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Rekordboy
Contributor I
April 7, 2019

Using beam as a center channel

Hi,
I currently have a very nice 2.1 receiver with 2 paradigm stereo speakers and a powered subwoofer. My problem is listening to movies the dialogue gets lost when listening at lower volumes. I'm thinking of incorporating a Sonos Beam as a center channel by adding hooking up my normal stereo to a Sonos Connect and throwing a beam under my TV. Anybody have any thoughts on opinions on whether this will solve my problem. I also wondering if you can actually configure or tell sonos the the beam is supposed to be a center channel in a configuration like this, or if that even matters. And just to clarify, it doesn't have to act as a center in the pure definition sense of a 5.1 surround, the main goal is to get more clarity in the dialogue.
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    3 replies

    Airgetlam
    Airgetlam
    April 7, 2019
    Maybe? You can't set up a Beam as a "center" channel. You'll get all 3 front channels out of it, but you can use the speech enhancement feature to kick up the center speaker in the device. But it's a binary switch, not a volume slider.
    Bruce
      ratty
      ratty
      April 7, 2019
      This won't work satisfactorily at all. A TV signal sent through a Connect to the Beam will be delayed by ~75 milliseconds. Even pushing the stereo signal through an ADC directly into the Beam's optical-HDMI adapter won't give good results, as the delay is still ~30 ms. If used in conjunction with the existing 2.1 receiver it would create a horrible echo either way.
      RekordboyAuthor
      Contributor I
      April 7, 2019
      Wow, thanks for the replies everyone. Seems like I have a lot of things to ponder now.
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