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Peter_254
Prodigy II
November 13, 2024

Arc Ultra+Sub Gen2+2xPlay 1. Yes, it works.

Even though Play 1's shouldn't work with Arc Ultra, it does.

Had Playbar-Gen2 Sub-2xPlay 1. It worked perfectly as a 5.1 surround set.

It was time for an upgrade and as such would just upgrade my soundbar and then the rest would come when I could afford it. Yes, I know Gen2 Sub is supported with Ultra.

 

Before installing I removed the surround (play 1's and removed sub) from my Playbar. After that, reset all devices.

Installed Arc Ultra. (needed an update)
First impression when I had installed Arc Ultra, Wau..
Rich bass and fantastic sound, but missed depth from my Sub and could also feel that surround was missing a bit.

Connected my Gen2 Sub to SONOS (needed an update) and got it connected to my Ultra. Yes thank you, huge difference.

Decided to try if Play 1´s would work even though they shouldn't.
Connected the first one to SONOS and then the second one (needed to update) The the app asked if I wanted to add them as Surround.

Yes please :)

Now I'm sitting and enjoying Deadpool and Wolverine in dolby atmos..

 

 

 

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    paulrw
    Prodigy II
    November 15, 2024

    Unless there’s another post, the official Sonos reply on Reddit stated:

    For context: Play:1, Play:3, and Play:5s are missing the resources (CPU, RAM, etc.) to stream high-bandwidth Atmos audio. You can still group speakers with Arc Ultra if you want multi-room playback, but the early speakers didn't have Atmos in mind when they were made.

    May have to unhide the reply to see it due to the downvotes.

     

    This sounds like a BS justification, considering presumably all the Atmos processing happens on the Arc and all it's sending to the surrounds is a PCM audio stream for each channel that could be literally anything. Given that the Play1s can stream uncompressed PCM wav files (1400-odd kbps) from a local server, bandwidth also clearly can't be a constraint.

    I was ready to pull the trigger on an Arc Ultra to replace my Playbar, dropping it into my Sub gen1 and 2x Play1s setup for now with the plan to replace everything else in future, basically committing to another decade of Sonos, but now I'm going to wait and see. If this is some artificial planned obsolescence nonsense then I think I'll sweat another couple of years out of my Playbar and then move to another brand.

    This is beginning to sound like first evidence of forced obsolescence proved by users...oh dear.

    i agree with you, alot of playbar owners might have bought ultra for straight swap, that won’t now, lost sales, guess sonos have crunched the numbers….tricky tech risk wise what will work in most homes...offer 100day returns again..

    106rallye
    106rallye
    November 15, 2024

    Without any knowledge about what this computational power would be used for in surrounds, we as users simply do not know if Sonos is honest about this. I tend to think they are…... 

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