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Mono sound from Beam and Surrounds

  • 21 February 2022
  • 3 replies
  • 703 views

I have a Sonos Beam (Gen 1) and 2 surrounds (Ones) for use in the kitchen. The purpose is to create even sound around the rather large kitchen. When the beam is used by itself, the volume must be turned up quite high for the person by the stove (with vent fan going) to hear audio accurately. 

 

I added surrounds, hoping that I could send a mono signal out of all of the speakers spaced around the kitchen to even out the sound, so the level of each speaker can be lower. It seems that for TV sound, the only option is to stay in “surround sound” mode. Only sound effects or muffled speech to add audio depth comes out of the surround speakers which is not needed for listening to news programs while cooking or cleaning up.

 

I can confirm that when listening to music the effect is fantastic with sound distributed evenly among the Beam and Ones. Can this same effect be accomplished for TV viewing? 

 

I have thought about un-pairing the surrounds and using them as a separate group to duplicate the audio from the Beam…..But, it seams that when this is done, there may be a 70 ms delay between the Beam and surrounds (I have read that surrounds connect to the beam via 5 GHz band which is faster and avoids Audio/Video sync problems. If the Ones function as a separate group, they connect to the Beam with 2.4 GHz, causing delay, which would be quite annoying if they are in the same room. Is this Correct?

 

Alternatively, I have considered an AMP and 4 small passive speakers or ceiling speakers. I think this setup could accomplish my goal of better distributed sound around the space. The trials I have done with this is lacking the richness of sound of the beam, so I would need to add a sub as well, which is challenging due to lack of floor or wall space in our kitchen.

 

Any advice?

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3 replies

buzz

Try unbonding the surrounds, pair them, then Group with BEAM, Now go to TV Dialog Sync and deal with the latency.. The potential issue is lip sync skew with the TV audio, but you’ll have independent level controls for BEAM and the pair. Maybe this works for you, maybe not, but the cost to try it is low.

G
Userlevel 7

When playing TV audio, any speakers bonded as surrounds to a Sonos home theater device will only act as surround speakers. You will not be able to play the exact same TV audio out of the surrounds as the Beam.

You can group the Ones with the Beam rather than adding them as surrounds, but you will probably experience a slight delay from the Ones when playing TV audio. Depending on how far the Ones are from the Beam, this delay may not be very noticeable especially with a loud vent fan blowing. You’ll just have to test it out for yourself.

The Sonos Amp option with four in-ceiling speakers wired to one Amp is probably your best option. This will result in the same stereo audio playing from both sets of speakers. I wouldn’t worry too much about the “lack of richness” of sound since it is just a kitchen setup that seems to involve more passive listening than active listening. It’s not like you are trying to create a truly immersive home theater experience in your kitchen while you are cooking.

"Receive with simplicity everything that happens to you." - Rashi
N
Userlevel 7
Badge +19

In a Sonos environment, a roomname is just a label to identify a speaker or set of speakers. Unbond your Ones. Rename the Beam’s name as K1. Name the Ones as K2 and K3. Use the Groups feature in settings to include all 3 of them and call it Kitchen (or whatever). Each One is a mono speaker. 
As already said, there will be a slight delay when listening to TV source but from what you describe of the use environment it may not be an issue. Music to the group will be in sync. 

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