Contributor I

Living room system design for Sonos beginner

5 replies
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Hello everybody.

It's Giulio from Italy, and I'm glad for having just joined this great community.

I'm planning to move shortly to a new apartment I bought some time ago and that I've just finished of restoring internally. Now, with some patience and without the urgency of buying all the pieces in a single time for $ reasons, I'm planning to setup a Sonos system in my future living room.

To sum up my needs/intentions:

- Things I've got at the moment: a Rega Planar turntable, a huge amount of vinyls to play with, and a brand new 4K tv.
- Things I would like to do: play music from my turntable, and enjoying the sound of my TV as well (obviously not at the same time :D), streaming the sound wirelessly with a Sonos setup.
- At the moment, I have also a couple of analogue speakers and a Rotel amplifier, but my plans are to move them somewhere else, in another room so to speak and don't consider them in the turntable play rig for now.
- Turntable and TV will be located in the same room. Target is: less cable routing is better.

My idea of setup right now is the following: connect to the TV the "cheap" soundbar of the Sonos product line, which is enough for my needs, i.e. the Beam. Match the beam with n°2 Sonos play:5 speakers, to create a stereo pairing, one on the left and one on the right of the TV, with the Beam located in the center.

Now, the turntable. It will be placed in a different location, still in the same room as the rest of the components but on a dedicated desk. My plan is to connect the turntable via the RCA plugs of the connect:Amp unit, and stream the sound to the play:5's. I could re-use the Rotel amp I already have and stream the sound from the amp to the Play:5 via a basic Sonos connect unit.. Depends on the available space. Don't know which is the best pick in terms of sound.

Questions time:

- Is my system feasible? Some components are missing, or some are conflicting with each other?
- Any alternatives to the proposed solution? Also including the pair of Polkaudio speakers I already got in stock.

I'm an absolute beginner in this Sonos world, so some help/clarifications would be highly appreciated.

Ps. apologize for my English

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Airgetlam

First, nothing wrong with your English!

Second, I'm concerned about your plan in this way: The Beam has the left, center and right speakers in the same container, so the pair of PLAY:5s you're talking about would not be good to include with the TV sound, as there would be a slight delay. If you set them up behind you, as surrounds, that would work.

On the other hand, you could keep them in front on either side of the TV set, and just use them for music purposes. And yes, your turntable connected to the CONNECT:AMP's analog input should be fine, assuming that there's a pre-amp associated. It could be the pre-amp in the Rotel, if you choose to leave that in the loop, or perhaps your turntable has a pre-amp built in, or you could just purchase one. The one thing to note in this potential setup is that if you had speakers connected to the Rotel, they and the Sonos speakers would be slightly out of sync, as any Sonos analog input has a minimum of a 70ms delay. If you're not planning to include additional speakers with that Rotel playing at the same time as the Sonos speakers, you'll be fine.

If it were me, I'd move the Rotel and the Polk Audio speakers into another room, like your bedroom, and keep them separate. I'd probably do everything else you mentioned except pairing the PLAY:5s with the beam. I would either put them behind your head and set them up as surround speakers (which you can then use as Stereo speakers when playing music on the Beam by setting them as "full" in the advanced settings), or just leave them as a pair of music speakers that you're using with the turntable connected to the analog input on the CONNECT. It mostly depends on how much TV, and what kind you watch.

At the end of the day, it's your room, your ears, your satisfaction you're trying to satisfy. The nice thing about the Sonos system is you can try multiple setups without penalty, and see what suits your needs.

Bruce

AjTrek1

Hi my answers are in Bold. Cheers!

Hello everybody.

It's Giulio from Italy, and I'm glad for having just joined this great community.

I'm planning to move shortly to a new apartment I bought some time ago and that I've just finished of restoring internally. Now, with some patience and without the urgency of buying all the pieces in a single time for $ reasons, I'm planning to setup a Sonos system in my future living room.

To sum up my needs/intentions:

First you need a good router with internet. You must decide on a Boost or Wi-Fi setup. I prefer Boost. Learn more at the link:
https://www.sonos.com/en-us/support/setting-up-sonos

- Things I've got at the moment: a Rega Planar turntable, a huge amount of vinyls to play with, and a brand new 4K tv.
- Things I would like to do: play music from my turntable, and enjoying the sound of my TV as well (obviously not at the same time :D), streaming the sound wirelessly with a Sonos setup.
- At the moment, I have also a couple of analogue speakers and a Rotel amplifier, but my plans are to move them somewhere else, in another room so to speak and don't consider them in the turntable play rig for now.
- Turntable and TV will be located in the same room. Target is: less cable routing is better.

Turntable could be plugged into a Connect:AMP with sound output to analogue speakers: https://www.sonos.com/en-us/shop/connectamp.html

My idea of setup right now is the following: connect to the TV the "cheap" soundbar of the Sonos product line, which is enough for my needs, i.e. the Beam. Match the beam with n°2 Sonos play:5 speakers, to create a stereo pairing, one on the left and one on the right of the TV, with the Beam located in the center.

You can connect the Beam to your TV. You cannot set the Beam as a center channel and the Play 5's as L/R channels.
The Beam simulates L/C/R channels. You could use Play 5's as surrounds and for music playback bonded to the Beam in an HT setup and later add a Sonos sub

Now, the turntable. It will be placed in a different location, still in the same room as the rest of the components but on a dedicated desk. My plan is to connect the turntable via the RCA plugs of the connect:Amp unit, and stream the sound to the play:5's. I could re-use the Rotel amp I already have and stream the sound from the amp to the Play:5 via a basic Sonos connect unit.. Depends on the available space. Don't know which is the best pick in terms of sound.

You can setup the Connect:Amp with Turntable and speakers as a room. The Beam as a room. The Play 5's as a room each or as a stereo pair in the same room or bond them to the Beam as an HT room.

All rooms can be grouped to play the some sound

Questions time:

- Is my system feasible? Some components are missing, or some are conflicting with each other?
- Any alternatives to the proposed solution? Also including the pair of Polkaudio speakers I already got in stock.

I'm an absolute beginner in this Sonos world, so some help/clarifications would be highly appreciated.

Ps. apologize for my English

Together Everyone Achieves More = T.E.A.M.

R

RayOfLightAuthor

Contributor I

Wow, thanks to both for the very fast and accurate replies.. Didn't expect that to be honest :D

Second, I'm concerned about your plan in this way: The Beam has the left, center and right speakers in the same container, so the pair of PLAY:5s you're talking about would not be good to include with the TV sound, as there would be a slight delay. If you set them up behind you, as surrounds, that would work. On the other hand, you could keep them in front on either side of the TV set, and just use them for music purposes.

If I'm getting your point right, you're proposing me to install the play:5 pair on the left and on the right of the TV as previously expected, but excluding them from the TV sound output, and use them just for the music playback from the turntable, or other sources connected to the network (iPod for example). That could be just fine for me, I can stick with the Beam connected to the TV only. I'm on my learning curve. Be advised that I'm planning to place all these components on the same desk (Play5's, tv and Beam) due to space reasons (I won't use separate stands for the Play5's for now, I will just place them vertically next to the tv L and R). Is this going to create issues of sort?

Your turntable connected to the CONNECT:AMP's analog input should be fine, assuming that there's a pre-amp associated. It could be the pre-amp in the Rotel, if you choose to leave that in the loop, or perhaps your turntable has a pre-amp built in, or you could just purchase one.

Unfortunately, my Rega Planar hasn't a built-in pre-amp stage, so an amp device would be necessary in any case. BUT, I thought that the connect:amp had actually an amp stage inside of it, so I could use it in place of my Rotel amp.
In other words, other than the connect:amp, do I need a dedicated pocket pre-amp between the TT and the connect:amp as additional amplification stage? I wonder what's the difference with the basic Connect then 🆒

The one thing to note in this potential setup is that if you had speakers connected to the Rotel, they and the Sonos speakers would be slightly out of sync, as any Sonos analog input has a minimum of a 70ms delay.

I've experienced the audio latency issue already with my Airport Express capsule with Airplay, so I knew that I had to make a choice between the analogue speakers and the eventual Play5's. Thanks for the advice btw.

... or just leave them as a pair of music speakers that you're using with the turntable connected to the analog input on the CONNECT.

I think I will run this solution as a "starting" configuration.

Airgetlam

1) Is this going to create issues of sort?
No, it shouldn't.

2) the connect:amp had actually an amp stage inside of it
It has an amp, but the input to the analog RCA needs to be line level, not phono level, which is why you need the pre-amp between the turntable and the CONNECT:AMP. The amp inside it is used to power speakers that you connect to it. If you're not going to have the Polks you mentioned earlier connected to that, then yes, you should indeed consider the CONNECT, which will take the input from the pre-amp (and hence the turntable) and send it to the pair of PLAY:5s. And is cheaper, also :)

3) Thanks for the advice btw
You're more than welcome. Make sure you digest AJTrek's input as well, he's equally experienced, and we all have slightly different perspectives, knowledge, and priorities.

Good luck, and welcome to the wonderful world of Sonos!

Bruce

F

flyingpadrejr

Prodigy I

If I'm getting your point right, you're proposing me to install the play:5 pair on the left and on the right of the TV as previously expected, but excluding them from the TV sound output, and use them just for the music playback from the turntable, or other sources connected to the network (iPod for example). That could be just fine for me, I can stick with the Beam connected to the TV only. I'm on my learning curve. Be advised that I'm planning to place all these components on the same desk (Play5's, tv and Beam) due to space reasons (I won't use separate stands for the Play5's for now, I will just place them vertically next to the tv L and R). Is this going to create issues of sorts?

If you are considering using 2 Play 5s on either side of the TV I would encourage you to try to see if you can make that work for TV also before getting an additional Beam. I use the 2Play5s (+ sub) for TV and music in my living room by connecting headphone out of the TV to the line in on one of the Play 5s. The result is excellent - I use the uncompressed setting for the line in, which means there are no lip sync issues and the sound is astonishing.

In another room I have (just) a Beam so I can compare - even though the Beam produces nice crisp sound as well, set of Play 5s wins hands down also for TV stereo purposes. The only advantages for using a Beam would IMO be the capability of setting up a surround system and lower costs. But you seem to be mostly interested in best sound for music playing and go for the Play 5s anyway for that reason. It was the same for me and still don’t regret going for the pair of 5s over a soundbar in my living room area.

The ultimate set-up would be a dedicated center, play 5s as front left and right and play 1s as surround, but that’s a different discussion and does not seem to be in the cards any time soon.

One final word of advice: should you go for Beam + 2 Play 5s and connect them as surround set thinking that you can then use full stereo mode for music: while factually correct this option is only available for streaming music. This option is not available when listening to music (or any other sound) via the TV and also not when connecting any device to the line in of one of the Play 5s. When the Play 5s are set as surround speakers the line in is disabled.

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