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I am in the market for a home theater setup for a room I am converting into a literal theater in my house. I have looked at other products sent to me from friends but if what I am trying to accomplish could be done with Sonos/Sonance I would rather go that route as my entire home is already powered by Sonos. So here is where I landed and questions about this setup before I buy:

What I am trying to accomplish here is an 7.1 Dolby Atmos configuration if possible.

Room dimensions if that matters is approximately 300sqf

Front right/left and center speakers = Sonos Arc soundbar

Sub = Sonos Sub (Gen 3)

Left/Right surrounds = Sonos/Sonance in wall speakers powered by Sonos AMP

Rear left/right surrounds = either Sonos/Sonance in wall or Sonos Era 300s

 

Ideally I would like to keep as much of the surrounds hidden as possible which is why I am going with in wall and not sure if it would also work with in ceiling maybe for the left/right rears or if that wouldn’t work. I was told by a friend that the Sonance speakers might not be able to do Dolby Atmos so no point on the ceiling mounted speakers but not finding a lot of info on that online. Furthermore if I was to go with a pair of in ceiling and a pair of in wall or two pairs of in wall does this mean I need two amps?

 

When I try to research Sonos and Atmos all I get is info on the Era 300s the info seems wishy washy as if Sonos doesn’t want to commit to being able to do Atmos but doesn’t want to say it cant so I’m coming to the source hoping for some truth here. Reminds me of back in the days Sonos dancing around the question of whether its speakers were waterproof or not, I know there was a level of water resistance but I guess couldn’t technically say waterproof but at the same time didn’t exactly deny it so not to hurt its marketing. Similar to the whole wireless discussion since there was technically a wire for power had to say wi-fi which to many implied wireless. So please would like some truth on this, can I pull off a true Dolby Atmos 7.1 setup with Sono/Sonance or will I be disappointed if I try. No noncommittal responses.

What do you mean by 7.1, he asked, extremely committed? Atmos isn’t as much about number of speakers, but sound placement within an aural environment. 

  1. You are limited to a single pair of rear surrounds driven by an Amp.  There are no separate channels for side surrounds.
  2. In your configuration, the Arc will be playing Atmos for Atmos sources.  Nothing “wishy washy” about it, Arc performs just like any other Atmos soundbar with upfiring drivers.  The  Era 300’s as surrounds will add to the Atmos effect, but Atmos is still being played with just the Arc.

What do you mean by 7.1, he asked, extremely committed? Atmos isn’t as much about number of speakers, but sound placement within an aural environment. 

Thanks for that Bruce. So yes I would like to get a 7.1 physical setup I guess if I am saying it right that support Atmos? Basically this setup from Dolby’s configurations

  1. You are limited to a single pair of rear surrounds driven by an Amp.  There are no separate channels for side surrounds.
  2. In your configuration, the Arc will be playing Atmos for Atmos sources.  Nothing “wishy washy” about it, Arc performs just like any other Atmos soundbar with upfiring drivers.  The  Era 300’s as surrounds will add to the Atmos effect, but Atmos is still being played with just the Arc.

So in that case then would it be worth adding in wall speakers? You got to the meat of what I’m asking, would all of the surround speakers including the in walls in that configuration be able to add the Atmos effects or just the Era 300s?

So in that case then would it be worth adding in wall speakers? You got to the meat of what I’m asking, would all of the surround speakers including the in walls in that configuration be able to add the Atmos effects or just the Era 300s?

 

In-walls driven by an Amp have no Atmos capability.  The Amp is two channel only and receives no Atmos information when configured as surrounds.  The only Atmos capable surround speaker is the Era 300.  Note, you can’t have in-walls driven by an Amp and Era 300’s with both configured as surrounds.  You can have only one pair of surrounds, an Amp, or 2 Era 300’s.

For a dedicated home cinema room I would not look to Sonos. Sonos is (very good) mainstream consumer stuff, meant to work out of the box with as few cables and speakers as possible. If you want more, your not Sonos material.

If you go with a traditional home theater, rather than SONOS, you can bring SONOS music to your theater system with a SONOS PORT.

If you do go another direction than Sonos don’t limit yourself to just 7.1 give the higher end systems a look too.

9.4.6 sounds pretty good, other lower channel count units are available too.

https://www.crutchfield.com/p_033AVRA1H/Denon-AVR-A1H.html

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