Sonos 5s as rears (but for main purpose for music)

  • 14 September 2022
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Hi All.

Background

My original intention was to go for the ARC + Sub + 2 One SLs but wondering whether I should go for the 5s.  I know full well, that the Sonos 5s are overkill if they are primarily used as rears.  However while it would serve that purpose, its more about having better music playback more than anything else (when listening to music in FULL mode).  I don’t want to have speakers either side of the TV just for music (given aesthetic reasons) and it would also not leverage off the sub I would have already paid for.  

My room is fairly large - 20 feet long (6m) and its open plan on width 15 feet wide (4.5m) in the Living area but extends to a total of 30 feet (9m) including the dining area.  

The bulky 5s would be placed within a wall long book case shelf so they will be easy on the eye (located over 1m or 3ft behind the couch that faces the TV).  

I have no real intention to use the line in port (which gets disabled when using the 5s as rears).  

Questions:

  1.  Does anyone have this set up with music in mind, if so what has been your experience?
  2.  When listening music in full mode, can you adjust the volume so that 100% of the music is only coming from the rear speakers?
  3. Has anyone upgraded their One SLs to 5s in this configuration and really experienced a significant difference?

I know many of you would suggest having them separated just for music - but aesthetics is key here.  The whole reason I am considering Sonos in the first place is for simplicity and moving away from large bulky speakers.   The 5s in a bookcase are still going to be fairly discreet.  

1 reply

Not An Opossum
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I have the arc, sub, and play:1s as rears. The Fives are overkill for surround audio, but in a music focused setup, Fives will be significantly better. You can adjust to have most music coming from the Fives, but (currently) the arc will still play at a much lower volume. Obviously you can tune and adjust this as to how much is coming from each, but not mute the arc. I hope Sonos will find a way to quickly separate rears and sub from the arc for music in a future app update. 

One plus of using the arc in a music setup is playing atmos from Amazon music or Apple Music. You currently need an Apple TV to play atmos from Apple Music, but I believe that’s an apple imposed limitation for the time being.
 

If you have the money, I’d totally go with Fives. If things change in the future, you can always move the Fives somewhere else, and add Ones for the rears. This is my opinion as an oppos…human that mostly only cares about music and aesthetics. Hope this helps.

- Not an opossum

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