What rear speakers can be used for beam?

That’s great thanks, do the rear speakers have to match? Will I be able to use my play 1 and play 3?

lou1979 wrote:

That’s great thanks, do the rear speakers have to match? Will I be able to use my play 1 and play 3?

They absolutely do need to match, and for good acoustic reasons.

Ah ok thanks for your help!

For surround; if you can get a Play 3, get that one for surround, otherwise a 1, Play 5 for surround would be overkill ... just saying 🙂 Saving you a few bucks 😉

Great thanks!

HvLee wrote:

For surround; if you can get a Play 3, get that one for surround, otherwise a 1, Play 5 for surround would be overkill ... just saying 🙂 Saving you a few bucks ;)

Are you saying a single Play 5 could be both rear channels? That would solve a short-term issue for me. (Sorry to hijack the thread!)

nik9669 wrote:

HvLee wrote:

For surround; if you can get a Play 3, get that one for surround, otherwise a 1, Play 5 for surround would be overkill ... just saying 🙂 Saving you a few bucks ;)

Are you saying a single Play 5 could be both rear channels? That would solve a short-term issue for me. (Sorry to hijack the thread!)

You need these for the rear surrounds to go with a PlayBar/PlayBase/Beam/New Sonos Amp... either ...

2 x Play:1
2 x Sonos One
2 x Play:3
2 x Play:5 (Gen2 only)
Connect:Amp and two passive speakers (wired only setup)**
New Sonos Amp and two passive speakers

** All devices above can be connected to the main Sonos unit wirelessly, except the Connect:Amp, which needs to be a wired connection. The reason being is the Sonos Home Theatre Surround System runs on 5ghz WiFi and the older Connect:Amp has only a 2.4ghz wireless card built in.

Notes:
The Alexa part of a 'Sonos One' is disabled when used as surrounds with the Sonos Beam
A Sonos One cannot currently be used for playing an AirPlay audio stream when it is used as a HT Surround Speaker

Note a Sonos Sub can be added to a Dolby Digital 5.0 Sonos HT system to make it full 5.1 surround sound.

The Sonos Home Theatre systems will not play DTS audio.

Nice summary Ken... you may want to put (gen2) after play:5

But it would have to be 2-quantity Play 5's? Overkill as already stated. You couldn't just have one acting in stereo to play rear left AND rear right from a single Play 5?

nik9669 wrote:

But it would have to be 2-quantity Play 5's? Overkill as already stated. You couldn't just have one acting in stereo to play rear left AND rear right from a single Play 5?

No

nik9669,

Just to clarify you would need two Play:5 (gen2) Speakers and not just one by itself ... it is rather a large speaker and is possibly overkill for some living rooms and only recommended for those with a very large living space.

I have a 22ft x 15ft room with Beam and 2 x Play:1 and that’s more than adequate for that size room... though a Sonos Sub to go with it, would be nice.

nik9669 wrote:

But it would have to be 2-quantity Play 5's? Overkill as already stated. You couldn't just have one acting in stereo to play rear left AND rear right from a single Play 5?

No sorry, the surround setup does not allow for one speaker only ... it has to be two separate speakers, one for each of the two rear channels.

Inhave never heard of someone setting up surround with a single stereo speaker - let alone with Sonos. Surrounds should be in left and right side not middle.

Ken_Griffiths wrote:

nik9669,

Just to clarify you would need two Play:5 (gen2) Speakers and not just one by itself ... it is rather a large speaker and is possibly overkill for some living rooms and only recommended for those with a very large living space.

I don't even think it would be a good fit for a very large room either honestly. Your seating area is probably not going to cover the 'very large room' as you probably would not cover the entire room. If you did have it over the entire room, I don't think a playbar would adequately cover the front channels to those sitting 20+ ft away from the TV (if you could even see the TV). It's like having a playbar cover the audio from a small commercial movie theatre. So I'd say that Sonos front channel speaker options can only cover a large room at max, and therefore, play:3 would be the most you'd ever need for surrounds.

If you did have a very large room you want Sonos home theatre and music in, I would probably have multiple zones going on. A portion of the space would be for HT with appropriately sized Sonos speakers. The rest of the space can have play:5s as separate zone. Or perhaps a Sonos amp or two.

If you really did want to a home theatre covering all of a very large room, I don't think Sonos is the way to go at all. At best, a Connect to tie in your traditional system with the rest of the house.