Contributor I

Answered

4 Sonos One speakers in one living room

20 replies
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Hi, my living room is about 25m x 15m, and currently i have two Sonos One speakers in it. The sound is great, perfect really.. But there are slight chnages to the audio levels as i walk around the room. I really want to feel like I'm just blanketed by sound while laying on my sofa. I was considering buying another pair of Sonos Ones and hanging all four speakers from the corners of the room, basically making two L/R stereo pairs... But I'm wondering if this is overkill. I'm not interested in making my music super loud, just want it to be fuller.

Thanks

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Stanley_4Answer

Grand Maestro

Going to four speakers will even out the sound levels. Experiment with mono mode as well as stereo pairs and how you locate the left and right speakers. Some folks like mono while other folks like one or the other of the stereo setups. It really comes down to your ears and the trying different locations can be a bit of fun.

At 25 Meters you might even consider adding a third set in the middle of the long wall.

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Emilius

Lyricist III

you are probably right, I should have considered PLAY:5 since the beginning.

as I have already two PLAY:1 + SUB in a room

can I add two more Sonos one and make one room (mono) with 2 PLAY:1 + 2One +SUB?

Thanks again

Airgetlam

No, a “room” in Sonos’ software is a single speaker (mono), a pair of speakers (stereo) or a Home Theater room (3.0 up to 5.1), each can have a SUB bonded to it.

No matter what combination of four Sonos speakers you have, you can only have, at best, the three options I listed above.

I will repeat, Sonos software’s definition of a “room” is a logical abstraction, and has absolutely nothing to do with physical placement.

Bruce

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Emilius

Lyricist III

No, a “room” in Sonos’ software is a single speaker (mono), a pair of speakers (stereo) or a Home Theater room (3.0 up to 5.1), each can have a SUB bonded to it.

No matter what combination of four Sonos speakers you have, you can only have, at best, the three options I listed above.

I will repeat, Sonos software’s definition of a “room” is a logical abstraction, and has absolutely nothing to do with physical placement.

Dear Bruce,

Thank you very much for your patience clarifying all the wrong informations I had been given at Sonos retailers. You just saved me a lot of money. Bless you!

buzz

Grand Maestro

Emilius,

Up to 32 units can be present in a SONOS system. This could be 32 “Rooms” or 16 “bonded” pairs (each pair is a “room”). SUB counts as a “unit”. A “room” that contains a pair and SUB counts as three “units”.

In your large area two or three pairs will provide more uniform coverage. The problem that you are having now is that near the speakers it will be too loud and probably not be loud enough at the far end of the room.

As has been suggested above, alternating L/R for the pairs is helpful in this case because you will always be between a L/R pair as you move around the room. Obviously, the sense of “left” and “right” will swap, depending where the listener is located, but this is better than being stuck between two left’s or two right’s.

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Emilius

Lyricist III

Emilius,

Up to 32 units can be present in a SONOS system. This could be 32 “Rooms” or 16 “bonded” pairs (each pair is a “room”). SUB counts as a “unit”. A “room” that contains a pair and and SUB counts as three “units”.

In your large area two or three pairs will provide more uniform coverage. The problem that you are having now is that near the speakers it will be too loud and probably not be loud enough at the far end of the room.

As has been suggested above, alternating L/R for the pairs is helpful in this case because you will always be between a L/R pair as you move around the room. Obviously, the sense of “left” and “right” will swap, depending where the listener is located, but this is better than being stuck between two left’s or two right’s.

and now the picture in my head is complete! what a good idea this forum is..

R

RebelCPA

Lyricist I

I’m a little confused by the “rooms” and “units.” So my room is a condo living area maybe 12 X 20. I have a Beam and two rear Sonos SLs on the back of the couch facing the TV. I have enjoyed them so much I’m thinking about getting one for front L and R. Good idea, bad idea or depends? I wouldn’t want to drop the additional $400 if it isn’t going to improve a pretty good sound experience now. Guess I’m looking for some sorta “wow” out of it. Don’t really want the sub-woofer action because I’m on the 2nd floor and don’t want the bass to be a problem for the neighbors. Have a 5.1 Yamaha system at home with the sub-woofer and can feel the bombs and explosions but not near neighbors.

buzz

Grand Maestro

We usually think of a room as a location in our house that has furniture, windows, and doors. In a SONOS system a “Room” is a collection of players that have been given a name. In your case the BEAM along with its ONE SL’s would be a “Room” on your controller. Perhaps you would name it “Great Room” (or whatever) and this combination counts as (3) towards the (32) limit. A stereo pair of players would also be a “Room” and would count as (2). I introduced the concept of “unit” to account for BOOST. Since BOOST is not a player it does not appear in the list of Rooms on a controller, but it does count towards the (32) limit.

No, you cannot incorporate any additional speakers across the front as part of a surround system; BEAM handles everything in the front. While I don’t recommend this, you could add another pair of speakers in the front, but they will be a separate “Room”, not part of the surround system. You could then Group this “Room” with the “Great Room”, but this additional “Room” will confuse the surround somewhat and you will need to tinker with Lip sync a bit to time align the new speakers with BEAM and this might not work as well as you like with respect to lip sync with the video picture.

SUB would be your best bet for some “wow”. You could reduce, not eliminate, bass transmission through the floor if you insert a pad under SUB.

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wklemp

Contributor I

I have a similar issue in a large (1,300 SF) workshop. I setup 2 Ones in stereo and added a Sub, but at one end of the shop. They sound great, but at the other end (around a 45 degree corner) of the shop, it sounds too distant. Was planning to add another pair of Ones at this other end. It sounds like to do this I would actually leave the current Room as is and create a new Room (Shop2) that I simply sync with Shop1 and probably invert the left/right relationship. Is that the right way or can I add the 2 new Ones to the existing Room?

Airgetlam

No, you can’t add more than the stereo pair to a single room. You’d want to set up that second ‘room’ and then group the two rooms together.

Bruce

K

Kumar

They sound great, but at the other end (around a 45 degree corner) of the shop, it sounds too distant. Was planning to add another pair of Ones at this other end.

Add a new one pair at the other end, and set it up to deliver good stereo sound at the other end, doing Trueplay for that pair with the existing pair silent.

Then, whenever you need the sound to fill the entire space without being too loud at one end of it, group the two pairs via the app, setting the relative volume levels of each pair for best results. Once that is done, you can change overall levels up/down, with the relative differences in volumes still intact.

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