Play 1 vs 3 for 5.1 system

The 1 units are all you need, there is no need to spend more on any other speaker. Bass needs will be adequately handled by Sub.

Get 2 Play:1 speakers for your rears...and with the $200 saved over getting the Play:3s, get a 3rd Play:1 for another room. This is a no-brainer in my opinion.

Personally j find the new play:5s as rears with the 5.1 setup is a VERY noticeable improvement over the play:1s especially for general music listening and also for the tv watching

Any additional thoughts here?

Is this purely a function of how loud you want to play your TV/music + how large your room is?

Is there any noticeable gain in terms of the surround sound by going to a Play3/5 over a 1 for the rears?

I vote with Kumar and jdag

I concur. I use my Play:3s elsewhere for music, and keep Play:1s for Surrounds. Although I also have a pair of Play:1s for music in my kitchen, where they perform spectacularly.

Thanks for the feedback! I'll go with the 1s.

Too bad I cant get 4 of them to augment the FrontL and FrontR sound from my Playbar

I agree, would love to have that option as well. I wonder if it is a bandwidth issue? Or just an issue with complexity for the majority of their market (might make it too complex for set ups, except for those of us who are audiophiles/technophiles). In any case, there's been absolutely no rumors that Sonos might be giving that some consideration. We can hope, though.

Why not go the whole way then with a dedicated to dialogue centre speaker? With the Sub, that would then be a genuine 5.1 system, that would also work better for stereo music in stereo mode with just the front speaker pair playing, with the Sub for bass support - a genuine 2.1 system for music.

IMO, releasing a center speaker that allows for doing just this would have be been a more useful alternative to play bar than the recently released play base. The customer could choose any of the existing units for front speaker duty and if the Sub was to be bought, the front pair too could be just play 1 units. This would still be a no compromises HT system, and equally brilliant for stereo music play. While those willing to live with a little less would go the play bar + Sub route.

The only thing that would then remain as issues would be those related to the format alphabet soup/TV compatibility that afflicts HT in general.

I shall copy this post in a separate thread in the HT section!

@Kumar- Thanks for posting your feedback in the HT thread! Hopefully enough customer feedback/desire for 5.1 options will drive Sonos to provide this ability.

WRT Play1 vs Play3 for the 5.1 rears, I'm finding used Play1's hard to find and often costing $160+, while I've seen more Play3s available for as low as $175.

Question: Is there any reason I wouldnt want to use Play3s for the rears (other than cost)? Is it possible the rear output when watching HT is disproportionately loud when using Play3s? (I doubt it but wanted to check).

If its only gonna cost me $15-$20 more per speaker (and theyre more readily available), I dont see why I wouldnt just go with the Play3s and have a more versatile set of speakers.