Playbase - separation of centre, left and right channels

Yes, but unfortunately that is the price to pay for benefit of the Sonos way of eliminating clutter and wiring. And you can't add even Sonos speakers in front as you would like to.

Hi - you can only add pairs Play:1/3/5 as surround speakers in a 5.1 setup,. They can't be added for the front left/right channels.

As for calibration, if you have access to an iOS device, you could try 'TruePlay' tuning the Playbase room.

Link here: https://sonos.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/3555/~/how-to-tune-your-speakers-using-trueplay

I very much doubt that Trueplay will increase the width of the soundstage.

Thanks for replies .. yeah done true play .. guess that’s the joy of bar speakers rather than individual ones..

I have once speculated here if instead of the playbase incorporating three speakers, Sonos could have offered a better solution with a smaller playbase that just does centre speaker duties + all the TV interfacing and DSP magic to allow the front left/right to be served by a 1 pair. With another 1 pair for rear surrounds if desired. And Sub, also if desired, but the playbase + front 1 pair would be the minimum configuration for TV. It would also allow just the 1 pair playing in stereo paired mode offer better sound than just the playbase for music play.

I wouldn't think there would be too much downside to incorporating the option of two additional front speakers for the 5.1. setup. The L and R front channels already exist, they just need to be duplicated. But I don't know, maybe it's an extra processing or wireless burden.

That said though, I can see where customers would see it as required, and this see the system as too expensive perhaps. Or maybe they would request that L&R front channels be turned often in the playbase/playbar. And then, customers will complain that there needs to be a cheaper center channel option. Why can't I just use a PLAY:3 as a center channel. There would be issues.

Then again, there is always issues. If Sonos allowed front speakers like this, I probably would buy them.

Like your thinking Kumar .. I’d buy that!

That said though, I can see where customers would see it as required, and this see the system as too expensive perhaps.
My vision for this is a much smaller than playbase centre speaker, about the size of the 3. Priced such that the total of that + a 1 pair for the front would be the same as that for the base as it is now.

Kumar, add HDMI throughput and DTS decoding on that device, I'd buy two 🙂 Kumar for CEO!

I second the motion to promote Kumar for CEO.

I honestly would prefer just a CONNECT like device, no speaker attached. That way you can you a 1's,3's or 5's as the center channel, sourrounds, and fronts as you desire. It's 'only' job is to decode to incoming signals and send the right channels to the right speakers. With HDMI input of course.

As an added bonus, throw in a B 'zone', so that you can optionally send stereo to second zone at 5.0 Ghz, so there is no delay in audio.