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Hi I have a beam gen 2 and thinking about adding two rears (Sonos or ikea). I use the ststem also for music and I’m not sure what happens on a system like this when playing music.

Does the rears sound together with the beam when playing stereo music? The rears are playing left and right channels, doubling the beam? That would be a strange stereo image.

what happens instead when playing Atmos music from Apple TV? I expect them to play differently then stereo music because in this case they have separate channels to play, but I rarely listen to Atoms Music because usually I play music from Sonos app, not from Apple TV 

another doubt is to use ikea symfonisk vs Sonos one SL. I understand from review that Sonos are slightly better for music. It’s worth the investment as rears? Ikea will do just as good? 

Hi.  For listening to music you can set the rear speakers to AMBIENT (virtually inaudible) or FULL (reproduces full stereo).  There is a slider in settings to adjust the relative volume of the front and rear speakers.

Yes, for Atmos you get different channels from the rear speakers.  

I don’t have experience of Ones or Symfonisk so cannot comment 

Hi.  For listening to music you can set the rear speakers to AMBIENT (virtually inaudible) or FULL (reproduces full stereo).  There is a slider in settings to adjust the relative volume of the front and rear speakers.

Yes, for Atmos you get different channels from the rear speakers.  

I don’t have experience of Ones or Symfonisk so cannot comment 

Hi @John B, how do you find the experience of listening to stereo music both from the front and the rear? It makes me think more of a music club then a stereo hi fi, but maybe it’s enjoyable. The positive side should be that it should enlarge the stereo field, that is quite weak in the Beam, but it in a strange way

Fundamentally, soundbars are not ideal for “serious” music listening.  I am afraid my solution is not to listen to music on my Arc.  For music I have a Cambridge Audio streamer and Amp with PMC floorstanders..

Sorry….

Fundamentally, soundbars are not ideal for “serious” music listening.  I am afraid my solution is not to listen to music on my Arc.  For music I have a Cambridge Audio streamer and Amp with PMC floorstanders..

Sorry….

I know there are limitations, luckily I have another room for proper listening. The living room will be for a more relaxed and casual listening. In this context, how do you like listening music with a soundbar + rears? What kind of stereo image you get?

For serious music playback, I’m much like John, although my solution is a pair of Sonos Fives that flank the TV set where the Arc is, and are set up as a separate room. I love the Arc for TV use, but I prefer the additional separation I get from the Fives for just playing music. 

In both the master bedroom and my gameroom, I have Beam + play:1s + sub, and I go with Full for music.  I’m generally not in a specific spot in the room where I can appreciate a front stage, and I prefer the fuller sound.  Although I think I would consider ditching the Beam and going with just ones and sub since I rarely use the TV there. The main reason why I don’t do that is everything is mounted on the wall already.  In my main room though, I do what the others mention.  Separate rooms for TV and music.

As far as using symfonisk, I see the lamp and picture frame as being pretty close to the 1s in quality, so it’s a toss up.  The bookshelf speakers are a step down, and I would use these for surround only, not if I’m going to use the room in Full setting for music.

 

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