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Sonos Arc and Amp to power for 5.1 in one room and same audio in another room

  • 30 October 2022
  • 3 replies
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W

I am considering Sonos set up for my new home. In my new home I have great room , dining room and kitchen all in one straight line. The kitchen is far from the great room wall where my TV hangs. I have prewire set up for rear channels in great room and two speakers in kitchen. So this is what I intend to do and please let me know if this is possible. I will have a Sonos Arc under the tv to act as 3 channels. I will have a Sonos Amp connected to Sonos Arc. This Amp should power the two rear channels in the great room to create a 5 channel surround in great room. Now since the kitchen is a bit far, I want the same Amp to also power the two in-ceiling speakers in my kitchen with the same audio as great room but as a separate room. I do not want to create a 7 channel system, what I want to create is a 5 channel system in the great room and a two channel system in my kitchen playing the same audio. Is this possible? Are there any recommendations or considerations for this set up? Would I need any more additional accessories do achieve this set up?

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Best answer by GuitarSuperstar 30 October 2022, 04:21

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G
Userlevel 7

Each Amp acts as one zone, meaning all speakers wired to a single Amp will play the same content at the same volume. So the problem with using one Amp is the two speakers in the kitchen will also act as surround speakers for the Arc. This will result in a total of four surround speakers for the Arc (two left surrounds and two right surrounds). This will be fine when streaming music (if Music Playback for Surround Audio is set to FULL). But this will be a problem when playing TV audio since the audio playing out of the surround speakers will only be ambient and background audio. You are better off getting a second Amp to power the kitchen speakers separately. This will give you a separate “kitchen” zone that you could group with the “great room” zone when playing TV audio and streaming music. There will be a slight delay from the kitchen speakers when playing TV audio, but it will play as separate stereo speakers (rather than surrounds) and the delay probably won’t be very noticeable since those speakers are so far from the great room.

"Receive with simplicity everything that happens to you." - Rashi
W

Thanks for the suggestion. Say if I am ok with just a sound bar in living room (without any rear speakers), can I connect a single amp to sound bar(wirelessly) and use this amp as a zone playing the same audio in kitchen?

buzz

Each SONOS player or AMP, two identical players “Bonded” as a stereo pair, or a soundbar plus surrounds and SUB, is a separate “Room”. Rooms can be “Grouped” to play the same source. While playing music, all members of a Group are time aligned.

For your proposed setup there will be a time alignment issue. In order to facilitate working around transient network issues without audio loss, a 30ms latency is injected into the audio stream from the TV. In terms of lip sync, this is acceptable for most viewers. For players Grouped together the latency is 75ms.

An AMP can be part of a surround Room or standalone. Yes, a standalone AMP can be Grouped with a TV surround Room, but the 75ms latency will result in the Grouped speakers being delayed with respect to the surround system. Unfortunately, your kitchen speakers will be uncomfortably ‘late’ while watching TV.

There is a sort of workaround that is acceptable to some and not acceptable to others. You can adjust the lip sync of the surround system to better match the latency of the Group. Obviously this will impact the TV viewing lip sync.

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