I currently have an Arc with gen 3 sub and two one SL surrounds. The only way I can setup the room is with the couch against the wall. I have the surrounds mounted and turned inward, but I don’t get the true surround feeling. I’ve seen that you can’t add more surrounds, but is there a work around with another speaker or two to put behind the couch to get the surround feeling? Ideally the speaker would be running the surround audio and not main audio.
Best answer by Airgetlam
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Not really, no. You could ‘group’ speakers in another ‘room’ in the Sonos software, but there would be a slight delay between the two ‘rooms’ that would like be distracting. Have you run TruePlay on your setup, or even tried pointing those Ones straight out, rather than angled in? What source are you using as a test?
I’ve run trueplay but only had the surrounds pointing inward. I thought that would be better. I’m testing from Greyhound (Apple TV+ LG tv app atmos movie), 6 Underground (Netflix Apple TV 4K app) and The Irishman (Blu Ray Criterion edition Atmos). It just feels empty behind me. Thanks for the feedback.
Those sources seem fine. Not sure how much ‘surround’ you’re expecting, but most audio mixers for movies keep them relatively mild. The scene I tend to do testing with is the opening scene of Saving Private Ryan, where the US forces are storming the beach, and being shot at. The sound director uses surrounds to excellent effect there. Some of the later Star Wars movies stand out, too.
You do want to be sure to check in the Sonos controller under settings>About my System, to double check what kind of signal that your Arc is receiving from your TV set. If it is only stereo, there wouldn’t be much being interpolated to send to the surrounds, and it’s fairly common to have a source improperly adjusted to be sending an inappropriate signal, be it a cable box, or even the settings on the TV set. So double checking what the Sonos is receiving can help alleviate that potential issue.
Thanks for the communication and for the recommendations. My system is getting Atmos. My old place I had surrounds about 4 feet behind me and it worked well. Now the sound is great on either side but I can’t get the “behind” surround feeling. It feels empty behind me. It’s great otherwise though. Just a negative of my place I guess.
I’ve always been in a situation where my couch is against the wall, so I don’t think I’ve ever had that kind of experience that you want.
Makes me wonder if you might have a better ‘feeling’ by replacing your surround speakers with a pair of the new IKEA picture frame speakers, which would move that ‘sound’ as far back as possible. I have read at least one review in which they were favorably thought of. But I haven’t seen any more reviews, nor have I heard them myself.
I appreciate the recommendation but I would trust ikea speakers. I’m just gonna have to find a good balance until (hopefully) there’s a better solution. Thanks for the help!!
IKEA buys the ‘speaker parts’ from Sonos, so they’re essentially normal Sonos speakers, just in a different form factor.
Thank you. I’ll look into that.
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