Arc + off brand rears or play1?

  • 19 October 2020
  • 3 replies
  • 209 views

  • Contributor I
  • 0 replies

I am looking to get a full surround setup using Sonos Arc as the main piece. My house has speaker wire plumbed through the walls from a previous owner. So I am trying to decide what the best approach for full surround. The cleanest and easiest approach is probably be to use 3rd party rears and an Amp with the sub and Arc. Using OneSLs would require adding power outlets to the location. However I am worried that going with this approach will be sub par as the rears can't be used with True play and be tuned (I do not want in wall speakers). My question is which is the preferred approach, Amp to rears? How do you calibrate the sound? Or add power outlets to the area and go with the standard approach.


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3 replies

Userlevel 5
Badge +16

Hi @wbwg.

Thanks for reaching out and welcome to the community!

We highly appreciate your interest in setting up your Sonos system.

I suggest that it’s best to reach out to our Sales Team to answer your questions and get your new system started.

They have resources on their system to provide you the best option to take advantage of and get the most out of the product(s). 

Furthermore, some of the community members might provide their own opinion about this anytime soon.

 

Please let us know if you have any other questions or concerns, we are always here to help.

It’s more of a judgement call, and cost for installing the outlets, but if it were me, I’d go with the outlets and the Sonos One SL’s, it’s a cleaner install, and as you said, would then include the option, if you have an iOS device, the option for doing a TruePlay.

That being said, my perspective is that TruePlay is only effective in some situations, and there are quite a few rooms in my home that I’ve not bothered to run it, and those rooms sound just as good as the ones I have run it in. In my view, it’s a convenience, not a necessity. And it can only do so much in a bad situation, anyway. Proper placement of speakers is much more significant.

Userlevel 1
Badge +1

I’d just add a note on TruePlay. Whenever I’ve run it on new set ups it always puts base and treble at 0 and loudness on and I have quite a lot of Sonos! I always go in to the EQ and tweak it for my ears. So I’m agreeing with previous post, don’t get hung up on TruePlay, it’s a bit gimmicky in my opinion.