Connecting Active speakers to the Sonos Network

  • 14 January 2021
  • 4 replies
  • 523 views

Hi all,

I’m fairly new to Sonos so please forgive my naivety. I have a very simple set up, ie from my Sony TV I have 2 x active Yamaha HS7 speakers simply connected from the headphone jack in the TV to the powered speakers with a 3.5ml cable that splits in to two that connect with XLR jacks directly in to the speakers. So the TV is essentially muted and TV audio is played through the Yamaha’s. 
 

I also have a Sonos beam in my bedroom. Which I send music too via wifi mainly using Spotify. I would firstly like to add my powered Yamaha’s on to the Sonos network and think the easiest way is with a Sonos connect gen 1 (old school I know). These are my questions:

  1. What’s the best way to make that connection as I understand if I connect my TV to the Sonos connect and then to the speakers it will be great for just streaming music to the speakers but for TV audio there will be a delay and will be a sync issue between the TV picture and audio. I know the connect is not designed for any audio visual use. So I guess I would need a splitter to switch between TV sound and then just streaming music as it will be two different sources and one that bypasses the TV essentially. Any ideas?
  2. is there anyway to integrate the beam to use as a centre speaker and have the two Yamaha’s play other audio for movies etc again I guess not due to syncing issues. 
     
  3. Ultimately just want to get the Yamaha’s on the network so I can send music to the bedroom or to the Yamaha’s and buy another portable Sonos speaker to take outside when BBQ’ing etc. So I can play independently or all together.  
     
  4.  Would I be better off not going the Sonos route and using something else for my needs?
     
  5. Please see pics attached. 

    Many thanks Chris

 

 


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4 replies

Hey Buzz,

I just wanted to thank you for both your advice and help. I’ve managed (with your guidance) to get everything setup now, and it’s working well. 
 

Thanks again

There is no way to use BEAM as center and the YAMAHA’s as L/R -- irrespective of the BEAM latency.

If your TV offers legacy component or composite input, you could connect CONNECT’s output here and select this input for music. Of course you’d need to have the TV powered for this activity. One nasty detail of this scheme is that some TV’s will not pass the audio unless it is accompanied by video. If this is your situation you’ll need to supply a video source. Some cable boxes will supply both HDMI and analog outputs. You can use the yellow or green output jacks as this fake video source. (In a pinch an old VCR or DVD player can work too) Another possible snag is that analog audio may not be passed through to the TV’s ARC or optical audio outputs.

A relatively straight forward scheme is to use an analog audio A/B switch to select TV or SONOS audio for the speakers.

Note that CONNECT is S1 only. The very newest SONOS units are S2 only. MOVE and BEAM can use S1 or S2. From the operator’s standpoint S1 and S2 are completely separate systems. 

Hi Buzz,

Really appreciate your time for replying and your answer makes a lot of sense. Essentially I would rather not want to turn the TV on to stream music so an analogue A/B switch sounds like the trick. Do you know if anything exists that is app/wifi/Bluetooth enabled to do that job so you don’t have to physically switch. I can imagine that sounds incredibly lazy was just wondering really if something like that exists. 
 

Once again many thanks for you help. 

Remote switching gets messy. I’m not aware of any Bluetooth controlled A/B switches. IR controlled switches exist, but you’d need to use the unit’s remote to switch. You may be able to program a universal remote to do this. If you can find one the SONANCE AL2 will do the job.

Another way to go is to use a SONOS PORT’s 12V trigger to control an A/B switch.