Answered

Hybrid surround sound system

  • 26 October 2020
  • 3 replies
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V
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I am a long term (10+years) owner of SONOS equipment.

I have (spread around the house) 2x 5’s 4x 1’s a sound bar and a sub.

2 of the 1’s, the sound bar and the sub are my TV sound system.

I am moving to a larger house that will support a much bigger TV.

In order to have a ‘proper’ 5.1 surround system I want to add a pair of L+R front speakers.

Bearing in mind that I do not want, nor have the cash, to upgrade all my SONOS kit to the newer versions, i need a solution that will work with the original hardware.

Ideally I would like a pair of floor standing speakers for L+R fronts, the sound bar to act as the centre front speaker and the 1’s (or of possible the 5’s) to act as the rears.

I dont think the sound bar gives a wide enough sound stage for true 5.1 surround sound.

I have looked at the various kit that SONOS provides and I’m torn between a device that will connect the SONOS system to a standard HiFi A/V amp, but I’m not sure that will give me a signal to the sound bar /sub /rears, or just using the SONOS Amp - but will this give me a 5.1 system?

 

All comments suggestions greatfully received

Cheers 

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Best answer by dan8558 28 October 2020, 02:32

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3 replies

Krishma M
Userlevel 5
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Hi @vegit8, thanks for reaching out to the Sonos Community! I appreciate the details and I’d be happy to help. 

Sonos Beam is best suited for small to midsize rooms, while Playbar and Playbase can achieve louder volumes and generally fill larger spaces. Even with its smaller footprint, Beam boasts room-filling that makes it a great fit for most TV rooms.

Our soundbars (Playbar, Playbase, Beam) are already considered as 3.0 system (front left, front right, and center). You will only be able to add rear surrounds in the Sonos app. For Sonos Amp, you can use it as TV front speakers, or as TV surround speakers when asked “How do you want to use Sonos Amp?” during the setup process. Note that Amp’s SUB output and line input are disabled when Amp is used as TV surround speakers. You can have two separate Sonos Amps set up as TV front speakers and as TV surround speakers. Sonos Amp also plays Dolby Digital 5.1 or PCM stereo sound over HDMI-ARC. And Sonos Arc itself is a 5.0.2 soundbar. When adding surround speakers or Sub to Arc, it would create a 5.1.2 system with 5 main audio channels (front left, front right, rear left, rear right, and center), 1 subwoofer channel, and 2 vertical channels. We can also wait for other’s opinions. 

Hope this helps. We and the community are always here to help.

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D
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Given that you want to use two speakers in front you need to acquire a Sonos Amp. The front left/right speakers will provide a phantom center channel. In my experience with two setups this works very well. One downside is you can’t separately boost the center channel volume. There is no ability to use a sound bar as a center channel in this setup. The best way to go, in my opinion, is to use the 1s (I assume they’re actually Play 1s) as surround speakers. They can be bonded with the Amp to create a 4.0 system (5.0 with phantom center). You can also bond the Sub if you feel the front left/right don’t provide enough bass.

V
Userlevel 2
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Given that you want to use two speakers in front you need to acquire a Sonos Amp. The front left/right speakers will provide a phantom center channel. In my experience with two setups this works very well. One downside is you can’t separately boost the center channel volume. There is no ability to use a sound bar as a center channel in this setup. The best way to go, in my opinion, is to use the 1s (I assume they’re actually Play 1s) as surround speakers. They can be bonded with the Amp to create a 4.0 system (5.0 with phantom center). You can also bond the Sub if you feel the front left/right don’t provide enough bass.

Hi

This is the answer I was hoping for.

I currently have a surround system using a playbar, a sub and the 2x play 1’s as the rears. The room is quite small but the overall effect is OK. I especially like the pseudo quad sound when listening to music.

My new room will be larger and I wanted to create more separation between L+R than the soundbar currently provides. I was confused at to what part the Soundbar played in my new set up. I can see now that I will have a bit of kit to sell!! Cheers

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