Play 1's as double as surround and standalone speakers

  • 28 November 2017
  • 3 replies
  • 2008 views

Hey Everyone,

I just took the dive into the sonos community. I just purchased a playbar and 1 play:1. I wanted to have the option of being able to have music in a few separate rooms in the house for when I am entertaining, but I'm finding myself wanting more already! I want to eventually get a SUB but for now I will need make it work without one.

For now I am looking at adding another play:1 so I can achieve surround sound with the playbar (minus the SUB for now) and am wondering if I group those all together for surround sound can I set the play:1's up to play standalone full volume music as well. Like can I move a play:1 into dining room if hosting dinner to play music and then move back into living room for surround again? Will this require me to ungroup and re set up each time I want to do that?

Sorry if this is confusing but thanks everyone. I'm already becoming addicted to my sonos system.

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3 replies

Yes, it will require you to ungroup (and technically, it's called bond and unbond when talking about surrounds) each time you want to use them as "standalone.

But, there's actually a way around that, if you're willing to have the PLAYBAR play music at the same time. In the controller app, you can go in to the room settings for the room that has the PLAYBAR, and then go to advanced settings, and select the Surround settings and there you can set the PLAY:1s to be "full", rather than "ambient" when playing music. You can actually change the volume of them in while playing music in that same location. Then you can just move the two PLAY:1 in to the dining room and plug them in, and have the music in both rooms. As long as the distance isn't too far, that is. The surround speakers connect to the PLAYBAR with a 5Ghz signal, which means it's slightly less effective across longer distances. I'd try it out before you have a dinner party, though, just to be safe.
If i unbound or bound speakers , the trueplay calibration will not be effective anymore , right ?
If i unbound or bound speakers , the trueplay calibration will not be effective anymore , right ?

Yes, you will need to redo Trueplay.