Play 1 vs 3 for 5.1 system

The only reason I could think of not wanting to use the Play:3s is cost. Or perhaps the possibility of using them somewhere else for music, instead of surround functions. But there's little exercise that a surround speaker would get that would be beyond what a Play:1 could handle.

Think of it as using an 18 wheel lorry to carry your luggage. A car would work just fine. 🙂

I agree; it is purely a cost issue. A smaller issue may be the extra space occupied.

i vote for 2 Play 1s, just bought my surround, sonos rocks

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

You are using multi channel stereo I guess.
Surround speakers with 5.1 will be used only in specific scenes and play 5 would be really a waste of money to me.

I have a large lounge , therefore would the play 3’s be an improvement as rear speakers ?

Not in my opinion. But your ears may hear things differently than mine.

Wanting to purchase 5.1 surround sound, I have a larger lounge 32 sq m in total, what pair of rear speakers would you recommend as I want to use them for both tv and just playing music. I just feel the play 3’s will give me more bang, I’m no expert tho

No one is an expert other than you for what you hear. And you asked about rear speakers, which would normally part of a 5.1 system. But now you've added playing music.

First off, it's a pain to remove surround speakers so that they'll be separate from the PLAYBAR/PLAYBASE. It can be done, to be sure, but it's not something you'll want to do repeatedly. Most people set the system to have the surrounds as "Full" rather than "Ambient" when playing music. With that setting, they do play a full stereo, along with the music playing out of the PLAYBAR/PLAYBASE.

I've got pairs of both PLAY:3s and PLAY:1s. I haven't found the sound difference to be worth the price difference, but as I have said, I don't have your ears. You should visit a shop and listen to both of them, and make your own determination.

Thank you for the advice, so the play1’s as rear speakers for surround sound are more than adequate for purpose, you’ve sold me on those, if I wanted just to play music could I just put a play 5 in the lounge then separate from the surround sound or doesn’t it work like that ?? Haha sorry I did say I wasn’t an expert but any advice is greatly appreciated

If I understand you, sure, you could use a single PLAY:5 in the same space. Due to the way that Sonos deals with speakers, you'd set that up as a separate "room", since their rooms are groups of speakers. So you'd have, say, Living Room as the one room with the 5.1 system, and Music Room as the PLAY:5 for music. Basically, it's just a way for the app to keep track of them, the actual physical location makes little to no difference, as long as they're within wifi range. And, Sonos provides the ability to either choose a predefined room name, or make up your own, so you could call them Benny and Joon, if you wanted to.