I’ve been using a single Play 3 and two One SL as two separate groups in the same room to create a 2.1 surround sound. Adjusting the volume balance manually is a pain.
Is there a way to put all three speakers in a group together?
...and if not, why not?
First, to speak the same „Sonos language, let’s talk about the terms.
There are „physical rooms“ like your living room or kitchen.
Then there are the „Sonos rooms“ far in the past also called „zones“.
A Sonos room is a certain configuration of devices. That can be a single speaker, a stereo setup or a home theater surround setup. Each of that also can be extended with a bonded sub.
The ht surround setup would consist one of the Sonos ht devices plus a pair of bonded (not grouped) surround (rear) speakers.
If you like, you can individually put two or more of your „rooms“ (configuratios) together as a „group“.
Volume level can be adjusted for each room of a group separately or for all rooms together.
All that said… the first fact regarding to your setup is: It’s not a surround setup as there is no ht device and bonded rearspeakers. What you’ve got is a „group“ of a single speaker room and a stereo setup room.
So the audio signal on each room is stereo and not any kind of surround (multichannel) signal.
And as described above you can adjust volume of a group.
Tap the main volume slider to get access to the slider for each grouped room and adjust them separately as you prefer. Once set you can use the main group volume slider and it will affect all rooms proportionally.
Sorry for the extended explanation, but imo it’s essential to understand how the Sonos system works. 
Okay, I have 3 sonos speakers in the same zone..
Play 3 - essentially as a front speaker
Sonos One SL - side speakers
Sonos One SL
I’ve set up the One’s as a stereo pair and added the Play 3 as a standalone.
It would be preferable to group all three in the same room and not just in the same zone.
The reason for this is volume calibration and distance sat from speakers.
At the moment I have to do it manually and can increase all speakers using the volume button on my phone.
Small in/decreases are proportionate but larger changes unbalance the output.
Can all three speakers in the zone be bonded(?) to the same room?
Can all three speakers in the zone be bonded(?) to the same room?
No, to enable surround sound for watching TV a Sonos soundbar (Beam, Arc, Ray) is a requirement.
As explained above ‘Zone’ and ‘Room’ is both the same thing in the world of Sonos: a ‘Zone’ or ‘Room’ can be a stand-alone speaker, a stereo pair or a bonded home theater setup.
https://support.sonos.com/en-us/article/surround-sound-guidelines-and-limitations
You can merely group the Play:3 and the ONE stereo pair together to adjust the volume accordingly.
https://support.sonos.com/en-us/article/group-and-ungroup-rooms
In order to listen to Stereo music in 2.1 you would need a Sonos Sub or a Sub Mini (preferably) attached to the ONE stereo pair.
Frankly, I’m surprised you think the Play:3 is adding anything to the quality of sound you are hearing. Sonically it’s quite different to the One SL’s. Just use the Ones as a stereo pair and you’ll probably experience a much wider soundstage and better stereo separation. You certainly don’t have a 2.1 system as you have no Sub to play the deeper notes. And if you have all three speakers playing at once your sound stage will become very muddled.
If you’re using these in some way as a home theatre system, and this is why you think you have a 2.1 system, how are you linking them to the tv?
I’ve had a stereo pair of One SL for a few years.
The sound is great and I love them.
When sat in the window with my feet up, I’m between the speakers and while it sounds good, there’s dead air in front of me which I’ve wanted to fill for a while.
My initial idea was a Beam but even used, the cost is prohibitive.
Having added a Three to the bar table has filled the dead air and I’m immersed in sound.
If there’s a better way to solve this problem, I’m all ears.
Once I work out compatibility issues I’ll likely replace the Ones with two more Threes. If I do, can I group all three together as one room?
Hi. IMO, the only thing the Play:3 will achieve here is to muddy the stereo imaging from the Ones. I would put the 3 in another room. (Another physical room, that is. It is already a separate Sonos “room”, rightly and necessarily.)
As others have said, this is not surround sound or “2.1” sound..
But if it works for you, in the acoustics of that room, just leave it as it is and enjoy it.
Hi. IMO, the only thing the Play:3 will achieve here is to muddy the stereo imaging from the Ones. I would put the 3 in another room. (Another physical room, that is. It is already a separate Sonos “room”, rightly and necessarily.)
As others have said, this is not surround sound or “2.1” sound..
Having used all three together, the sound is fine.
I’m happy to learn more about the differences though.
Should I not use Threes at all?
I was thinking of picking up more Threes.
Why are you obsessed with 3 speakers as one room? It’s been explained. A stereo pair is the most (other than a Sub as a third speaker) unless it’s a home theatre setup with a Ray, Beam or Arc. Whatever speakers/rooms you have you can group them to play together. You can create and save named room groups too.
I have nothing 3s in themselves. If this setup gives you the sound you like, that is fair enough. I can only talk about how it is likely to sound. You can hear how it does sound. So don’t be put off by me or anyone else on here!
Looking at your photo, the Ones seem to be positioned very low and behind,,,well...objects. Maybe you wouldn’t need the 3 if you culd hear the stereo pair properly.
Why are you obsessed with 3 speakers as one room? It’s been explained. A stereo pair is the most (other than a Sub as a third speaker) unless it’s a home theatre setup with a Ray, Beam or Arc. Whatever speakers/rooms you have you can group them to play together. You can create and save named room groups too.
I’ve explained that, and provided a picture.
You’re an angry man.
Looking at your photo, the Ones seem to be positioned very low and behind,,,well...objects. Maybe you wouldn’t need the 3 if you culd hear the stereo pair properly.
The sound is fine, and neither speaker is behind anything.
Why are you obsessed with 3 speakers as one room? It’s been explained. A stereo pair is the most (other than a Sub as a third speaker) unless it’s a home theatre setup with a Ray, Beam or Arc. Whatever speakers/rooms you have you can group them to play together. You can create and save named room groups too.
I’ve explained that, and provided a picture.
You’re an angry man.
Not angry, just perplexed.
It’s been explained in the first two replies above what speaker configs are possible, and how you can group rooms to play to multiple speakers. If you’re happy with the sound you’re experiencing from the speakers you have, in the locations you’ve put them: fantastic. We’ve just been suggesting alternative setups and how to control them - but not as “3 speakers set up as one room”.
I think some of us (me especially) have taken this thread off topic by choosing to advise
As
These Sonos "rooms" then form the building blocks of the system. They can each play different streams, or any combination of rooms can be grouped to play in sync, whether in the same physical room or different rooms.
This gives maximum flexibility and control while maintaining a clear, consistent architecture.
Allowing any random combination of speakers (e.g. a Play:3 and a pair of Ones) to belong to the same Sonos room would actually result in chaos. That way madness lies.
I kind of get what the OP is trying to do here, he’s not bothered about perfect stereo imaging etc, but just wants to fill the room with sound without having to faff around with volume adjustments all the time via normal grouping of speakers.
Unfortunately there is no way in the Sonos App to permanently ‘bond’ a set of speakers that don’t fall into either a stereo pair or home theatre setup.
You can create a pre-defined group (under manage system) which appears in the top of the screen when you select a speaker to group, but if you have other speakers it doesn’t appear to work correctly and just adds the group to the currently selected speaker. (Unless you hit everywhere first followed by your group...)
There is an app (costs money) that may do what you want called ‘Soro - for Sonos’ on Apple products which used to have the facility to preset volume for a group of speakers.
It’s something that used to be in the Sonos App once upon a long ago and got lost in the drive for ‘improvement’. Perhaps
I kind of get what the OP is trying to do here, he’s not bothered about perfect stereo imaging etc, but just wants to fill the room with sound without having to faff around with volume adjustments all the time via normal grouping of speakers.
Unfortunately there is no way in the Sonos App to permanently ‘bond’ a set of speakers that don’t fall into either a stereo pair or home theatre setup.
You can create a pre-defined group (under manage system) which appears in the top of the screen when you select a speaker to group, but if you have other speakers it doesn’t appear to work correctly and just adds the group to the currently selected speaker. (Unless you hit everywhere first followed by your group...)
There is an app (costs money) that may do what you want called ‘Soro - for Sonos’ on Apple products which used to have the facility to preset volume for a group of speakers.
It’s something that used to be in the Sonos App once upon a long ago and got lost in the drive for ‘improvement’. Perhaps
Yeah, THIS!
I’ve been in this forum and a facebook group and learned little from questions I’ve asked.
Lots of responses and few to no meaningful answers.
You’re right about filling the room with balanced sound. My listening isn’t sufficiently nuanced to appreciate the full sound stage BUT if I could find a way to do it then I’d love it.
As is is, with a front firing standalone speaker the sound is outstanding.
Looks like I’ll have to get a Beam to make the sound right, and in a space that size, with a Beam and two Threes, and very tolerant neighbours, it’ll sound awesome.
Thanks Ian, you addressed what’s important to me and didn’t use your response to validate yourself.
A small word of warning on the Three’s… they are getting near to end of life, and whilst they’re still supported, they are struggling on things like memory compared to newer models and may be more problematic with S2.
You might have more success (going down the soundbar route so you can bind the speakers together) to consider keeping the One SL’s and adding a Beam and Sub Mini…
If you look here
https://support.sonos.com/en-gb/article/sonos-app-version-compatibility
It shows you which speakers work with the older S1 ecosystem, which the Play:3’s would be better suited to. You would need to find a Beam Gen 1 one though to go down that route.
Hi
Welcome to the Sonos Community!
It’s something that used to be in the Sonos App once upon a long ago and got lost in the drive for ‘improvement’. Perhaps
I’m not sure what’s being asked for here - if I group two rooms together, adjusting the volume on the Now Playing screen changes the volume on both rooms - as described by
Thinking about what
Or, if all three speakers were the same model, that may make balancing easier.
I hope this helps.
As it stands, when you group the speakers either manually or from a preset, the volumes are whatever they were on at that time so won’t be ‘balanced’.
Hi
I think there would be as many - if not more - people complaining that when they recall a saved group the volume changes from what they’ve set it to!
The reason two mismatching speakers cannot be paired together is due to their imbalance - it is expected that things will not remain in balance as the volumes increase.
Hopefully, limiting the maximum volume on one mismatched speaker will allow it to remain balanced with other speakers in the same physical room - let’s wait and see if it suits
As mentioned, having three speakers of the same model would be a more likely match in this regard.
But there‘s still the problem that changing the master volume (especially for groups existing of different speaker models) always changes the volume balance between the grouped rooms. For example both rooms on level 20 sound in balance. Changing both to 25 could destroy the balance.
I see only three options.
1. all grouped rooms exist of the same speaker modells
2. as
3. using a home theater setup you can set a level of surround speakers to adjust them fix to the used soundbar and the adjustment will always take effect on changing volume of the ht setup
Edit:
Unfortunately there is no way in the Sonos App to permanently ‘bond’ a set of speakers that don’t fall into either a stereo pair or home theatre setup.
I am puzzled as to why this is “unfortunate”, given that once you group speakers they will stay grouped unless you unplug them. And after that, they can be regrouped in 10 seconds
You can create a pre-defined group (under manage system) which appears in the top of the screen when you select a speaker to group, but if you have other speakers it doesn’t appear to work correctly and just adds the group to the currently selected speaker. (Unless you hit everywhere first followed by your group...)
This is because “pre-defined groups” don’t really exist. They are really just a short-cut way of ticking the boxes for speakers to group manually.. So I wouldn’t say it doesn’t work, I’d say it does what it is designed to do, but that that is of little use!
As it stands, when you group the speakers either manually or from a preset, the volumes are whatever they were on at that time so won’t be ‘balanced’.
I think some other applications (e.g. smart lighting) would call this sort of thing a “scene”. I can’t see Sonos investing a single development dollar on encouraging users to try to balance speaker configurations that are more likely to clash than complement each other.
Enter your E-mail address. We'll send you an e-mail with instructions to reset your password.