Finally, yesterday, a pair of Sonos Era 100s arrived. I have been configuring a pair of Sonos Era 100s as surround speakers on my Sonos Beam Gen 2 and have been playing Dolby Atmos Music and Dolby Atmos demo content to evaluate the experience. Overall, I am satisfied, but there is one major drawback.

When the side surround channel is played, sound is output from both the side speakers of the Sonos Beam and the Era 100s. The problem is that the sound of the Era 100s is so loud that it overpowers the sound output from the side speakers of the soundbar.

In other words, I could hardly perceive the positional separation when the rear surround channel was played and when the side surround channel was played.

When the rear surround channel was played, sound was only output from the rear speakers. Yes, this is correct.

However, when the side surround channel was played, sound was output from both the soundbar and the rear speakers, but the rear speakers were still so loud that it was difficult to tell the difference from when the rear surround channel was played.

The volume slider of the current surround audio level only adjusts the volume of the rear speakers. When the side surround channel is playing, adjusting the volume slider only adjusts the volume of the rear speakers and does not change the sound output from the side speakers of the soundbar.

What I want is to adjust the volume of the side speakers of the soundbar as well as the volume of the rear speakers when the side surround channel is playing.

You can tell me to just lower the volume of the rear speakers. If I lower the volume of the rear speakers, I can balance the volume output from the soundbar when the side surround channel is played.

But the problem is that in this case, the sound of the rear speakers is too low when the rear surround channel is played. Then I raise the volume of the rear speakers again. But the problem is that when the side surround channel is played, the volume of the rear speakers overwhelms the volume of the soundbar again.

What I mean is, since the current surround volume audio slider only adjusts the volume of the rear speakers, I either have to give up the rear surround channel or give up the balance of the side surround channels...