To answer your first queston: if you set the surrounds to "full” Airplaying music to the Beam will incorporate the surrounds (you'll get stereo from the Beam and from the surrounds).

I do not understand your second question: what "mode” is different between TV use and music and how would this be detrimental?

Thanks for replying, and you’ve answered the most important query I had. Apologies for the lack of clarity, I’ll try to explain what I’m after.

I’ve not had a surround system before. I understand that when the system I’ve described is delivering audio from TV in surround, it doesn’t simply pump out the same audio from each of the speakers, but delivers different parts of the audio output to the rears for immersive effect. Since My priority is listening to music, I wondered if a surround setup is detrimental to the best output for music?

Thanks again.

When playing music from a TV the system will creat a surround like effect on the surround speakers. When playing music from  a Sonos source and the surrounds are set to "Full” you will get stereo from both the soundbar and the surrounds. There is no detrimental effect, other than you are getteing “double stereo” instead of stereo from the surrounds only. Some peolpe are irritated by this.

I’m under no illusions that replacing a high end hifi system with Sonos will be a like for like exchange in terms of audio reproduction. I’m making the change as my listening habits have changed, I want to access streaming services and Sonos offers a more versatile way of doing that, with the option of multi room going forward.

My reservations are informed by posts elsewhere explaining a couple of challenges associated with using a TV surround setup. First that keeping the Beam and Ones separate means a slight echo resulting from both 5Ghz and 2.4Ghz being used for TV sound output. This issue is resolved as I understand it by setting up true surround, resulting in the rears delivering different frequencies to complement the 5.1 effects. What I didn’t know was how this might effect music output with all speakers being set up for surround.

If I understand what you’ve explained, this results in the Beam delivering stereo and the rears mirroring that. Airplay 2 in this scenario would be received by the Beam and distributed to the rears.

I’m coming at this from a position of relative ignorance which explains perhaps why my questions aren't especially clear. As I’m selling the hifi to fund the Sonos purchase, I will soon reach a point of no return, so wanted to understand these details fully before proceeding. Thanks again for taking time to reply.

Hi.  The echo effect you talk about has nothing to do with different WiFi bands and is entirely avoidable.  Let’s ignore that.  

Your concerns are unfounded.  The surround sound only applies to sound sent to the Beam over the HDMI cabled connection from the television.  All music sources sent to the Beam (streaming services, music Airplayed from your phone etc) will play in stereo.  As others have said, it will play in stereo from the Beam AND from the rears.  You can choose whether to play the rears barely audibly (“Ambient”) or at a volume consistent with the Beam volume (“Full”).  Surround sound does not operate in this situation.

In effect, there are two “modes” - TV and music - although they are not referred to as “modes” in the system.

(To complete the picture, the sound from the TV will often be stereo only, in which case you will generally get stereo from the Beam and nothing from the rears.  What I have referred to as ‘music’ mode is really ‘not over the audio cable from the TV’ mode.)

Hi John,

Your answer addresses each of my concerns. Thanks for the reassurance and taking time to reply.

Glad to help.  Please note the added couple of paragraphs in my original post, which crossed with your reply.

To be brutally frank, if music playback is a high priority and one is used to a decent HiFi system I wouldn’t recommend a sound bar. The stereo imaging and the narrowness of the soundstage could disappoint. 

Have you consider a Sonos Amp with a front pair of passive speakers, perhaps retaining your existing ones? This would support TV input, surrounds and so forth, but without such a compromise for music reproduction. For the TV centre channel output an Amp generates a phantom centre.

I’ve got a really nice separates system which I bought in the mid nineties and you’re right of course about the disparity between that and a tech product like Sonos. I have to accept though that my listening habits have changed over the years. My hifi sits quietly from month to month as I listen almost exclusively to streamed music. I have hooked a Yamaha WX-AD10 into the hifi in an attempt to bring it up to date but to no real benefit. If I went the route you suggest I think I’d choose a Bluesound Node. The positioning of my TV relative to the hifi isn’t suitable to combine the two. A Sonos replacement for what I have isn’t by any means perfect, but does at least offer a solution albeit with compromises.

I see. A Bluesound Node surely wouldn’t offer TV/surround.

If the home layout precludes sitting facing the TV when wanting to listen to nice music then I can understand the predicament. I just thought that an Amp might be an acceptable solution potentially offering the best of both worlds: full Sonos integration plus TV input and 5.1 surround, and a broader and perhaps more tuneful music listening experience.

FWIW I originally came from a ‘traditional’ HiFi background, initially plumbing a Sonos ZP80 (distant ancestor of the Port) into an early pair of AVI active speakers. These days I listen to music on a well spaced pair of Fives along with a Sub, Trueplay-tuned to compensate for some rather strong room modes. Soundbars are reserved for TV usage.

That solution certainly addresses the dilemma by separating TV from the mix and prioritising music playback. The versatility of any Sonos system means that option remains open to me. I think I’ve taken the blinkered view that if all the (Sonos) components are available, then it makes sense to use them all, whether listening to music or viewing TV. It’s a nice problem to have. I’ve marched up and down this particular hill a few times and it’s time now to make a decision. I suspect I’ll never be entirely happy giving up traditional hifi but since I hardly use it these days, the argument to keep it weakens daily.