Rear sound from Beam 5.0 system when playing stereo??

I’ve had a Beam running with two Play 1s as rear speakers for around a week now. Everything works fine and I’m enjoying using Alexa.

I’m intrigued though as to exactly what sound it is that’s being extracted from ordinary stereo music streamed from Spotify, and output through the rear speakers. Does anyone know please?

My previous Sony surround system used to be able to do this but then it had all sorts of fancy capabilities (pro logic etc) which I don’t think the Beam has.

Hi Zigzag2,

If you set the rear speaker's music playback to full, the Beam will send the left and right stereo signals to the rear speakers as well as the front. This works when listening to music through the Sonos app, but does not apply when listening to TV audio. For TV audio, the rear channels will only play if the TV audio has a rear channel.

Thank you so much. Following the 'clues' in your reply I've discovered that I do indeed have control over the rear sound volume. Ambient works just fine and helps give a little more body to the sound.

Now I can try it out with Dolby input from which, I've found, the rear speakers sound somewhat underwhelming in films such as 'Interstellar'.

Kind regards

Zigzag2,

For music to the rear surround speakers, set 'Settings/Room Settings/(PlayBar Room)/Advanced Audio/Surround Settings/Music Playback' to FULL

To provide 'more' TV audio sound out from a 5.0/5.1 audio source like Netflix, for example, to the rear surrounds, then goto 'Settings/Room Settings/(PlayBar Room)/Advanced Audio/Surround Settings' and slide the TV Level slider bar to the right.

To check and confirm that the audio out from the TV is definitely Dolby Digital 5.1 and not simply stereo you can goto 'Settings/About My Sonos System' and find your Beam in the device list, where it will show the 'Audio In' being received ... it should say Dolby Digital 5.1.

Hope all that helps you get the best from your Beam.

Thanks Ken, Sorry for delay in response. I have indeed found experimenting with these settings worthwhile. Having had the Beam for a couple of weeks now I am much more impressed with it than I was at first. The sound with dvds etc is much clearer and more detailed than it was through my old Sony 5.1 system. It’s also satisfyingly loud on music with the rear speakers set to ‘full’. The result is I’ve now got two redundant Play 5 2gen sat pretty much unused in the dining room...

Thanks Ken, Sorry for delay in response. I have indeed found experimenting with these settings worthwhile. Having had the Beam for a couple of weeks now I am much more impressed with it than I was at first. The sound with dvds etc is much clearer and more detailed than it was through my old Sony 5.1 system. It’s also satisfyingly loud on music with the rear speakers set to ‘full’. The result is I’ve now got two redundant Play 5 2gen sat pretty much unused in the dining room...
That’s great to hear that you are now a lot more happier with the Beam. It still makes me wonder why sonos leave some settings the way they do. I certainly would like to see them set the surrounds to 'full' rather than 'ambient' by default, for music playback.

Anyhow thanks for letting me know the outcome ?

Zigzag2,

For music to the rear surround speakers, set 'Settings/Room Settings/(PlayBar Room)/Advanced Audio/Surround Settings/Music Playback' to FULL

To provide 'more' TV audio sound out from a 5.0/5.1 audio source like Netflix, for example, to the rear surrounds, then goto 'Settings/Room Settings/(PlayBar Room)/Advanced Audio/Surround Settings' and slide the TV Level slider bar to the right.

To check and confirm that the audio out from the TV is definitely Dolby Digital 5.1 and not simply stereo you can goto 'Settings/About My Sonos System' and find your Beam in the device list, where it will show the 'Audio In' being received ... it should say Dolby Digital 5.1.

Hope all that helps you get the best from your Beam.

This was spot on - thanks Ken.

Being slightly lazy here and not experimenting myself, but for TV how does everyone with a Beam and two Ones have their settings for 5.0? At the moment I have the slider approx 75% to the right. Anyone use 100%?

Watched the first episode of 'The Haunting of Hill House' on Netflix last night - the surround sound was very good. And scary!!