End of Software Support - Clarifications

So you are grouping and playing all devices with Airplay and don’t use either Sonos controller?

And what do you think of the Arc?  Do you have surrounds?

So I just looked at some of the new products.  Are you suggesting I could do a line-in to a Port from my existing soundbar and group 2 Sonos One SLs as the surrounds via AirPlay?  And conversely I could send the digital out to a different input on the soundbar to play whatever is streaming elsewhere?

If you use Airplay you aren't using the Sonos system, just a collection of Airplay compatible speakers.

The Sonos app is a remote control not a music player.  It is completely impossible to use the Sonos app for Airplay. 

I understand that, but the implication from Ken_Griffiths was I could use Airplay to run my entire Sonos system, both S1 and S2 devices if I incorporated a Sonos Play One SL with the S1 devices.

You can use any Airplay enabled App to play to a Sonos compatible product - those products can be in an S1/S2 Household and they can be grouped with any other Sonos devices.

Airplay sees the devices ‘per subnet’, rather than ‘per Household’ - so you could, just as an example, play music from the Spotify App (using Airplay) to say the Sonos Arc in the S2 Household and play the same track (in sync) to a Sonos One SL in an S1 Household ...and group either of those devices with other Sonos products within their own Households… it’s one way to play music in sync to products across both the S1 and S2 Systems.

In regards to your question about the Arc.. yes the Wife & I love it ..we have it setup with surrounds and sub on an LG C9 TV (calibrated using the rtings recommended settings). It works and sounds great.

So what about my question regarding hooking my existing Yamaha soundbar to the line-in on a port, and then adding a couple of Play One SLs as the surrounds?

You won’t get 5.1 surround audio, only stereo output by grouping the two Sonos rooms together.

Impossible, I'm afraid

So I don’t understand why that won’t work.  I understand the surrounds won’t be true 5.1, but the Yamaha outputs it’s version of 5.1 and for my purposes the back speakers would really serve the purpose of bringing the dialog closer to the listeners.  

And if I hooked the digital out from the Port to a separate input on the Yamaha, wouldn’t I then be able to group that with everything else in the house when I’m playing music?

I must be missing something here.

So what sort of audio out does the soundbar have, that you would connect to a Port's analog stereo input ? It is unusual for a soundbar to have any sort of audio out.

A Sonos home theater speaker attached to the TV’s optical output or to the TV’s HDMI (ARC) port is required to create a surround setup.

TV requirements

Playbar and Playbase require a TV with a digital optical audio output.

Arc, Beam, and Amp require a TV with an HDMI ARC port in order to use Amazon Alexa or the Google Assistant to control your TV. If your TV does not have an HDMI ARC port, you can connect Arc, Beam, or Amp to a digital optical audio output using the optical audio adapter (only included with Arc and Beam). You will not be able to control your TV using voice when using the optical connection.

https://support.sonos.com/s/article/1920?language=en_US