cipo80,
Firstly, a huge congratulations on purchasing your brand new home and all the very best of luck in the future with that.
Assuming you have no in-built ceiling speakers etc. or other existing legacy audio devices, my personal suggestion would be...
1. A Sonos Beam for the new LG TV.
2. Two older Play:1’s as 'bonded rear surrounds' for a 5.0 Dolby Digital surround sound with the Beam/TV. You could also later add the Sonos sub to that setup, if you think you would prefer the extra Bass. I think the setup will be fine without it, but try it and see.
3. I would also buy two additional Sonos One speakers for use in mono 'standalone mode' in the Kitchen and Dining Table areas.
All speakers mentioned will be capable of being 'grouped' together, if you then want to fill the whole room with your music. Use the surrounds in 'FULL Mode' for your music audio.
You can always buy additional Sonos one Speakers too, for the bedroom, if you decide you also want music in that room.
I appreciate you are not yet a fan of Alexa/Google voice control, but I suspect once you try those things and get used to using them, that you will find the voice control useful. I’m reasonably sure such control will be available in Italy by the time you move in.
So those are the devices I think I would buy for that sort of setup and size of room.
Hope that helps ?
I would get a Beam for TV, a Sonos Sub near it. Then a Pair of Sonos Ones (or Play:1s as Ken mentioned if want to save a couple dollars) and mount them at both rear corners (kitchen and front door).
Be sure to set the surrounds to FULL mode so you get full stereo sound from all speakers when listening to music.
As the Play 3 has been discontinued the Play 1s are the most reasonable given your space and the Beam should work well too.
As you will have the pair of Play 1s for your Beam surrounds you might want to experiment with them in the kitchen and dining areas. Remove them from the Beam and try them as single speakers as well as a pair in different locations and decide what sounds best.
If playing music in the kitchen or dining room alone you might find you prefer a stereo pair to a mono single there, some folks get tired of mono sound fairly quickly while others have no problems with it.
Once you have connected your surrounds back to the Beam you can always group the kitchen/dining ones with the Beam (set to full as said above) for very room filling music.
Just something to add...
I have both Playbar and Beam setup with surrounds.
The Playbar is in the bedroom with two Sonos Ones as surrounds. The source is a 10 year old Panasonic Plasma. Not a smart TV just a great picture.
The Beam is attached to a 5 year old Sony with HDMI_ARC and two Sonos Ones as surrounds. The Sony might be considered a smart TV (low end)_since it has ARC and internet connection:8.
Here's the reason for the above.
A sub makes any Sonos speaker sound better although some say it's not needed with Play 5's in stereo pair. That's a matter of opinion as I use a sub with my Play 5's.
The Playbar in the bedroom sounds great as is without the Sub. The Beam on the other hand IMO demonstrated a great improvement to focus dialog after adding a sub.
So if I were ever asked whether or not a sub improves the sound of the Beam I'd say yes. It's not a deal breaker without the sub; but to my ear a worthwhile investment.
PS
Where is the TV going to be placed?
You might consider a reversal of the furniture and wait before buying additional speakers for Kitchen and dining area to see what results you get for music with the suggested setup. The TV and Beam are wall mounted:?
Cheers!
cipo80,
Firstly, a huge congratulations on purchasing your brand new home and all the very best of luck in the future with that.
Assuming you have no in-built ceiling speakers etc. or other existing legacy audio devices, my personal suggestion would be...
1. A Sonos Beam for the new LG TV.
2. Two older Play:1’s as 'bonded rear surrounds' for a 5.0 Dolby Digital surround sound with the Beam/TV. You could also later add the Sonos sub to that setup, if you think you would prefer the extra Bass. I think the setup will be fine without it, but try it and see.
3. I would also buy two additional Sonos One speakers for use in mono 'standalone mode' in the Kitchen and Dining Table areas.
All speakers mentioned will be capable of being 'grouped' together, if you then want to fill the whole room with your music. Use the surrounds in 'FULL Mode' for your music audio.
You can always buy additional Sonos one Speakers too, for the bedroom, if you decide you also want music in that room.
I appreciate you are not yet a fan of Alexa/Google voice control, but I suspect once you try those things and get used to using them, that you will find the voice control useful. I’m reasonably sure such control will be available in Italy by the time you move in.
So those are the devices I think I would buy for that sort of setup and size of room.
Hope that helps ?
Thank you Ken for the reply and for congrats also ;)
The Beam it's approved, all guys push me in that direction, my dubt was if the sound cover the dining table or not, but in this case there is the point 3.
I've one question for the point 2, the dolby is it a "pro" or a cons" if I don't watch movie in Dolby? And for the music?
I don't have a pay TV actually (too much work and little kid, we don't have time!) and here in Italy the free digital antenna broadcasts it's almost in SD and stereo, but the major 8-9 channels are in HD 720 in dolby.
I agree for the point 3, because if you check the layout the dining table isn't front to the TV, but I need to try before buying the ones.
Probably you're right also for the Alexa, as many times as I say "i don't need it" after some months I'll get it ;)
Have a great day!
.......
PS
Where is the TV going to be placed?
You might consider a reversal of the furniture and wait before buying additional speakers for Kitchen and dining area to see what results you get for music with the suggested setup. The TV and Beam are wall mounted:?
Hi AJ, thank you for the reply, in answer to your question the TV and Beam in the layout will be wall mounted upper the furniture between the two balcony door.
Your attached design was the original room layout, but the boss (my wife! You know!?;) want to reverse the furniture to give more open-area that helping also when use the table extension.
I agree with her, but with that layout we've one big cons, the TV isn't aligned to the sofa and isn't aligned to the dining table and force us to use a swivel wall mount.
My wife prefer this layout, personally I like the original one.
I've ask to ken if the surround is useful also with the music or with stereo broadcast, what's your opinion?
Thank you in advance and have a good day!
You set the surrounds to full and then when listening to music they are full stereo and sound great
You set the surrounds to full and then when listening to music they are full stereo and sound great
Hi Chris, is it possible to change the mode "on the fly" or by profile mode? Or do I need to reconfigure all system every time ?
Thank you!
You set the surrounds to full and then when listening to music they are full stereo and sound great
Hi Chris, is it possible to change the mode "on the fly" or by profile mode? Or do I need to reconfigure all system every time ?
Thank you!
Setting the surrounds to FULL only affects music playback. Surround (Movie/TV) material will not be affected.
It auto switches. When watching anything via hdmi it will be surrounds. When playing online music it will be stereo.
Great Sonos!! Thank you guys for the time spent to answer me, now everything it's clear:
1Xbeam + 2x ones
Now I'm trying to convince my wife to reverse the sofa layout, but this is another kind of problem 😉
Great Sonos!! Thank you guys for the time spent to answer me, now everything it's clear:
1Xbeam + 2x ones
Now I'm trying to convince my wife to reverse the sofa layout, but this is another kind of problem ;)
Great that you have a plan! If you can fit the sub into your budget I guarantee you won't be disappointed. The sub will take all the low-end and do two things:
1. Sharpen the vocal of the Beam for TV and Movies
2. Make music sound much fuller
Since you are going with the Beam you can save by going with Play:1's for surrounds (no loss of sound quality vs Sonos One's). The Beam has all the features of the Sonos One. Take the money saved and apply it toward a sub.
Hope you get to reverse the sofa :8
Cheers!
Aj, I know the sub it's a great thing, here cost 755€ that it's near the sum of Beam 449 + 2xplay1 179 each, in my opinion it's totally "out of price/world" ,but I've read a tons of good opinions.
Really the Play1 have the same sound quality of ones? I don't understand the choice of the Sonos to coming out with a very similar product.
If the quality it's the same, I agree, I can get 2xplay:1 save 100€ for a future sub, if my wife don't killing me before!
The Sonos One's according to Sonos are redesigned versus the Play:1. One obvious difference is the absence of a mounting screw/hole (Sonos One) on the rear of the speaker vs the Play:1. Also the Sonos One's have touch controls instead of physical buttons as found on the Play 1.
Also the Sonos One brings Airplay2 and Alexa into the mix. However, as I said you'll get that with the Beam. Sound quality for music IMO the Beam beats a single Sonos One and Play1 however in Stereo pair they beat the Beam.
Sonos One vs Play1 for sound...In a blind test I doubt you'd hear a difference. I think people fool themselves into thinking they hear a difference because of what they've been told. As for the very few that may hear a difference I believe they are part canine.:D
My advice is too save the money at this juncture and use it elsewhere. I don't see Sonos abandoning the Play 1 in favor of the Sonos One because there are still applications where an Alexa enabled speaker isn't needed or desired. JMO.:8 Also, in surround mode with a Beam...Alexa is disabled.
Oh...and BTW, I have Sonos One's as surrounds with my Beam, but I had them (Sonos One's) before I purchased the Beam.
Cheers!
cipo80,
Yes, I agree too, buy two Play:1’s to 'bond' with the Beam and set the surrounds in the room settings to 'FULL' (they come with a default music setting of 'Ambient' ... but most folk switch them to FULL output for music playback) ... I have that setup myself and the sound output is great.
I think the sub is perhaps more of a personal thing and whilst I don’t have one, I know that many definitely love it alongside their systems.
If you do later choose to extend the system over to the dining area and kitchen, (or bedroom area), then I would go with 'Sonos One' Speakers next time there, as they will not only extend the audio around the place, but will then provide access to Alexa, without having to shout across to the Beam, whilst sat at the dinner table, or whilst cooking in the kitchen area etc.
Best of luck... and don’t forget to report back here next year, to let us know how things turned out.?
Hi Ken, sure I’ll give you guys my feedback in the next summer!
A little bit OT, on October 30 Alexa and echo devices will be available on Amazon Italy, if I preorder in this week I get a 40% off.
With Beam do I need to buy an echo device to use Alexa or is it integrated?
It's integrated with the Beam. The Beam has the microphones necessary to carry the data to the cloud for Amazon to process. See:
https://www.sonos.com/en-us/alexa-on-sonos
