Music mode for surround sound setup
Best answer by Smilja
Not possible. You are watching TV regardless of whether movies, musicals, rock operas, music videos etc.; the Beam only recognizes that the signal is coming in from the TV, it doesn't know what's currently playing.
Not possible. You are watching TV regardless of whether movies, musicals, rock operas, music videos etc.; the Beam only recognizes that the signal is coming in from the TV, it doesn't know what's currently playing.
Would love to be able to do this.
Projector setup - The biggest issue with using a projector and Sonos speakers is getting sound coming from the front without any wired connection. Perhaps an acceptable compromise would be to have the logical front and rear speakers both playing stereo, so the speaker in the rear can be the logical front speakers and the speakers in the physical front can be the logical front speakers.
Large spaces - With outdoor TVs becoming more and more common place, it makes good sense to pair the TV with a Sonos amp. Surround sound setups are usually not practically, and often, the space is too big for a single amp to cover adequately. If two amps could be bonded together they would be able to cover twice the space (upto 5 Sonance speakers) with TV audio without any lag (which will happen when grouping the amps together). I currently am using a single amp with a TV outside, primarily for music. I am considering adding additional speakers with a 3rd party amp and existing Connect, but would opt for a 2nd Sonos amp if I could do so without lag.
If I recall correctly, it's under Room Settings>Advanced>Surrounds. Then you're presented with the choice to make them be either Ambient or Full when playing / streaming music. My recommendation is that you chose Full, which makes them act as regular stereo speakers in addition to the sound from the soundbar. You can also on that page adjust the volume for each 'mode'.
In fact, here's an FAQ to read:
https://support.sonos.com/s/article/2927#surround_settings
If I recall correctly, it's under Room Settings>Advanced>Surrounds. Then you're presented with the choice to make them be either Ambient or Full when playing / streaming music. My recommendation is that you chose Full, which makes them act as regular stereo speakers in addition to the sound from the soundbar. You can also on that page adjust the volume for each 'mode'.
In fact, here's an FAQ to read:
https://support.sonos.com/s/article/2927#surround_settings
still doesn't change the fact that when you stream music via the tv (smart tv, fire-tv stick, whatever) the playbar/beam recognizes the source as tv and the "full surrounds" setting for streaming music won't have any effect. only works when actually streaming music via the sonos app.
so +1 for the feature request to have a toggle in the app to switch to full surrounds when playing via the tv. or a dropdown to change the audio source between movie, music, live concert, musical, live sports or whatever, could probably create an endless amount of presets...
I often watch music videos on Youtube and I clearly feel that I'm loosing a lot without the punch of sorrounds speakers.
There is an app for Android that tries to address this - it streams (separately) music to speakers and the video to Chromecast. But there are syncing issues. I really want this feature to be built into the sonos app natevily.
Why isn’t this a thing? Surely it was thought of during design that people may want to stream music and watch surround sound movies from the same room...
I turned up the volume TV Level under the Surround Audio settings to the full 15% it will allow. Same thing with the Music Level. This combined with Full seems to help.
However there are times when I’m using certain sources, like my FB Portal TV device, and doing a video call with audio coming from the Beam only. Would love to have a toggle to force the surrounds to output audio too.
This has to happen, 75% of music I listen to in my home is live concerts on youtube. The sound lacks when streaming through TV, and sounds so much better when simply streaming sound to Sonos. A simole toggle to turn on full music mode when watching TV is integral, and seems so logical. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE!!!
+3This is not what the Sonos Home Theatre system is designed for (i.e. to pump out a 2.0 signal from all speakers in TV mode like it does with music). Sonos claims that it does not upmix 2.0, it actually does from certain sources (e.g. BBC iPlayer), but not others.
You could just unbind the surrounds, and have them as separate speakers and just group them all. But you have to live with the delay…
If 75% of your watching is from concerts on youtube, then a Sonos system is not the right thing here and you need a “proper” AV amplifier that is able to upmix a standard 2.0 signal to either a fake/virtual surround sound, or will have the ability to just blast the same signal to all speakers. As an aside, I’m not sure why people want this as it’s the antithesis of what home theatre and discrete surround sound is about, but each to their own.
If 75% of your watching is from concerts on youtube, then a Sonos system is not the right thing here and you need a “proper” AV amplifier that is able to upmix a standard 2.0 signal to either a fake/virtual surround sound, or will have the ability to just blast the same signal to all speakers. As an aside, I’m not sure why people want this as it’s the antithesis of what home theatre and discrete surround sound is about, but each to their own.
I would say that it’s not so much an issue of proper AV amp as it is of not having a proper sound stage, not a soundbar, at least from my experience. Back in the days when I used a traditional AV, I had good stereo separation up front and never felt the need to hear music tracks from the rear. After switching to a playbar, I feel like I want it on full stereo as getting audio from the rear adds something.
So if I was watching youtube concerts 75% of the time, then I’d probably want to use a Sonos Amp upfront to give me the proper stereo separation, and really not care about surround sound or audio from the rear at all. You could easily add rears without having to have wires for movies and such where surround sound matters. The advantage of this over proper AV amp is the better physical size, lack of wires to the rear, and better control.
If 75% of your watching is from concerts on youtube, then a Sonos system is not the right thing here and you need a “proper” AV amplifier that is able to upmix a standard 2.0 signal to either a fake/virtual surround sound, or will have the ability to just blast the same signal to all speakers. As an aside, I’m not sure why people want this as it’s the antithesis of what home theatre and discrete surround sound is about, but each to their own.
I would say that it’s not so much an issue of proper AV amp as it is of not having a proper sound stage, not a soundbar, at least from my experience. Back in the days when I used a traditional AV, I had good stereo separation up front and never felt the need to hear music tracks from the rear. After switching to a playbar, I feel like I want it on full stereo as getting audio from the rear adds something.
So if I was watching youtube concerts 75% of the time, then I’d probably want to use a Sonos Amp upfront to give me the proper stereo separation, and really not care about surround sound or audio from the rear at all. You could easily add rears without having to have wires for movies and such where surround sound matters. The advantage of this over proper AV amp is the better physical size, lack of wires to the rear, and better control.
i appreciate the feedback, but its just a convenience thing. I like the sonos beam, sub, and surround for watching movies. I just want to be able to switch from watching a movie to watching a concert in a matter of seconds. And whether or not its “designed” to do that is irrelevant, it plays that way in Full mode when i stream from spotify, seems like all it is is an toggle option to put TV in full mode. Ive considered unpairing the surrounds when watching concerts, its just a lengthier process. To me it just seems like an option that should be available, as many touring acts stream their shows live over youtube etc. , and the added punch from fukl surrounds is undeniably more enjoyable in my space
+1 for this.
Come on, Sonos. Why haven't you implemented this feature yet? Just give us the pickle.
Sometimes we just want music to wrap us up like a blanket.
+1 from my side
Shouldn´t be so complicated to put a third button on the Sonos app like the voice enhacement or night sound to enable the music mode even the sound comes from the TV and the “music settings” for the soundround speakers are selected rather than TV soundround mode
This has nothing to do with HDMI, stereo or whatever… Is just allow to select soundround music mode even the signal comes from TV (because you are watching a concert/opera or whatever)
As an addition to the full setting, make the surround speakers (In this mode)available for adjusting the volume.
As an addition to the full setting, make the surround speakers (In this mode)available for adjusting the volume.
This should be the fix.
As a software engineer this would be an easy feature add if their software is written and designed properly, if not, then it might be a hard add...ie, multiple departments working on speaker vs app vs tv vs music code bases and the org structure doesn't help the bad interface designs created from org silos (Conway's Law in action)...
Also another use case is Android Casting... On my android phone I can cast music only streams to chromecast ultra but it's not a good idea because sonos sees it as TV audio even without video feed...so a quick button to say 'go into music mode' should be a thing on any av system given the current consumer trends of streaming and casting (A trend Sonos Promotes). And despite some people saying go get a different AV setup if you like listening to concerts goes against this consumer trends Sonos is a part of and sells themselves as an easy AV solutions for all your sound needs; thus, the exact argument for adding it.
But for now my live and recorded concerts sound diminished and I use my iPad to control music streams via airplay since I can't cast from my phone (and the sonos app is horrible for viewing music on linked services) and have it in full music mode
Cheers!
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