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Hi everyone,

I need advice on a living room setup to be used for both music and home theater. I do have some nice bookshelf speakers that I’d like to incorporate somehow in the setup. So basically I’m considering two options:




  • Amp with my existing speakers hooked up to TV as front and two Ones for surround
  • Beam for TV, Connect for the bookshelf speakers (they come with an amplifier so Connect would be enough) and two Ones for surround.

Now, for the second option – is it possible to group them all together and use both for home theater and music? How would Connect fit in? If not, can I have two groups in the same room, one for home theater (Beam + Ones), the other for music (Connect + Ones) and would it be possible to use a single pair of Ones in two groups without a need to group and ungroup them every time?

It seems the Amp might be better as an all-round solution but I’d miss out on some features like voice control or speech enhancement. But I guess my main concern is easy switching between TV and music. So, any thoughts are welcome 🙂
For your second option:

You can have two Sonos rooms in one space. You’d just have to use different names, i.e. the Beam with the One for yor TV would be called TV Room and the Connect would be called Music Room. It is possible to group the two rooms, so you’d group the Beam (with the One’s for surround) with the Connect for music (the Beam is also AirPlay 2-capable so you’d have that option too). For Home Theatre this would not be necessary: the Beam and the surrounds are full 5.0. The connect will just play stereo and introduce lag (so lipsync-issues) to the Home Theatre - more a distraction than an addition.



Uncoupling the One’s (which don’t show in the Sonos app when coupled for surround) from the Beam is a drag. Just keep them in the surround set up - when grouped (via the Beam) with the Connect they wil act as stereo speakers anyway.
OK, that makes sense, I might do just that. Thanks 🙂
so will option one still have a delay?
Depends on which "amp" you're talking about, and the method of connection.



If you're talking about a Sonos Amp, utilizing the HDMI-ARC (or optical to HDMI-ARC) connection, then no, effectively no delay. If you're using an analog input, then yes, you'll have the delay.



You'd still be able to bond the two Ones as surround speakers.
Hi everyone,

I need advice on a living room setup to be used for both music and home theater. I do have some nice bookshelf speakers that I’d like to incorporate somehow in the setup. So basically I’m considering two options:




  • Amp with my existing speakers hooked up to TV as front and two Ones for surround
  • Beam for TV, Connect for the bookshelf speakers (they come with an amplifier so Connect would be enough) and two Ones for surround.






It's been nine (9) days and no response as to what you finally decided. On the oft chance that you are still deciding what to do here's my two cents....



Beam for TV with Play 1's for surround. No need for Sonos One's as the Beam has the Alexa and the feature is muted for Sonos One's when they are used as surrounds.



Sonos Amp for your existing bookshelf speakers upfront for dedicated stereo music playback. You can also use a turntable that is pre-amped internally or one that uses an outboard pre-amp.



You can retire your existing Amp unless you want to connect a CD player and utilize a Sonos Connect to send that music to Sonos.



From my experience sending TV audio to other speakers is not desirable. Although some like it. Furthermore having TV sound coming through the Beam and speakers connected to the Amp is a bit much. So it comes down to a matter of taste.



Your second option is a somewhat convoluted IHMO. Therefore I'll not comment on it. Suffice it to say that "yes" you can group the Beam w/surrounds to the Sonos Amp and to the amplifier with the Sonos Connect or any combination you desire. Note: the Play 1's would be part of the HT and are therefore tied to the Beam so you could not group them as separates (neither paired or individually).



Cheers!
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