Sub-mini connectivity

You’re right: it isn’t possible. Nor is there an automatic “de-bond from one and bond to a different” option. 

Thanks - having a stereo pair withsub for music…and a beam with sub for TV really doesn’t seem that unusual a setup!! But Sonos think differently…

As ​@nik9669a stated, there is no simple way to swap a Sub from one “room” to another. 

Maybe thinking of this in another way may help you and others understand why it is not so simple.

Is there a simple way to switch one Apple Watch from one iPhone to another? - NO

Is there a simple way to swap a Samsung Galaxy Watch between Android phone? - NO

Bonding a Sub to a “room” requires a similar process within the Sonos ecosystem. 

If the speakers are all in the same room, why not create a HT system and select Full instead of Ambient for the surrounds when listening to music? The Beam is a great sounding soundbar for music.

That’s interesting - are you suggesting I physically leave the stereo pair where they are ( currently in front of my listening position and spaced for decent stereo separation) but change my setup to Beam+surrounds+sub in one sonos ‘room’ and switch from ambient to FULL? And if I try this, will the beam also be contributing to L and R stereo when listening to music?

There’s an unacceptable echo when I tried adding the stereo pair to the ‘beam and sub’ - both for TV and Music (but that delay is Sonos’s secret sauce to maintain integrity of streamed data, amongst other things I guess)

Cheers!

The echo is because you “Grouped” the two rooms instead of “Adding” the Era 100s to the Beam as surrounds.

https://support.sonos.com/en-us/article/add-surround-speakers-to-a-sonos-home-theater

I’m probably not the only Sonos user who incorrectly assumed the system could support a more flexible setup.

To the point I made earlier it’s probably quite common to want a) stereo separation and a sub for music content, then b) use a sound bar and sub for tv content…I don’t understand the logical architecture of a sonos system as I’ve never seen it … would be good to have known the limitations beforehand - my bad👍

I guess you’ll need to ask Santa to perhaps bring you another Sub Mini to resolve your issue - maybe look for a cheaper refurbished Sub-Mini at your local Sonos store or their eBay outlet etc. 

• https://www.sonos.com/en-gb/shop/certified-refurbished
• https://www.ebay.co.uk/str/sonosukofficialstore

That’s a thought 👍 And out of curiosity now, does anyone have a technical explanation as to why Sonos ‘prevents’ a sub being assigned its own room in isolation without other products?

Love the sound of the two ERA100’s and sub-mini though - very well balanced.

The Sub needs to ‘bond’ to the primary speaker(s) - it’s usually done over a fast 5Ghz ad-hoc wireless connection to the speaker(s) and at the time of bonding the crossover is set - then of course, ideally, the new room needs to be Trueplay tuned - so it’s a little more complex than just grouping… room grouping actually has a ~75ms buffer (hence you’ll hear an echo when you ‘group’ (not bond) your Beam and Era rooms together & play TV audio).

Edit: so that echo/audio-buffer delay would happen if you were ever able to  ‘group’ the Sub to your Beam to listen to TV audio - so that’s likely why it’s not setup as a standalone room that you can easily group with other rooms. It needs to be a fast no-buffer ‘bonded’ setup.

(If you were ever to buffer the TV audio it would of course then be out of lip-sync with the video on screen).

There should be no delay when streaming music in a group. Music will play in sync across the group. The min 75ms group audio delay only applies to TV audio on grouped speakers, not a music stream.

A Sub is either in a Sonos room bonded with other speakers or it is unassigned. Each Sonos room has the ability to play music independently or grouped with other rooms. There is no point giving the Sub it’s own room as you cannot stream music to just a Sub. 

Thanks - I hadn’t considered the ‘virtual’ crossover which of course would need to be established - same as physical speakers drivers. And therefore having a sub in its own group would mean the Sonos system would have to create the crossover every time it was added to a group/room. 

Thanks for all the help here - it’s appreciated

Technically, there is a delay too, when streaming “just” music. But there’s nothing to relate it to, unlike sound associated with lip movement in a video stream, so it’s never noticed. 

When everything is delayed, nothing is delayed. Sounds like an old saying.

The two Subs option works for my ears, wallet isn't really happy but it lost the argument. :-)

Two subs would definitely solve the issue … but as we live in an old house, the cost of re-plastering might outweigh the benefit 😁