Skip to main content
Answer

TV surround sound setup with ceiling speakers

  • December 1, 2025
  • 7 replies
  • 24 views
T

Hello,

New here and not exactly an audiophile but have a question about my setup!

I have a new house with six passive B+W ceiling speakers in the living room / kitchen (I think potentially overkill with six) and a sonos beam 2 for the TV (and a One if needed). I need to buy an amp for the spakers. I’m unsure about spending the money on a Sonos Amp, but I do like the idea of everything being integrated. Especially if the Amp can use two speakers as the TV surround -that would be a game changer. But if I went down that route, does that completely rule out the other ceiling speakers for music listening (even when I’m not watching TV?) That would be a shame! I’ve seen that I would have to get a second amp for music, which I’m not going to do.

I understand that the Amp may only be able to safely power 4 rather than all 6, but 4 would be better than just having 2 for music!

Thanks!

Tom

Best answer by Corry P

Hi ​@tom22 

The way I see it, you have 2 likely options - connect a Sonos Amp to the speakers above the sofa and connect a different (one) Sonos Amp to the other four speakers (Kitchen and above TV), as you are thinking. You’d have surround sound normally, and should you want TV audio piped through to the Kitchen (for a Football game, for example), you could group the Kitchen/Above-TV Amp with the Beam so it plays TV audio, while muting the Beam and other Amp to ensure they do not play out of sync (I should clarify - the Beam+Amp would be in sync with the TV picture, but as the other Amp would cover the large space better, it would feel like the Beam is out of sync with it, while it is actually the separate Amp out of sync with the Beam). Music can also be piped to all speakers, but you need not worry about synchronisation with music sources. I think this is what you are currently thinking, and it would be workable. Please feel free to ask further questions if you want to be sure of anything in particular.

Or, connect a Sonos Amp to whichever 4 speakers you’d like configured as a room (and the other 2 to another Amp, if you like), and have some Era 100/Era 300 speakers performing surround duties for the Beam - as the Beam (Gen 2) can support Atmos, it can make use of the extra drivers in the All-in-One Era surrounds. This will result in better Atmos surround sound rendering, though I understand that additional speakers might have a lower spouse-approval rating (and power sockets would also be needed)! The price will definitely be higher, however.

From how you worded your initial post, I think the former would be more to your liking, but the other options are there. If you feel that you may want to upgrade to the Arc Ultra sometime in the future, I’d recommend going with the Era 300s now to maximise your future upgrade potential (while minimising the total upgrade cost).

I hope this helps.

T

7 replies

T

You can use one Sonos Amp to power up to 4 ceiling speakers safely. You can assign 2 as TV surrounds and the other 2 for music in a separate zone. You do not need a second Amp. Just manage speaker groups in the Sonos app for flexibility.

Corry P
Forum|alt.badge.img+19
  • Corry P
  • Sonos Staff
  • December 1, 2025

Hi ​@tom22 

Welcome to the Sonos Community!

I would not normally interject at this early stage, but the reply you just received is inaccurate in several ways, and I do not want you to be spending money while following inaccurate advice.

You can use a single Sonos Amp to power 4 speakers (or 6, if they are Sonance Architectural speakers) as long as they all have an 8 Ohm impedance, but you absolutely cannot configure the Amp in such a way that it will only play from certain speakers - it will play to all speakers all the time as it only has speaker posts (connections) for 2 channels.

If you wanted separate control over each pair of speakers, you would need a separate Sonos Amp for each pair. 

You can use the Amp as surround speakers, but we would only recommend that you do so with 2 speakers. It is possible to have 4.

I hope this helps.

"Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen." - Albert Einstein
Stanley_4
Airgetlam
T
  • tom22
  • Author
  • Contributor I
  • December 1, 2025

Thank you for your help and such speedy replies.

The ceiling speakers I have are Bowers & Wilkins CCM362. Previous owners of the house installed them and recommended we get a Sonos Amp to power the so presumably it worked for them. Although six seems a lot as my workplace only uses one Sonos Amp to play music for an office of 50 people so not sure I need more speakers than that in my living room! So I’m not too bothered if I have to only wire up four of them.

Interesting to hear that we could do surround with four - that would solve my issue. It’d be good to know why that’s not recommended. If it’s not a terrible downside, I’ll probably go down that route to avoid having two different music setups in the same room.

buzz
  • buzz
  • December 1, 2025

If you think that six speakers is overkill (I don’t) and AMP is too expensive, ignore two speakers and install an inexpensive receiver. Just make sure that the receiver supports any online or wireless services that you want to use.

Another approach would be to attach the six speakers to an impedance matching box or three impedance matching Volume controls and any 3rd party amplifier or receiver of your choice.

Neither of these approaches would integrate with your SONOS system.

Corry P
Forum|alt.badge.img+19
  • Corry P
  • Sonos Staff
  • December 1, 2025

We don’t recommend 4 speakers for surrounds, ​@tom22, simply because that is not what the sound engineers who mix the movie’s audio have in mind when doing so.

I suppose it would not be particularly bad as long as all 4 speakers were behind anyone watching the movie, but if that were not the case, I would not recommend it at all. If the rear speakers were located in front of the viewing position, it just wouldn’t be Surround Sound anymore.

Please note that if you are more interested in filling a room with TV audio rather than having cinematic surround audio, then you can group a Sonos Amp with a Beam instead of bonding them together, and that way you could play (downmixed) stereo TV audio from the B&W speakers. Note that there may be a delay in the audio going to the Sonos Amp in this case, as data is being rerouted across the network rather than directly across a dedicated link as with rear-surround bonding.

I hope this helps.

"Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen." - Albert Einstein
Airgetlam
T
  • tom22
  • Author
  • Contributor I
  • December 1, 2025

Thank you Corry.

There are two speakers above the TV, then two about 2 metres behind where we sit (which I was going to use for surround) and then two another few metres behind those in the kitchen area. So that could work in what you’re describing, as they would definitely all be behind. But I realise it’s not the perfect setup. But for me I think potentially worth the trade off to get the four speakers for music as well, and then can group those with the Beam and potentially the sub in the future to utilise the whole Sonos setup.

Obviously if it sounds terrible for the TV I can just reconfigure it for the two speakers.

Corry P
Forum|alt.badge.img+19
  • Corry P
  • Sonos Staff
  • Answer
  • December 1, 2025

Hi ​@tom22 

The way I see it, you have 2 likely options - connect a Sonos Amp to the speakers above the sofa and connect a different (one) Sonos Amp to the other four speakers (Kitchen and above TV), as you are thinking. You’d have surround sound normally, and should you want TV audio piped through to the Kitchen (for a Football game, for example), you could group the Kitchen/Above-TV Amp with the Beam so it plays TV audio, while muting the Beam and other Amp to ensure they do not play out of sync (I should clarify - the Beam+Amp would be in sync with the TV picture, but as the other Amp would cover the large space better, it would feel like the Beam is out of sync with it, while it is actually the separate Amp out of sync with the Beam). Music can also be piped to all speakers, but you need not worry about synchronisation with music sources. I think this is what you are currently thinking, and it would be workable. Please feel free to ask further questions if you want to be sure of anything in particular.

Or, connect a Sonos Amp to whichever 4 speakers you’d like configured as a room (and the other 2 to another Amp, if you like), and have some Era 100/Era 300 speakers performing surround duties for the Beam - as the Beam (Gen 2) can support Atmos, it can make use of the extra drivers in the All-in-One Era surrounds. This will result in better Atmos surround sound rendering, though I understand that additional speakers might have a lower spouse-approval rating (and power sockets would also be needed)! The price will definitely be higher, however.

From how you worded your initial post, I think the former would be more to your liking, but the other options are there. If you feel that you may want to upgrade to the Arc Ultra sometime in the future, I’d recommend going with the Era 300s now to maximise your future upgrade potential (while minimising the total upgrade cost).

I hope this helps.

"Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen." - Albert Einstein
Airgetlam
Terms & ConditionsCookie settingsAccessibility statement