Sonos Port Used for Surround Speakers

No, it isn’t. 

Is there a place we can request a feature as this makes a lot of sense.

Hi @Luke_18 and @admindevil 

Sonos speakers used as surrounds must be BONDED to a Sonos Home Theater speaker such as an Arc, Beam, Playbar, Playbase or a Sonos Amp that uses 3rd party speakers for left and right channels. The same applies to the Sonos Sub.

A feature request to use a Sonos Port to run surround speakers would only make sense if the speakers being used were powered 3rd party speakers. I doubt Sonos would ever consider adding such a feature as it would require a total redesign of the Port. To do so would not be something simply handled by a firmware/software update.

From a marketing standpoint doing so would also duplicate features of the Sonos Amp to a degree and erode Sonos Amp sales. Besides the Port would not be sold at the same price point as now. It would be more expensive.

I’d be curious to know under what circumstances one would require a Port to drive surrounds as surround material is sent by the Sonos Home Theaters speakers I mentioned earlier.

I doubt we are talking a total redesign of the Port for this feature - let me give a simple sample - front of the room I have my TV with a sonos amp and 2 passive speakers. - rear of the room is my listening area where i have my vinyl setup which includes a pre, power amp and passive speakers. I also have a sonos port connect on one input with ht bypass in case I want some beefier music. All works great except I wanted to have surround sound for the TV and only way to do this was to add 2 Sonos ones on top of my speakers in the rear, alternative was another Sonos Amp with a speaker level switch which I really didn't like. Any thoughts on this scenario?

@admindevil 

I see what you are suggesting. However the Sonos Port is not designed to operate over 5Ghz which is how surround information is sent by Sonos.

Ahh good point - never checked wifi specs as all sonos hardwired - let me grab a another amp and a niles spk-1 - will trigger it from my pre-amp :-)

My reasons are pretty simple. I have large speakers I’d like to use with my own amp as rears. The Port would be connected via Ethernet so wireless isn’t a consideration. 
 

thanks. 

OK grabbed another amp and build a speaker selector so all good now - one thing that I raised before is that it would be great if you could force music to only play on surrounds only

Surround sound working - check

Subwoofer working wired into the front amp working - check

Port connected to analog working to stream analog - check

Switch rear speakers to analog setup working - check

Play Sonos Music only on rear amp not working - can only increase volume of rears

@admindevil 

Please do me a favor. As you say you are now getting surround audio through a Sonos Port… the next time you are using the Port for surround please check the room via the Sonos app and let us know if the output shows DD 5.1 or 2.0.

Apologies if I was not clear - surround sound driven by rear SONOS Amp - let me illustrate.