Ground Floor Flat - Placing Sonos to achieve 5.1 Surround sound

  • 11 May 2017
  • 3 replies
  • 1111 views

Hi all,

Recently bought a play:3 and Play 1.

Now moving onto buy a Playbase and a Sub, which I am super pumped about.

I have an open plan flat, please see the images.

The play 3 sits behind the blue sofa, underneath our bookcase.

The Play 1 it currently sitting on the white kitchen ledge on the right of the photo against the wall at the back. I think its cut off in the image, but its the same ledge as the black mug is on.

Basically as the playbase and sub are being installed, I want to achieve true 5.1 surround sound. I believe I can only pair two of the same unit? so 2 x 3's or 2 x 1's? It would be ideal to pair the 1&3 is that possible?

The issue is, there is no where I would ideally want to put another play 3 in the kitchen, I don't like it standing up on the side. That's the reason I bought a play 1.

So I think I would need to buy another play 1?

Would I have to move the speakers closer to the blue sofa? Or could I get away with the play 1 being on the other side of the room?

I look forward to your thoughts 🙂

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3 replies

Cheers guys, massive help. I think I will go for another play 1 and move the play 3 to another room.
Userlevel 6
Badge +3
LaBellamore,

Welcome to the Sonos community

You cannot nor would you want to stereo pair (L and R) to unlike Sonos speakers as it would not sound right. You can "group" you whole house and it will sound great! So you need either 2 x Play3 or 2x Play1 in this case.

See below for Bond, Group and Pair speakers.

I would suggest that you get another Play1 and use that them as the rear speakers (L and R rear).

I would. also suggest that you wire one of your Sonos unit to the router and keep it at least 2' away from the router and on different channels

click here SonosNet

Bond


Group



pair

Remember all you need is mains power and you can always move your speakers around till you have them the way you want them. TruePlay will also help with that. So do not worry about where you are going to put them as you will find space. Actually you will end up with way more speakers done the road as once you start it is hard to stop adding them.

Hope this helps
Userlevel 7
Badge +22
You're right that you must use 2 x Same Play unit as surrounds. The smart money from reading these forums is that 2 x Play 1s offer the most appropriate performance as surround speakers. In terms of the positioning as surrounds they want to be either side of your ears when watching TV/film.

It is possible to purchase stands and/or wall mounts and you also want to get the surrounds to be equi-distant if possible.

The slight caveat on this is that TruePlay for the Playbar set-up will help to improve positioning issues.

I can't really comment on how this will work with the Play 1 in the kitchen as it is hard to discern the spatial set-up but I suspect it wouldn't be ideal to use that Play 1 (kitchen) as 1 of the surrounds.

I suggest you buy another Play 1 and set them as surrounds and put the Play 3 in the kitchen.