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I appreciate there are probably some old threads about this but a) I can’t find them and b) they’re probably closed to new comments.

I have an Arc and two Era 300s. The plan was to use the Eras for surround sound, but I was underwhelmed with the sound until I tried them as a stereo pair for music which I loved. So if that’s the way I use them, relying on surround from the Arc itself. But that’s left me with a worse surround setup than I intended. So… can I have both if I get one more Era 300?

My room has an Arc on one wall by the TV and the Era speakers either side of the fireplace on another wall. I have an L-shaped sofa but what I want to do is add a third Era 300 and dynamically switch them as a stereo pair or as a surround for the Arc. Note that this means one of the speakers would be in either one of those configurations at any given time.

 

In my diagram: 

stereo = black + blue

Surround = orange + blue

I wouldn’t have thought being able to change speakers like this would be such a rare desire, but I see no mention of it anywhere. Yes, I can re-configure them but that’s painful. All settings get lost. 

Would no one else use a feature like this?

This will not work. When the Era 300s are being used as surrounds with the Arc, you cannot use the Era 300s as a stand alone stereo pair at the same time without first removing the Era 300s as surrounds and then setting them up as a re-add them as surrounds. Each time you undo/redo this process, you will lose any saved Trueplay tuning.

If you don’t like the way the Era 300s sound when used with the Arc, you are probably better off returning them and replacing them with a pair of Fives or Era 100s as surrounds.

Also be sure to set the Music Playback setting to FULL under the Surround Audio settings in the Sonos app so you get full stereo playback from the surround speakers when streaming music.

The plan was to use the Eras for surround sound, but I was underwhelmed with the sound 

I just don’t get this bit. How can you be underwhelmed by the Arc and Era 300 surround combo? Are you sure you were listening to something in Dolby Atmos to get the best out of them (although 5.1 is epic too), and had added the surrounds to the Arc properly, and had then run Trueplay?

If the 300s aren’t properly located the sound in surround mode can be less than impressive.

The plan was to use the Eras for surround sound, but I was underwhelmed with the sound 

I just don’t get this bit. How can you be underwhelmed by the Arc and Era 300 surround combo? Are you sure you were listening to something in Dolby Atmos to get the best out of them (although 5.1 is epic too), and had added the surrounds to the Arc properly, and had then run Trueplay?

Sorry, they were impressive for movies but not for music. I use this room for music and relatively casual TV viewing. For full-on movies I have a different room/screen with a bigger audio setup. 
 

So music in this room is important. Era 300 stereo handles that. Arc without surrounds is meh (I used to have a 5.1 Arcam/B&W setup in here). I wanted to use the Eras for both music (as stereo pair) and surrounds. I don’t want to put another pair of speakers in as two would be in the same location which seems ridiculous. 
 

What I really want is to be able to define groups where the speakers can be in more than one group. Those groups would be “either/or” groups - if you select one, the other group(s) turn off. The group setting would retain the truplay settings for that configuration and apply them when that group is activated. But yes, I appreciate that this would be a rather fundamental change to the way Sonos works, and they’re probably not wanting to rock that particular boat much harder at the moment. 
 

 

Just to check - you have set music to Full? If you have it on Ambient, the Eras will add some atmospherics to what the Arc plays but not much more. Setting it to Full ensures the Eras play music to their maximum strengths alongside the Arc.

Just to check - you have set music to Full? If you have it on Ambient, the Eras will add some atmospherics to what the Arc plays but not much more. Setting it to Full ensures the Eras play music to their maximum strengths alongside the Arc.

I’ll double check but I think so. But even then, speakers would be side on to my preferred listening position. Dynamic switching would add a lot of flexibility. But yes, add complexity too. 

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