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Is having Sonos Five as read speakers a overkill with Arc and Sub Gen3 system compared to Sonos One/OneSL

  • 3 August 2020
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  • pa1
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I currently have a Arc, Sub Gen3, Pair of Sonos One 5.1.2 home theater setup. Wondering if I should switch the rear speakers to Sonos Five speakers? Would it enhance the home theater experience or would it be a overkill? I am willing to pay the extra money for Sonos Five as long as it enhances the experience by a considerable amount.

 

Also, 2nd part of my question is if I do use Sonos Five as rear speakers and stream music to this system, does the music that come out of Sonos five, Sub Gen 3 (and arc sound bar) will be same as if I had a 2.1 system with Sonos five and Sub gen 3 or since this is in home theater setup, music experience is difference from standalone 2.1 system built with these same products. Note: My question is after changing the setting in Arc home theater system to play full music in rear speakers instead of using it as ambient speakers

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Best answer by pa1 5 September 2020, 18:33

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5 replies

Airgetlam

I think it’s overkill. When used as surrounds, and not music speakers, they just aren’t given enough to do for paying that amount of money. Both of my systems use PLAY:1s as surrounds, the PLAY:5s are in use elsewhere as straight up music speakers.

If you set it up as ‘full’, you’ll have stereo coming from the Arc, and stereo coming from the surrounds. 

Bruce
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It’s not overkill, especially if you set the rear 5’s to full for music.  Check out the Peter Pee You Tube video on this.

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Thanks DarwinOSX, I have been subscribed to Peter Pee’s YouTube channel and did see his recent videos on this topic. That said I guess, based on his video, it is not  really a massive difference (he says only 5% benefits over ones) for video experience but I do agree, music experience will be better  if we set the music playback to Full

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That’s not quite my impression of what he said using rear 5’s for HT Ibut sure can hear the difference between them and rear ones. Much fuller and envelop the room rather than sound very directional from two small speakers. I was using the 5s upfront just for music and this is much more streamlined plus the 5s are much more powerful so I was able to put the against the wall rather than right behind my couch with less wiring mess. I’m loving it. The One SL’s replaced two paired HomePods in the bedroom. There are things I love about the HomePods but the bass is too much with no way to EQ and not great midrange. I can hear more detail from the Ones especially with loudness turned off. Plus I can use Roon with the Ones or the Sonos App or Airplay withPandora, Apple Music, and Tidal all of which I subscribe too. The Fives sound great set to Full for music  along with the sub but I wish I could completely turn off the Arc when music is playing. 

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Thanks @SOCalistic for sharing your thoughts. I felt the same about “I wish I could completely turn off the Arc when music is playing.” 

 

My situation is, my room is not too big, it is a 13X13 (although one side of the room is open to Dining area). So when I tried sonos Fives as rears, I felt it to be bit loud/noisy.  Not sure if I need to change any settings

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