Sonos Amp with Beam and a couple of Ones for TV and Music setup

Hi @Umang1988 

Welcome to the Sonos Community!

With your current setup, you won’t be getting actual surround sound, as the Ones would need to be bonded to the Amp, not the Beam (whichever device is connected to the TV).

I recommend that you connect your Beam to your TV via HDMI-ARC - it is designed for this, after all. Leave your Sonos Ones bonded to the Beam and you will now get surround sound. Meanwhile, you can put your Amp and turntable somewhere together and connect the turntable to your Amp’s input RCA connectors (your turntable needs to have a pre-amp either built in or between the Amp and turntable).

We don’t recommend grouping for TV audio, as devices not bonded together as a single room tend to have a delay when compared to a Home Theatre room - though it can be done.

When playing a record (or other sources of music), you can play to either room, or both.

I hope this helps, and feel free to ask anything else.

Hi Corry

Firstly, thank you for taking the time. Appreciate it. 

All the above Sonos components are placed in my living room with the turntable next to them and I am not and don't want it to use it in any other room except in the living room for tv and streaming music. 

A few questions 

1) When you say bonded together, you mean the same group on the Sonos app? I have attached a screenshot from the S2 app for your reference. 

2) I have had the beam and the ones for a couple of years. I added the Amp a week back. How does adding the amp help my existing setup. 

3) How can I use the amp for the tv audio as well without the delay you were talking about.

4) While streaming music through the S2 or Spotify app, will grouping the Beam(with Ones as surrounds) and The amp give me surround sound?

5) I have the Audio Technica lp 60 turntable. It has a phono and line switch at the back which tells me that it has a preamp built in but the sound coming from the speakers with amp at full volume is too low. So I am guessing the preamp has become faulty. So I'm thinking of buying an external preamp and fit in between the Amp and the turntable.

Do you think I am doing it right and if yes, could you please suggest a preamp that'll be compatible. 

Thanks 

@Umang1988 

Happy to help!

1. No. “Bonded” is a term we use for Surrounds and/or Subs that are bound together with a Home Theatre product, like your Beam, into one Sonos room (this is semi-permanent, as in you’d need to go into Settings » System » [room name]  to change things). This is how your Sonos Ones are currently configured. “Grouping” is when you tell 2 or more Sonos rooms to play together. This is quick and easy, and done from the main System tab (centre button at the bottom of the screen). This is how your Living Room Amp and Living Room Beam rooms are currently tied together. There is also “pairing” - this is when you have two (identical, or close to it - see Create a stereo pair) speakers working as Left and Right speakers, together in one room. Bonding and Pairing both utilise dedicated, unit-to-unit 5GHz links, whereas Grouping uses slower, 2.4GHz shared unit-to-unit links or link through the router if out of range of each other.
2. That depends on your use and expectations. Some people prefer to listen to music through larger, more capable (or expensive) speakers. If you want to listen to TV only through the Beam and Ones, and use the Amp and it’s speakers for music, you wouldn’t be alone. If you expect the Beam to operate as a Centre channel, the Amp as front Left and Right, and the Ones as Rear speakers, this isn’t supported - the Beam will do all 3 of the front channels. If you’re grouping in the Amp for TV, you’re just doubling up on 2 of the front channels, not gaining extra channels. If you prefer it this way (and you don’t get an echo effect from the Amp being slightly behind the rest), nobody is going to send the Sonos Police round to your home to tell you to stop. Note that if you have the Amp connected to the TV, you will only get 4.0 sound and not 5.0 - the stream is downmixed and the centre channel ends up being outputted through the left and right channels. A grouped-in Beam and Surrounds would all play Left an d Right channels only - 3 channels less than if you connect the Beam to the TV.
3. Your best chance of achieving this is to wire both the Beam and Amp to your network with ethernet cables - this can help the Amp keep up with the Beam’s audio feed by not using the slower 2.4GHz WiFi method, though this is by no means guaranteed.
4. No. Music playback is stereo only. The Beam can be told to play the music to it’s surrounds at varying levels compared to the Beam (see Change surround audio settings for details), but the rear speakers just duplicate the 2 stereo channels.
5. Before shopping, I suggest you try different levels for Line-In, as described in our Adjust Line-In settings help page - specifically, Source Level. I can’t recommend any pre-amps in particular, but I would assume that like much else, you get what you pay for. A quick search on Amazon will supply you with plenty of options. Filter out any that have less than 4 stars to make your choice a safer one. 

Personally, I would recommend only using the Amp for music playback, or even put it in a different room (or a different part of the room if it’s a large room). The addition of a Sub to the Beam may bring your Home Theatre experience closer to what you want than including the Amp in TV playback.

Another option is to configure the Amp as surround speakers for the Beam instead of the Ones, and the Ones could be put in two other rooms or stereo-paired as one room, elsewhere. You may find that the Amp is being under-utilised in this setup due to the power it has and wouldn’t be using. The Amp’s Line-In would no longer function in this setup, so it’s not great for you but others reading this may not need Line-In.

The Amp does not need to be playing for the Beam to play from the Turntable (in case that’s why you have the Amp and Beam together) - you can tell the Beam to play the Amp’s Line In without grouping or the Amp playing it too. Try to see the Amp’s input and output as being completely different devices.

Hi John,

Don't have any passive speakers. I just have an amp, a beam and a pair of Sonos One. 

I bought the Sonos Amp a week back assuming it'll improve the overall quality of my existing music setup with the Beam and the pair of Sonos One. I also needed the amp for the playback from the Turntable.

I spoke to the Sonos customer care before purchasing the amp and asked for their recommendation before buying. 

Now I am sitting with the above Sonos components, figuring how to get the best sound possible. Even the output from the Turntable is too low even at highest Line in Level 10 in the S2 app. I am guessing the preamp is not functioning properly.

Do you have any recommendations for an overall efficient setup.

Thanks

Good thinking @John B. If this is the case, @Umang1988, then you would be better-off connecting some speakers to the Amp and having one more room in your setup. Connecting the Amp to the TV is definitely not the way to go.

I guess it took me too long to write that last reply 

You did need either an Amp, Port or Five to get your turntable to feed into Sonos. The Amp can be used with a set of 3rd-party speakers (4-8 Ohms for 2, 8 Ohms if connecting 4) or Sonance speakers (up to 6, plus TruePlay is available). The real question is whether you want your turntable in the same room as the TV?

If so, then all you need to do is connect the Beam to the TV instead of the Amp, and ungroup the two rooms. 

If you don’t mind it being in another room, I would recommend you move it and the Amp to a new physical room and connect some speakers to it - that way, you get music in more rooms, which is always good.

Corry, I want my entertainment unit in the living room where my TV is. I stream music and listen to the music on the turntable in the same space and want to keep it that way.

My question, is, if I connect the Beam to the Tv, use the Ones as surrounds, setup the amp as a standalone unit, and listen to music grouping both Beam(with Ones as surrounds) and the amp, will the output quality be better as compared to if I didn't have the amp? 

Also, I do have a set of passive tower speakers lying around somewhere which I can connect to the amp.

How would the ideal setup look like in that case. 

@Umang1988 

No - the quality of the music playback will not be affected. Also, grouping isn’t necessary, and no speakers connected to the Amp means it won’t make any difference.

If you connect speakers to the Amp, group or ungroup depending on your preference - the speakers are there for you to enjoy, so whatever you prefer is the best. You may want to adjust the surround’s music levels as described above, as well as the EQ settings on each room for the best sound, if they all play together.

In all cases, you should connect your Beam to the TV instead of the Amp.

The amp isn’t going to improve the sound quality of of your Beam and Ones.  All it would do in your case is provide a way for you to connect the turntable to your system.  As Correy stated, the amp isn’t the only device that has an aux input for your turntable, as the Port and Five are both cheaper options.

If you like the sound quanlity and aesthetics of your passive speakers, then you absolutely could connect them to the amp.  If you did that, then you could use the amp+passive speakers for music and the beam+ones for TV.  Alternatively, since the amp has an aux and can connect to your TV, you could remove the beam entirely, bond the ones to the amp and use the amp+passive speakers+ones for music and TV.  It’s hard to say what the idea setup as it really depends on your personal tastes.

Thank you guys for the wonderful selfless response. Proud to be a member of the Sonos community.

Cheers! 

Hi Guys!

I have another issue, so my current setup is, the Beam is connected to the Tv through HDMI-ARC with the pair of Sonos One's as surrounds and the Sonos amp is connected to the turntable. When the S2 is playing from the TV, it's showing Stereo PCM 2.0, whereas earlier before I added the amp to setup, it didn't show anything. Confused, if something's not working. 

Same thing happened to me when i added the Amp….im following this….

With the last software update, Sonos added the format indicator, which has always been available in ‘About my System’, to the controller display when showing the TV. I suspect nothing has changed, and you may need to check the settings on your TV and the devices that feed it.