your ceiling speakers in relation to your seated position in the room, you might find you are much better off just wiring two front ceiling speakers to the new Amp and put the two ‘rear’ channel ceiling speakers on your old Connect:Amp instead - but those devices need wiring back to your LAN/Router (ideally via the newer Amp)… as explained in more detail in this link:

https://support.sonos.com/s/article/2237

Hi @Ken_Griffiths, just one more enquiry, we have now gotten the new TV. The 2 ceiling speakers are currently just wired as L/R as there are only 2 and they are centred in the room. I believe from reading what you were saying using those speakers as standalone would require a new amp, is that correct or is there an adapter to get to use just a L/R ceiling speaker. Thanks

I need to know what you’re trying to achieve - is it:

(a) Connect your two ceiling speakers to the TV as the front left and right channels - if so, you will need a new Sonos Amp to do this. The Connect:Amp cannot do this and there is no adapter for it.

(b) Connect your two ceiling speakers to a Sonos HT product (using a yet to be purchased Arc/Beam/PlayBase/Amp etc.) and then use your ceiling speakers as the left/right rear surrounds? If so the new Amp will drive two front speaker channels only with a phantom center… and you can use your existing Connect:Amp to drive rear left/right channels, but the Sonos products need to be wired back to the router as explained in the Sonos Support document linked in my previous post.

I hope you can follow that - personally speaking, I would not use ‘centred’ ceiling speakers for either type of HT setup, but it’s a matter for yourself. I think it might sound strange to have TV dialog coming from the ceiling in the centre of the room… but I guess we all hear things differently. Given the choice, I would just choose to use those ceiling speakers for music audio.

I understand now! If a HT base is in play then the old amp is good to go, otherwise not. 

Re centre speakers, am also trying to fix that issue aiming to put 2 new front speakers in to try and mitigate the ceiling speakers being towards the middle of the room, and then can run those through the new AMP

Yes that sounds much better to me - my own choice would perhaps have been to put the Sonos Arc at the front and two Sonos One SL’s for the rear and just keep the Connect:Amp (& ceiling speakers) for music - the only issue there, is the age of the Connect:Amp - as if it’s older than April 2015 (a Gen1 C/A) it can only be used with the S1 Sonos App as explained in this link below and the Arc and One SL’s are S2 App only… see this:

https://support.sonos.com/s/article/4786

So just check these things before making your decision.

Thats definitely an option, might not work out due to cabinets and space so will probably have to settle for 2x One SL for front and then the ceiling speakers L/R as rear. Currently only 1cm space b/w TV and cabinet. Thanks so much for advice

That’s okay, note the One SL’s cannot be used as fronts, only as rears - I guess that I may have confused you a little by mentioning those (sorry).

The primary options perhaps are:

• Use the new Sonos Amp and two 3rd-party ‘passive’ speakers for the front channels and the Connect:Amp/ceiling speakers as the rear channels…. I just don’t personally like the idea of the rear TV channels being in the center of the room in this type of setup.

Or…

• You could do away with the existing Connect:Amp and replace it with the newer Sonos Amp and use that with your ceiling speakers only as the TV front channels - it just means the TV sound will then be coming from the ceiling direction, which I think may not sound right … hence my suggestion of not using the ceiling speakers for TV audio, but perhaps utilise them for music-audio only. (but that’s only a personal opinion - it’s entirely your decision).

Definitely don’t want to be having option B long term because totally agree it sounds weird having only vertical sound! Tried and tested and although better than TV sound it is very weird.

I have settled on a new Amp, will get 2 non native front speakers and keep the current speakers through the connect:amp as Rears. Will be the best compromise least hassle I believe. Thanks so much!