Help me complete my home theatre system

  • 21 March 2024
  • 4 replies
  • 41 views
D

Hi all,

 

New to the world of Sonos and home theatre so please forgive any ignorance. 
 

I’ve just moved into a house that has four Sonos in-ceiling speakers wired up and ready to use in the living room. I’d like to understand how to complete this to create a quality home theatre system.
 

With the four in-ceiling speakers, could I potentially get an Amp to connect to those which in turn is connected to an Arc with Sub Gen 3 which in turn is connected to my Sony A80J via eARC? Therefore giving me the Arc as a centre and surrounds with the in-ceilings paired to the Amp as overhead surrounds?

 

Am I potentially better off with a dedicated home theatre system with receiver, bookshelves, centre, sub and using the in-ceiling Sonos as surrounds?

 

Here is a diagram of the living area with the location of TV, sofa and in-ceiling speakers: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/zj29u1xhry7g4njcjkjtp/File-12-3-2024-11-18-38-am.jpeg?rlkey=wzvjmo0jeucg5lseo2mxaj5iu&dl=0

 

Any more effective suggestions?

4 replies

Stanley_4
Userlevel 7
Badge +22

Arc is always center / right / left / height channels so you can’t change that.

You could add an Amp to drive the ceiling speakers which would be configured as surrounds. You could optionally Group the Amp to the Arc but that raises delay / echo issues you’d best avoid.

Personally I’d go with the Arc and Era 300s for the surrounds, possibly a Sub or even two.

If you want background music add an Amp for the ceiling speakers. You could group them to the Arc and surrounds for MUSIC sourced without the delay issue.

 

The AVR versus Sonos question really comes down to what you want. Again personally, I scrapped my very nice AVR setup for the Arc as I was tired of the aggravations the AVR brought and wanted decent sound and less aggravation.

D

You could optionally Group the Amp to the Arc but that raises delay / echo issues you’d best avoid.

 

 

What makes you say this? Is it because the Arc and Amp are grouped wirelessly? I thought I read these could be grouped by Ethernet - would this solve the delay issue and help it operate in unison?

 

Stanley_4
Userlevel 7
Badge +22

I’m saying that because that is the way Sonos designed the system.

Wired or wireless has no impact on the delay issues.

If grouping from a TV source to another Room there will be a 75 ms delay in the other Room’s audio, no avoiding that.

If grouping from an audio source there is no delay.

When using the Amp to power the Surround channels there is no delay as it then connects to the Arc on a dedicated low-latency 5 GHz link.

106rallye
Userlevel 7
Badge +17

Depending on where the ceiling speakers you'd want to use as surrounds are when whatching TV I'd maybe not use all four for surrounds.

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