Question

Rear surrounds options with Playbar

  • 3 October 2016
  • 3 replies
  • 554 views

Hi everyone,

Need some advice here. I'm building a house and I'm planning of purchasing Playbar with Sub. What are my options for surround sounds? I already own a Play:1 and was thinking to get another one to set them up as surrounds. But for a logistic point of view I would be interested to know if it's possible to add in-ceiling speakers and to set them up as L+R surrounds? What will I need to purchase to have that set up?

I currently own a Yamaha receiver RX-V 2073 (and an RXN600) that I haven't sold yet that I could use perhaps as pre-amps if need be but I've grown tired of cables ratness hence I'm switching to Sonos.

Does the Playbar have only optical as input or it also has an HDMI?

Thanks for your help,
Pat
Australia

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3 replies

I am changing out my existing home theater to the playbar and sub. I have 2 in ceiling speakers that I am told can be added with a connect amp to make a 5.1 system. Will these 2 wired speakers act as a true 5.1 system even though they aren't Sonos products? I don't want them to just play the same as front speakers.

You can use a Connect:Amp and the speakers as true surround speakers with a few caveats: You have to be in Sonosonet (aka "Boost") setup, there has to be a wired connection between the Connect:Amp and the Playbar (to make up for the lag in the Connect:Amp's 2.4 GHZ wireless) and the sub port and line-in on the Connect:Amp are disabled in this configuration. See this link for details:

https://sonos.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/2248/kw/connect:Amp%20as%20surrounds
I am changing out my existing home theater to the playbar and sub. I have 2 in ceiling speakers that I am told can be added with a connect amp to make a 5.1 system. Will these 2 wired speakers act as a true 5.1 system even though they aren't Sonos products? I don't want them to just play the same as front speakers.
You can use play:1s, 3s or 5s as surrounds or you can use a Connect:amp you wired speakers such as your ceiling speakers. The connect:amp must have a wired Ethernet path to the Playbar however.

The Playbar only has an optical input and only supports vanilla dolby digital, which limits the usefulness, imo.