Unfortunately there isn’t a way to include your existing in-ceiling speakers in an Arc/Sub/Ones setup other than grouping the Amp with the Arc in the Sonos app. But you will experience a slight delay when playing TV audio from the in-ceiling speakers. Streaming music will still be in sync though. So basically the Amp/B&W speakers will not be used when playing TV audio with the Arc setup but can be used when streaming music.

Here are my own thoughts…

It’s not an ideal room setup by any means (sorry), so my thoughts are to either use the Amp for music only audio through the two ceiling speakers, or perhaps just forget the ceiling speakers altogether and just go for a separate Sonos Home Theatre setup perhaps using one of the two options as follows:

1. If you decide to not use the ceiling speakers, then use the Amp instead to drive two front-channel floor standers for HT/Music audio and add Sonos One/One-SL for rear channel surround sound and either use existing Sub (I’m assuming that works okay with the Amp), or better still, add a Sonos Sub (gen3).
2. If you decide to keep the Amp for the ceiling speakers/Sub just for music purposes, then I would go the whole Hogg for TV audio and add an Arc, Surrounds (One/One_SL) and a Sonos Sub - you can then always group ALL for music, but clearly it will swamp the room I suspect and muddy the channel separation etc, but some listeners like being drowned in audio from everywhere - albeit it’s not my cup of tea.

There are other options to use a Sonos Amp with rear HT surrounds too, but I think the two above are perhaps a slightly better option, but it may depend on the budget/expenditure you have in mind.

The two ceiling speakers assume the listener is facing to the left or right, i.e. rotated by 90 degrees from the TV viewing axis. Basically they’re useless for TV purposes.

Honestly, I don’t think I would even bother with an Arc in this room.  It doesn’t really look like it’s laid out for ‘serious’ TV watching, nor is it all that large, so I would  likely just go with a Beam.  Hard to tell without seeing the rest of the room on whether it makes sense to add sub and rears as well.

Many thanks for taking the time to explain. And to be honest that would be OK if very much overkill cost/performance wise. The situation is indeed of our own making and should have been thought through much better.

Just thinking out loud, I suppose we could always remove and blank off the B&W’s currently fitted. That said, I think I’d probably wait to see how the music side of things sounds with the One’s Arc and SW first.

Thanks for the input Ken. Makes a lot of sense. I’m happy to go for the full HT set up but probably less the rears. It is, as you correctly say, far from an ideal room.

And to be honest it has grown in a Frankenstein manner. This room was never meant to be a home cinema room and indeed I don’t want it to be in the purest sense. We have that in a larger better room which has more powerful and higher end basics in it but being refurbished. But this room does get used a lot and the current TV output is a little thin.

I had a feeling something like might have happened, hence hardwiring for front L & R Ones, you can see in the 3rd photo I think it is.

More I think on, the more I’m leaning to a full (but not over powering) Sonos HT system, One’s Arc, SW etc, blank off the in ceiling units cosmetically and reuse them elsewhere. Ironically in the being redeveloped Home Cinema room where extra in ceiling units could certainly be added dolby wise and is being considered and planned for.

Is unfortunately the conclusion I came to as well Ratty. As mentioned the room usage started as audio and mutated into TV and the speaker positions are redundant as a result …. a lot of work and pain and cost installing for a poor (modified) usage. It sounds the business audio wise but not lending itself to this now. 

I’m wondering if you can buy a pair of decent quality (cosmetically) blanking plates that would like right.

It’s a standard 1920’s’ double bay window (Margo & Jerry) type layout …. approx 4 meters x 5.5meters. Not big but could house a pair of One’s, a SW and a sound bar of some description comfortably I’d say.

And is a solid point you make, it may well not need a full fat sound bar. That said the Panasonic one which is very well regarded and reviewed does not exactly rattle the windows. This was Panasonics flagship model back in 2019. But certainly worth to consider whether to go Beam or Arc …. think that is a personality trait of mine to go top end out of instinct rather than assess actual need.

Thanks for taking the time to consider the situation. It’s all helping come to a conclusion what to do.

I’d either leave the speakers in place, retained for some future use, or get a bloke to patch the ceiling properly.

Agreed.  I can’t say I’ve looked around much for it, but haven’t seen anything that looks better than the speakers themselves, and those look pretty good.  The speakers are on the ceiling to blend in anyway.

Unfortunately the guy who would plaster it would be moi …. and that ceiling and walls have been French plastered and polished and very high end paints applied. Not keen to revisit that anytime soon. It may be necessary but I’d have thought there might be some high end inserts in a decent finish available.

That said, 30 minutes searching has not yielded anything yet. Or I could swap in a more modest set of speakers to cosmetically sit there and remove these for re-use. They are about £850 a pair and only 3 years odd old so I’d prefer not to just leave them there. 

But the large home cinema room isn’t slated to be refurbished until the end of next year (put off a third year in favour of other projects) …. as you say, maybe just leave them until then when the idea is a full DA 11/13 speaker system based around a high end Denon box and large TV/projector. The majority of that is already in and these would be a relatively simple transplant.

Oh these look the business yes. Magnetic covers, the lot. But a tad too pricey for me just to leave in to be honest. I think re-use and transplant in a more budget pair. Thinking on I have a spare unused pair of much cheaper CCM684’s (still overkill) that could satisfy that. The plan comes together. Thanks chaps.