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Sonos Beam - Placement Inside a Cabinet

  • 29 August 2018
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I'm looking to round out my Sonos setup and was considering the Beam to replace my Echo Dot in the tv room. The only place I can put the Beam inside a cabinet. There would be clearance of 2 inches on each side and 3 inches on the top. The manual for the Playbar specifically says not to place it in a cabinet but the Beam has no such language. Anyone have any experience with the Beam in a cabinet?

Also, my tv has an empty ARC HDMI. Will that transmit all the audio to the Beam from the tv regardless of the remaining inputs selected?

Any feed back greatly appreciated, far more interested in the Beam placement comments...
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Best answer by Ryan S 8 September 2018, 00:36

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The Playbar has drivers that are angled at 45 degrees which makes for placing inside a cabinet far from ideal, with the Beam, they're flat, and therefore less bad for a cabinet. In general, we don't recommend putting home theater devices designed to create a sound stage inside of an enclosure. The side drivers are supposed to bounce audio off of the walls of the room and create a field which will get distorted by such a setup.

Using Trueplay, you'll be able to make the best of a poor setup, but for ideal situations, we wouldn't recommend a cabinet. The clearance on top should be enough for the microphones to pick up your voice well enough, but this is probably the sort of set up you have to try out and see how it works, and if it's good for you.

As to your ARC question, yes, that's the use for HDMI-ARC, the TV should send all of the audio out of that connection to your Beam. You will need to adjust some of the TV settings to make sure it does this.