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We've been adding Sonos to the house regularly, most recently an Amp in the living room connected to our Victrola turntable and powering two home theater bookshelf speakers. My wife recently feel in love with the sound and I'd like to expand the living room, still using Sonos.

The first picture is my current setup. It's a bit unique given the items installed, but it all works flawlessly. I want to remove the soundbar/sub from the setup and replace it with a pair of architectural speakers, sub + one more amp (already have the amp) to use as a home theater setup (and she can use to play music, records, or watch tv/movies on).

However, as you can see, because of the other items (namely the hue sync box and the headset), I've now complicated the setup ( i'd like to retain both, as I use the headset for gaming and the strip adds some immersion to our viewing).

I am looking at an OREI matrix, using the input from the sync box (which captures and passes thru the sources), which would then split the HDMI to the TV, Sonos AMP, and Optical out to the headset. I just have no idea if by doing this - if by turning the TV on, if the amps will automatically work as well.

I am by no means technical enough to figure out if i'm on the right path, but I know electronics well enough to piece it all together.

Any help would be appreciated.


Current Setup

Proposed Setup

 

 

The only recommendation I’ve received so far is to switch the HDMI outputs on the matrix so the eArc goes to the Amp and standard HDMI to the TV

Hi @Mackeydesigns 

Welcome to the Sonos Community!

I don’t think you will need a matrix switch, and for one important reason - Amp should connect to the HDMI-ARC or eARC port on the TV. When you do so, the direction of the port switches and becomes an output. The TV will relay any audio it would normally play to the Amp.

To be clear, if you plug a source HDMI device into the Amp, you will not get any audio - different wires on the HDMI cable are used for ARC, and Amp only uses these.

A second Amp can be wirelessly linked to the first to provide surround sound - this Amp need only be connected to two passive speakers and power. It will play TV audio and streaming music or turntable audio.

To use your headphones, you’d likely first need to disable the TV’s CEC functions (Sony call this Bravia Sync) - this will prevent the TV from automatically selecting Amp as the output. Turn CEC/Bravia Sync back on when you stop using the headphones. You’d connect the headphones to the TV’s optical output (assuming it has one - if not, you’ll need a HDMI switch with audio extraction, which will be cheaper than a matrix switch, but this would not work with TV app audio).

You will still be able to connect your turntable to the Amp that connects to the TV, but the line-in port on the other Amp (the one performing as surrounds) will be disabled.

Amp supports PCM stereo, Dolby Digital 5.1 and DTS 5.1 formats from the TV - as long as one of these formats is playing, any audio that would normally go to the TV will be played from the Amps. If you were playing music and then turn on the TV, the TV audio can play automatically (there is a TV Autoplay option in the app).

I hope this helps.

@Corry P 

Yup! This matches what i had discussed on a different forum. I haven’t gotten the entire setup yet so i haven’t tried anything, but sounds like i’ll run my inputs as i have, swapping the input on the HDMI panel on the TV, use the eArc/Arc HDMI for the Sonos Amp and the Optical Out for the headset.

Excellent call on the CEC Bravia Sync, that’s currently enabled so I might have driven myself mad later.

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