Question

Listening to music without surround

C

Hi,

I’ve just recently become a sonos user. I have a setup with two B&W 702s connected to a Sonos Amp (they serve as front speakers) and two Sonos One SL for for rear speakers. Also there is a Sonos Sub gen2.

It all works fairly well with my tv as a surround home theatre (even if it’s just 4.1). However… when listening to music I would really prefer the rear speakers to be inactive and the B&W speakers together with the sub do all the work. So, my question is - is it possible to somehow deactivate the Sonos One SL speakers when playing music? Just to be clear, I realise I could remove the Sonos One SL from the room setup and then add them when I want to watch a movie - but I don't want to have to that all the time. I switch between movies and music quite a lot. I seem to remember someone saying it was possible to “turn off” the rear speakers but I have not been able to find that setting or perhaps they where just misinformed. Does anyone know what is possible in this context? I would imagine I can't be the only one who doesn't want music pumped out to the full hometheater setup.

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10 replies

J

It certainly used to be possible to turn off the surrounds, but I cannot find that setting right now.  But under ‘Surround Audio’ for the Amp running the front speakers, set Music playback to ‘Ambient’ and slide Music level to its minimum value, and i think you will get what you want.  Please let us know how it goes.

 

C

Hmmm… good idea. I’ll give that a try and get back.

C

I tried having the ambience setting and then drawing down “music” to zero. But there was still sound coming from the rear speakers. It would appear that if you have a surround setup you simply cannot play music and exclude the rear speakers unless they are removed from the surround setup.

J

Just looked again.  For my Beam the setting at the top of Surround Audio section allows you to turn off surrounds.  I would expect the Amp to have the same setting but cannot check that as I don’t have an Amp.

C

Exactly what does it say in the section? Is it “Turn off” or what? So I know what to look for.

J

It is just labelled ‘Surrounds’ with an on/off slider.

J

 

 

F
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But if you do that, you have to enable/disable all the time when switching between inputs.

 

nice to see another user with Amp, sub, rears and B&W fronts. I myself have the Amp drive B&W 705 S2. Works terrific, and actually I like the sound for music best with the surrounds (Play:1 actually) set to ambient and -5% on the slider. My surrounds are a few meters to the back and side of my main listening position. With these settings the surrounds just support broadening the sound stage without messing with the sound colour of the B&Ws. Together with the Sonos sub they just blend in beautifully. I first tried a pair of Play:5s as surround, but that did not work and I moved them to different rooms.

J

But if you do that, you have to enable/disable all the time when switching between inputs.

 

That’s true, but I think OP would settle for that as an alternative to removing / adding surrounds.  And for those with soundbars who use Trueplay I think this avoids the need to Trueplay each time.  (Although possibly you have to settle for having one set up or the other optimised by Trueplay - not sure on that.)

 

C

Nice to hear someone else has the B&W setup.

 

switching surround on and off is perfectly fine for me. I’m just surprised I couldn’t figure it out myself. I was u set the impression that the toggle would remove my surround and not just disable it.

 

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