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Avid Contributor I
Dec 11, 2017 10:17 PM UTC
Question

Thinking of buying 5.1 surround sonos

I’m thinking of purchasing a pair of play 1s to complement my sound bar and sub ! I’m wanting 5.1 surround but worried I won’t get that as my tv isn’t listed on the recommended list of tvs on the sonos forum
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43 replies

Airgetlam
Dec 14, 2017 11:07 PM UTC
Assuming that all are set up for Dolby Digital (they all have their own individual audio settings), it's then up to the TV to pass through the correct data to the optical cable.

There's a lot of posts from people regarding Samsung in this section of the forum, I'd recommend doing a search and see if someone else has figured this out, without using the HDMI/Optical box.
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Bruce
Rlspurs31Author
Avid Contributor I
Dec 14, 2017 11:13 PM UTC
Yeah il look around see what I can find ! Just so difficult when u don’t know much about this stuff
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Airgetlam
Dec 15, 2017 12:04 AM UTC
Yea, but once you've got them set up, you'll never have to deal with it again. It's one of those conundrums, you have to know a lot up front, and then never need to remember it in the future (mostly).
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Bruce
nifoxke
Prodigy I
Dec 15, 2017 2:08 AM UTC
From what I understand most Samsung TVs don’t pass through the Dolby Digital via optical. Can you connect one of your devices (probably the Xbox One) directly to the Playbar via optical to see if that works? If so, it’s the TV that’s the issue.
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Rlspurs31Author
Avid Contributor I
Dec 15, 2017 6:21 AM UTC
Yes yesterday I took the optical from soundbar to xboxone and then checked my sonos app and I was getting Dolby Digital ! As soon as I conectedmnack to tv I was getting stereo !
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Rlspurs31Author
Avid Contributor I
Dec 15, 2017 6:28 AM UTC
I spoke with sonos yesterday and they recommend something like this !!!

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Stuart_W
World-Class Superstar
Dec 15, 2017 9:38 AM UTC
I used something like that initially with my Samsung TV. Connected to it was my Xbox, Freesat DVR, BT Box and Blu-Ray.

Although it worked I hated it. The remote only had a range of a few feet and as I had to hide the box behind the TV I had to walk up to the TV to make it work. The other thing is that it did some unwanted decoding of the audio so I had to cycle through various options to get it to pass DD 5.1 (the instructions were very basic). Sometimes it took me more than 5 minutes to get the unit to pass the DD 5.1 signal I knew was available.

I ended up just getting an Optical switch and taking optical out (audio) from TV, BT Box and Humax DVR. It's cheap and nasty looking but you just manually switch and it works fine.
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Arc + Sub (Gen 1) + 2 x Play 1/ Stereo Play 3s/ Era 100 Stereo in Kitchen, One Stereo in Bedroom, Play 1 stereo pair in Study, Play 1in Bathroom, Sonos Move 2
Rlspurs31Author
Avid Contributor I
Dec 15, 2017 10:49 AM UTC
Morning guys I’ve spoken to Samsung again this morning regarding this dd 5:1 and they are saying that the only way this will work is that the sonos sound bar has to be plugged direct to the source I’m using with an optical , whether xboxone or PS4 , or sky tv I have to unplug optical in back of tv and plug direct to the source , so does this mean I gotta get a optical switch or hdmi switch lol
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Stuart_W
World-Class Superstar
Dec 15, 2017 11:29 AM UTC
Either would work

As I said above I didn't get on with the 4 x HDMI video/audio splitter.

This is the one I bought from Amazon https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B0119J94FM/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1
As I said It worked but the control via the remote was bad and it did weird things to the audio

In the end I plugged all my sources into the TV via HDMI but too the audio out of each (optical) into a switch I bough tfrom Maplin.
https://www.maplin.co.uk/p/3-way-optical-digital-audio-switcher-l34ak

And yes I have audio out from TV to the switch as well

Works for me
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Arc + Sub (Gen 1) + 2 x Play 1/ Stereo Play 3s/ Era 100 Stereo in Kitchen, One Stereo in Bedroom, Play 1 stereo pair in Study, Play 1in Bathroom, Sonos Move 2
Rlspurs31Author
Avid Contributor I
Dec 15, 2017 11:35 AM UTC
Yeah I thought I’d need a optical switch ! I saw that on the maplins site and will purchase that ! Also il need more optical cables are there any I should avoid or spend a certain amount ?
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