Will this play correctly as far as timing/delay/echo, etc? Will it sound right? Trueplay? How is sound processing and distribution handled for ARC Ultra connected to TV? Specifically, in the case of Atmos signal received, would the Arc Ultra send the original Atmos input to the Fives and Fives process it into stereo? Or would the Ultra decode the Atmos and send a PCM Stereo Mix to the Fives? Or would the Arc Ultra decode and only send the FL/FR channels to the Fives and disable its own L/R? Read in another forum someone has this working with option 2.3 but I didn’t see an announcement this was supported yet so am suspicious.

Enthusiast II

Answered

Can I group a pair of Fives as front left/front right with an Arc Ultra system Home Theater System?

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Will this play correctly as far as timing/delay/echo, etc? Will it sound right? Trueplay?
How is sound processing and distribution handled for ARC Ultra connected to TV?
1. Specifically, in the case of Atmos signal received, would the Arc Ultra send the original Atmos input to the Fives and Fives process it into stereo?
2. Or would the Ultra decode the Atmos and send a PCM Stereo Mix to the Fives?
3. Or would the Arc Ultra decode and only send the FL/FR channels to the Fives and disable its own L/R?

Read in another forum someone has this working with option 2.3 but I didn’t see an announcement this was supported yet so am suspicious.

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buzzAnswer

Grand Maestro

In a word: No.

The soundbars do not support extra “L/R” speakers. If you Group a stereo pair of speakers with a soundbar, the extra speakers will not be incorporated with surround processing and there will be a time skew. When playing a music source the Group members will be time aligned.

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jgatie

Because IMO why take on video and streaming with a $$$ streamer to compete with $25 Firesticks? That was a no brainer cancellation, would have been DOA and is perfect summation of the previous CEO’s strategy. There’d have been some appeal to niche users who wanted HDMI switching and official support for adding fronts...but hardly enough to build significant demand for a new product line.

As for figuring out separates, I hear what you are saying...but reality is adding fronts is no different than adding surrounds, from a technical perspective...matter of fact, surrounds are probably more complicated, given number of channels the ERA300 muxes into the bubble.

Nah, I think fronts was held back for other reasons. If you’re reading Sonos Product People, deploy the feature from Pinewood! PLEASE!

Pure speculation, just like my opinion, and neither one of us knows anything real. Also, you are ignoring the fact that adding separate fronts is piling extra bandwidth (fronts carry far more information than surrounds/Atmos) on the currently razor thin buffer of the 5 GHz connection.

melvimbe

It’s probably not a single line of code, but a complete re-engineering of both the code, and the electronics built inside the devices.

Not to mention Sonos isn’t a high end company, and probably sees little profit to offset the work necessary, and minimal sales. But that’s mere speculation on my part.

I’d wager the additional sales in Fives, 300s, 100s would make up for the investment required…but in terms of customer satisfaction, maybe even greater value.

Sonos does the market research, so I’m thinking they know the market better than we do. You could also look to competitors and see that no one else is adding this feature in wireless speakers, which enforces the idea that it’s not as big a market as you might guess.

I was a 100% in favor of adding this feature a couple years ago. Now, I still want it, but not as eagerly as before. With atmos music coming on, it seems the need for stereo separation in the front is less so. We shall see though.

That’s not what I’ve seen reading through forums, there’s demand now...and would be new demographic of those with larger rooms who’d never consider a soundbar. It's just software, grouping already does it kinda, just need to figure out the delay issue. It couldn’t cost that much to just add adjustable delay when grouping speakers….this is a no brainer ROI case.

This seems like such a layup to give those that want it an option to buy more Sonos speakers

Again, I don’t think Sonos is relying on internet forums for their market research. I also don’t know that Sonos really wants to target larger rooms for their products. The market of folks who have 30 ft front walls and don’t want to wire their speakers can’t be that big. Not to mention that 5 Ghz communication between speakers is going to be strained at those long distances between speakers, trueplay tuning, etc. I would be surprised if this is the dempgraphic they want to target.

As pointed out already, the delay isn’t arbitrary, it’s needed. Even if they ‘solved’ the delay issue by delaying the video as well with Pinewood, they would still have an issue with gaming content.

As I said already, I would welcome and use the feature. I just can’t bring myself to believe the market is there and that the technology would work seamlessly when I don’t know that’s the case.

Danny

jgatie

Again, I don’t think Sonos is relying on internet forums for their market research. I also don’t know that Sonos really wants to target larger rooms for their products. The market of folks who have 30 ft front walls and don’t want to wire their speakers can’t be that big. Not to mention that 5 Ghz communication between speakers is going to be strained at those long distances between speakers, trueplay tuning, etc. I would be surprised if this is the dempgraphic they want to target.

As pointed out already, the delay isn’t arbitrary, it’s needed. Even if they ‘solved’ the delay issue by delaying the video as well with Pinewood, they would still have an issue with gaming content.

As I said already, I would welcome and use the feature. I just can’t bring myself to believe the market is there and that the technology would work seamlessly when I don’t know that’s the case.

Good point about the video delay. CEC “standards” are very hit or miss, and the number of times I’ve seen an automatic video/audio sync CEC function be successful is exactly none. They either don’t exist, or they make things worse. This very well could have been an impediment to Pinewood enabling multiple wireless surrounds, fronts, etc. Because on its face, auto sync would be the ideal solution to increasing the buffer to allow for more bandwidth. But if not enough TVs are equipped with this function, and the ones who do are doing it with the usual CEC “standards”, then what’s the use?

And that’s not even taking gaming content into account, which is another great point.

U

user13456954324589045678826510

Lyricist I

I understand what you’re saying...but I’ve read they had this working in Beta at one point and lots of people loved it...but they didn’t release it. maybe they saved it for Pinewood?

This code is still working on the speaker firmware. While the Sonos app won’t allow you to do it, you can set up l/r front surrounds with a third party IOS app. This is unsupported by Sonos obviously. DM or check r/sonos for more info.

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