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Hello,

I have a Beam (gen 1) hooked up to my TV via HDMI arc input. I also have a pair of Play:5 (Gen 2) as surrounds. Been running this set up for a few years now to listen to music streamed via Deezer directly on the Sonos app and watching TV,. I also have Sonos dotted around the house and sometimes link the speakers up to play the same music throughout the house. No issues and fairly happy with this… until now! 

I have recently acquired a Musical Fidelity E100 integrated amplifier with multiple inputs, which is an ‘old school’ late 90’s amplifier (75W per channel), with a matching CD player and external Digital to analogue converter (DAC) Unit I am told that the amplifier was, in it’s day, a high end piece of kit. I wired in some passive speakers of a nondescript brand and have LOVED listening to my old CD’s since. It is wired as CD player>DAC>Amp>Speakers. I was really surprised to find the sound quality of this older setup compared to streaming Deezer through the pair of 5’s was superior to my ears, despite the sh*t speakers. The low’s aren’t as low, but the stereo separation and detail is phenomenal compared to the 5’s.

So. Now I want to find higher quality passive speakers for this old amp for natural reasons, but as importantly, I’d like to replace the Play:5’s entirely with these passives. I am also somewhat fed up with the persistent failure of the sonos app when trying to listen to music and using non steaming methods of listening to music is appealing.

Questions…

  1. How can I connect the new passive speakers to act as surrounds when watching TV? Do I simply need a Sonos port and then add this as in input to the old amplifier?
  1. If I am able to set up the passive’s as surround for TV, I’m assuming that this will only happen when on the Sonos Port input, therefore CD playback would only use the passive speakers.
  2. If I were to go even more traditional and get a passive centre speaker to replace my Sonos beam, can I place the Sonos port after the sound signal (between the amp and passive speakers) so that it can send the signal to the other sonos speakers in the house? For TV sound, I would have to use the optical input found on the DAC/amplifier.

I am aware the that Sonos Amp could potentially replace the old amplifier, but I am keen to make use of the analogue amplifier as I’d like to also hook up my turntable. I have tried plugging in the turntable to the 3.5mm jack on the back of the 5’s but it simply sounds awful! I’m not sure if its the analogue to digital processing within the 5’s or what. I also can’t stand the ~1 second delay between the signal and sound. I fear i will have the same issues with the Sonos Amp?

 

You cannot use the Port as part of a surround set up. Your first two ideas wil not work.

As for idea number 3. The Port works of a line level signal. You cannot feed it an amplified signal. You could connect the to the tape in/tape out the E100 seem to have, looking at https://audiocostruzioni.com/nl/prodotto/muzikale-trouw-e100/

Just plugging a turntable in to the Play 5 would result in awful sound if the turntable does not provide a line level signal. It would only do that via a built in or stand alone preamp.


You cannot use the Port as part of a surround set up. Your first two ideas wil not work.

As for idea number 3. The Port works of a line level signal. You cannot feed it an amplified signal. You could connect the to the tape in/tape out the E100 seem to have, looking at https://audiocostruzioni.com/nl/prodotto/muzikale-trouw-e100/

Just plugging a turntable in to the Play 5 would result in awful sound if the turntable does not provide a line level signal. It would only do that via a built in or stand alone preamp.

Thank you. would ideas 1 & 2 work if I used the Sonos Amp, but bypass the amp section (if possible?).

Ok, so idea 3 - Tape out is a line out so if I plug a sonos port via RCA cables to the tape out on the back of amp, the amp will be sending a line level signal through the sonos port to then bounce on to other sonos products? would this have the same digital processing delay? I assume so.

The turntable has a built in pre-amp, albeit a not very good one i suspect. 


There is no way to use an external amplifier to power surrounds for a Sonos soundbar.  Nor is there any way to use a Port to provide output to surrounds.   The only way to use passive speakers as surrounds for a Sonos soundbar is to connect them directly to a Sonos Amp.


OK. thank you, guys. sounds like my best  way forward is to get a port and add it to the back of the new amplifier to make the passive’s connect to sonos streamed music. If I want TV surround sound, then I can simply setup a non Sonos set up using optical cable


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