How do I solve this problem?

Question

I’ll try to explain it with as few words as possible. This is a new house and the speaker wiring wasn’t optimal and I’m looking for a solution.

Room 1: Open Kitchen + Family room (Family room is an open floorplan with the kitchen.) There’s a TV above the fireplace w/ cat6 & amazon fire.

Speakers: There are speakers in the kitchen ceiling that are connected to Room 2 (Main Home Theater room w/ AVR)

What components / setup would I need to purchase such that I can play the sound from the TV in Room 1 (from the TV to the Kitchen) even though the speakers are wired into Room 2. I’m willing to do some attic work if I have to; however, does Sonos offer a setup that would solve my issue? Example: Sonos Connect + Sonos Amp + Playbar?

I honestly do not know and seeking this communities help for guidance.

Thank you.

melvimbe · Accepted Answer

Maybe I can explain it a different way, sort of it explain the basic framework of how a Sonos system works. At the top level, you’ll set a Sonos system, or household. A system contains Rooms, sometimes called zoned. A room is made up of a single Sonos speaker or device (amp or port) or multiple Sonos speakers semi-permanently wirelessly bonded together. Examples are adding a sub to a soundbar, or rear surround speakers to a soundbar, or two speakers making a stereo pair. Each room can play it’s on audio source, typically streaming services or TV audio, or be temporarily grouped together with other rooms to play the same same audio source...all wirelessly. When that audio source is a streaming service or aux input...music...the audio will play in perfect sync across all rooms. When the audio source is TV audio, the room connected to the TV plays the audio immediately, to match the TV video, while other rooms will be delayed slightly, as multiroom audio requires some buffering to work well.

To answer your question - I want the speakers in the kitchen to duplicate the sound from the TV. How do I connect the TV and the Speakers together?

An Arc would be connected to the TV as one room, with the amp being setup as a second room (kitchen). You can then group them together to the TV audio together, but as I stated before, the audio coming from the kitchen speakers will be slight behind the audio coming from the Arc. If your kitchen and living room are not in an open concept space, it would be ok as you wouldn’t hear an echo effect from the two rooms in the same space. But they are in the space, so it won’t work well.

Separate but related question: Could I leave the speaker terminals in the HT Room 2 with the Sonos Amp and still connect it to the TV in Room 1?

Yes. the amp (physically sitting in HT Room 2, but speakers in kitchen) is one Sonos room, while the Arc (or whatever you use) in the living room is a 2nd Sonos room. Therefore, you can temporarily group them them together to play the same audio source. Again, if it’s TV audio, the two rooms won’t be in sync.

There is a more complicated, wired, way you could do what want, but even that isn’t a perfect sync. That would be to get a a HDM switch between your TV sources and TV that has an optical audio output as well as HDMI output to your TV. Your TV is then connected to the Arc, and you have your living room audio covered like normal. The optical audio output then needs to be wired (via Sonos optical/HDMI-ARC adapter) to the Sonos Amp sitting in your HT room 2, so it can directly play the TV audio as well. The result is both are playing the same TV audio stream, but not at all using Sonos to group the two rooms together. The streams are likely to be a few ms off each other, and might still have an echo, not sure. However, if you’re going this route, you could do this with any soundbar or AVR really, you don’t need to use Sonos products, since you aren’t really using Sonos multiroom audio features.

melvimbe · Answer

Let’s start with the family room TV. Yes, you can use a playbar for that, but it’s no longer a product that Sonos sells. I would recommend an Arc for that. You could go with a Beam, but it’s not designed for larger rooms.

For the speakers in the kitchen, do you end for them to act as rear surround speakers or a duplicate of the front channel speakers (stereo)? If it’s for surround, Sonos can do that. What you would need is a Sonos Amp, which will power your ceiling speakers instead of your main theatre room AVR. The Amp and the Sonos soundbar you choose can connect wireless over 5Ghz, but if the living room and theatre room are far apart, you might need to connect both the soundbar and Amp by ethernet connection.

If you want the kitchen to play TV audio in stereo, then Sonos won’t work for this. You can get an amp and set it up as a separate Sonos room. That will allow you to group your living room and kitchen rooms together to play in sync...but it won’t be in perfect sync for TV audio. The reason is that Sonos typically buffers the audio it receives slightly to allow for multiroom audio. With TV audio, it plays the audio immediately to avoid lip sync issues, while other rooms are still slightly delayed. if the two Sonos rooms are the same space, you end up with an echo effect...not good. If you are streaming music, it’s not a problem. Hope that makes sense.

BTW, if you wanted to include your theatre room AVR as a 3rd Sonos room, you would do that buy connecting it to a Port.

Sign up

Login to the community

Scanning file for viruses.

This file cannot be downloaded