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I am wanting to set up a surround sound system in my basement. I have a sonos beam that will connect to the tv via hdmi arc. Then I have two in wall speakers (not sonos) that are above the tv to the left and right. I also have two ceiling speakers in the rear to the left and right. I also have a sony sub that I want to use.

 

I would like all the speakers to play from my tv in sync. From what I read, I think that I will need two sonos amps, one to the front speakers, one to the rear speakers.

Here are my questions:

 

 

  1. How does the surround sound setup work with the beam? Do i choose the placement of the speakers on the app or something ?
  2. Which amp should i plug the sub into?
  3. Do i need to connect the amps to the tv via Hdmi arc and if so how would i go about doing that
  4. If not ^ and they work through internet, should I hardwire the beam and the 2 amps via ethernet?
  5. How reliable is this system vs a traditional AV receiver?

I think that you will be more satisfied with a traditional A/V receiver.

BEAM will not support your two front speakers or the SONY subwoofer.

You can support your two rear speakers in surround mode using a SONOS AMP. Note that AMP’s Line-In and subwoofer connections are disabled when AMP is used for surround.

If you skip the BEAM and use two AMP’s, you can use your front speakers and the SONY subwoofer. It’s best that the SONY subwoofer accepts the line level subwoofer output from the front AMP. If the SONY subwoofer accepts only speaker level input, I don’t recommend using it.

Yes, you could Group any SONOS speakers with BEAM, however, when BEAM is playing TV, there will be a time delay for the Grouped SONOS speakers. When playing music, all of the Grouped speakers will be synchronized.

  1. You must use a Sonos Amp to drive third party speakers as surrounds. The Amp will ‘bond’ with the Amp.
  2. Sonos doesn’t allow the use of a third party sub with any of their soundbars. You must use a Sonos Sub or a Sonos Sub-mini.
  3. The most effective and latency free way for the Sonos Amp to connect to the front soundbar is via a hidden 5Ghz WiFi signal. Some people have found success by routing the information via Ethernet cable through their router by connecting both the soundbar and the Sub directly. I consider this a secondary method, and subject, it seems, to delays when the router wants to be less efficient. 
  4. You can only bond one Amp for surrounds, not two. When this Amp is driving surround speakers (bonded to the soundbar), the subwoofer output is turned off.
  5. Unknown. I’ve been using a Sonos home Theater system since they were released, but not in parallel with a traditional home theater system. I can say I never have had issues with either one. 
     

In answer to your unnumbered comment, the Beam can not be a center speaker, it already contains the front left, front center, and front right channels. This is why you can’t use both a Beam and an Amp as your front speakers, and why any Amp ‘bonded’ will drive the surround signal to your speakers. This is covered mildly in the 4. answer.

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