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Kayandalliealready
Contributor I
March 23, 2020
Answered

Beam and Bridge

Hi. I recently installed a Beam. It works (worked) fine. Last night my daughter got the Beam and my Bridge to group and I had sound from my speakers and the Beam. I turned it on tonight and initially had no sound from the Bridge/speakers. I grouped and got sound from them and lost Beam sound. Catastrophe ensued. I pressed lots of buttons here and there, reinstalled the Sonos app, unplugged and replugged in stuff. 

Question is... Should I expect to be able to group the Beam and the old Bridge or was it a fluke that my daughter did it? 

Many thanks for any insight.

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    Airgetlam
    AirgetlamAnswer
    March 23, 2020

    Ah. If you have a Sonos device that has two speakers are wired to it, it is a CONNECT:AMP, and not a BRIDGE. 

    There is a substantial difference in how those two devices work, and show up in the Sonos controller, but yes, you should be able to group the two ‘rooms’ you have together. I’m concerned that you followed my link and ended up looking at anything about surround sound, when I follow my link, I end up on a page that talks about how to group rooms together.

    Please note that when playing the TV input on the Beam, there will be a slight delay between the two rooms. However, when streaming a music source using the controller, and not the TV, they will be completely in sync.

    Bruce
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    7 replies

    Airgetlam
    Airgetlam
    March 23, 2020

    Not sure what you mean by the term ‘Bridge’. Sonos makes a device called the BRIDGE which isn’t a speaker, but jus a device that lets the Sonos system connect to your Wi-Fi and internet.

    However, you can always group rooms together in the a Sonos System. See: 

    https://support.sonos.com/s/article/3391?

    Bruce
    KayandalliealreadyAuthor
    Contributor I
    March 23, 2020

    Thanks! Yes, it is a BRIDGE. 

    Anyway, I just needed to know if I could expect it to work together with the Beam. I'd read something that I thought indicated not but I followed your link and see that applied to surround sound rather than just stereo.

    So, must have been just a glitch last night. I shall try again. Thanks again.

    Chris
    Chris
    Lead Maestro
    March 23, 2020

    I to am a little confused as well as to what your saying.   Can you explain the units you have.   

     

    When you have a sonos bridge hooked to your router you are using Sonosnet on all speakers (so when you say connecting to bridge - its not like they all connect to the bridge directly… they all connect to each other and back through the bridge).   When you have a bridge all internet connectivity flow back through it.    So if you have a system operating with a bridge and you add another Beam then that beam adds in with the current system …. you seem to act like its 2 systems.

     

     

    Respect the Queue (2)Move (3)Beam (1) Era100 (2)ARC (1)SonosOne (1)Playbar (4)Play5 (4)Play1 (3)Play3 (1)Port (2)Connect (1) Roam (2) Ace (1)Connect:Amp (4)Sonos Amp (1)Sub + (9) Echo + Smartthings; (2)Play)
    KayandalliealreadyAuthor
    Contributor I
    March 23, 2020

    I have in my living room an old Bridge to which two wired speakers are connected. I call all that “Living Room” where I have to designate a room to the Sonos controller on my Android phone.

    Also in my living room is the new Beam, connected to my TV. I call it “TV” where I have to designate a room name to the Sonos controller on my Android phone.

    I’m playing opera on my TV (Metropolitan Opera has free on demand during the closure, if anyone is interested:relaxed: ) and I got the Beam so the sound would be better. Grouping the Beam with the two wired speakers attached to the old Bridge made it much better and I’d like to continue to do that. Since apparently I can, and did, not sure why the major meltdown of it all last night. I could get one part (the wired speakers or the Beam) to play at a time but not the other and sometimes neither one. 

    Airgetlam
    AirgetlamAnswer
    March 23, 2020

    Ah. If you have a Sonos device that has two speakers are wired to it, it is a CONNECT:AMP, and not a BRIDGE. 

    There is a substantial difference in how those two devices work, and show up in the Sonos controller, but yes, you should be able to group the two ‘rooms’ you have together. I’m concerned that you followed my link and ended up looking at anything about surround sound, when I follow my link, I end up on a page that talks about how to group rooms together.

    Please note that when playing the TV input on the Beam, there will be a slight delay between the two rooms. However, when streaming a music source using the controller, and not the TV, they will be completely in sync.

    Bruce
      KayandalliealreadyAuthor
      Contributor I
      March 23, 2020

      Oh! Thanks for the clarification that it’s a Connect:AMP. It has been so long since I got it I’d forgotten the terminology. I think that will help; I was seeing that somewhere in all the setup pages or wherever I was trying to fix things but I didn’t realize that was my component and so I just ignored it.

      Thanks again! I shall try it again tonight and hopefully I am now better informed as to how to do it all. (I did go to the link you sent; I just also clicked on the one for surround sound to see what that said and figured out that’s what I’d seen that made me incorrectly think I couldn’t expect to group my things).

        Airgetlam
        Airgetlam
        March 23, 2020

        Yup. You could potentially add the CONNECT:AMP as a driver for surrounds, but as you’ve described your setup, it wouldn’t be wise. 

        Bruce
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