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Hoping to set up a “home theater” using 4 x Play 1 and 1 x playbar. All gen 1.

Currently have the playbar and 2 x play1’s as a right and left surround (all 3 of these speakers are in the front of the room) and added the 2 other play 1s in the rear of the room on the left and right.

I do not see a way to create “surround” sound meaning identifying the speaker in their positions as front right, front left, rear right and rear left.

I see several articles about setting up a “home theater” in settings but do not see that option in my app.

Is this even possible?

The Sonos system does not support more than the Right/Center/Left speaker unit at the front. You can add two identical Surrounds and one or two Subs to it and all will play together for TV viewing.

For music you could Group the two additional speakers with the TV setup and have all play together. Grouping with the TV as the source will give a 75 ms delay on the additional grouped speakers.

The Playbar on its own provides the 3 front speakers. “Surrounds” are rear effects speakers. If you’ve bonded two speakers to the playbar, they are the rear effects channels. You need to move those two speakers to behind the viewing position. Play a DD test signal and you should hear the tones from each speaker in turn.

Your other two speakers can then be used elsewhere, in another room. Some folk use them as a music stereo pair in the same room as the home theatre because the Playbar doesn’t create much of a soundstage. Others boost the sound level from the rears and accept the sound coming from behind the listening position. 

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