How do you listen to music? Streaming? CDs? Vinyl? Are you an active music listener or do you prefer background music? What type of music do you listen to? What is your budget?

No problem with budget, I use it for streaming and I need to have both capacities, as listener (30% of the time) and also background (70% of the time).

Thanks!

If you want the best music-listening experience Sonos has to offer, go with a stereo pair of Sonos Fives. Your living room is big enough to handle it.

Ideally, these should be placed at around ear level when seated. But if you don’t have a console or cabinet to put these on, you could always put them on speaker stands in the corners of your room.

Two Fives produce plenty of bass, but if you need more, you could also add a Sonos Sub.

As far as the exact placement of the Fives, it’s hard to know exactly without seeing your room setup.

An alternative option, with more evenly dispersed audio, is installing four in-ceiling speakers in each corner of the room and power them with a Sonos Amp. Then add a Sonos Sub to provide more bass.

A pair of 5 where?, if I place both in one side of the room, the people that stays in the other side will receive less volume.

Don't you think 4 sonos 1 placed in each corner could be a better sound experience? 

Jakkov,

For background music, ceiling speakers or a speaker in each corner is reasonable placement. For focused, stereo listening the pair of speakers should be at ear level and approximately as far from each other as you are from the speakers. Obviously, there will be one ‘best’ seat. Since your seating area is basically square, my focused arrangement will place speakers on one side of the square, relatively close to a couple seats and the close speakers will dominate those seats. 

If you want a ‘wash’ of background music you could install a second pair of speakers in corners, opposite the focused pair and use all four speakers at that time. In SONOS parlance each pair of speakers will be a “Room” and you can listen to the Rooms separately or as a “Group,” all playing the same music or one pair could be silent.

A pair of FIVE’s will give you great focus. You could use FIVE’s or ONE’s as the background helpers. If you like tons of bass, add a SUB to the focused speakers.

This is the best and only solution for the large room problem of music having to be too loud in a part of the room to be well heard across the room. This serves very well for the times the entire space is in use, and the additional speakers need not be stereo paired - indeed this often comes across better. This also may not need more than one well placed third speaker, so I suggest trying that before adding a fourth unit.

For the focus listening area, be sure to follow the guidelines for best stereo sound where speaker placement is concerned. And have the Sub somewhere between the stereo paired speakers for best integration. Finally, true play tune the set up for best results for where the units are placed.

Kumar,

Thanks for you reply.

I want to place the speakers close to the ceiling, something like this but higher (if it is ok with the sound), I can give angle to the speaker.

Also I am not clear about the advice for positioning, I numbered the potential places:

First solution: 1 & 2 Sonos 5 and 3 & 4 sonos 1?

Second solution: 5 & 6 Sonos 5?

Third Solution: 1&2 Sonos 5 and 3 Sonos 1?

Forth Solution: 1&2&3&4 Sonos 1?

Thanks!

Placing them as shown on the wall is about the highest they can be placed, angled down to the listening areas. Any higher and they will not give the best sound they are capable of, so I would not recommend that.

But if you are looking for the best sound, can you not place One units on dedicated stands that allow them to be placed discreetly without needing too much footprint? The stands allow them to fire horizontally at listening level of the ears, which is what is needed for best sound for music listening. Or, can you wall mount the One pair, but at a lower height, such that it does not have to point down as much?

Assuming that the focused listening area is the three seater couch at the bottom of the picture, I would put One units on stands in position 1 and 2. Since I am suggesting One units, I would place a Sub on the ground in position 5. Or, if placement on stands is possible for two 5 units instead, the Sub isn't needed for most users.

And a single 5 unit placed in position 6 should be enough for the times you want to fill the entire space with music without needing to have it go too loud. You can even use it in another room and bring it to this space only when needed, it is plug and play. 

The other thing is that we don’t know what “best sound” signifies to you. It may well be that a single 5 unit in position 5 is all that is needed, placed at ear level, to serve the couch at the bottom,

Another 5 unit can be brought in and placed in position 6 whenever needed. Or left there permanently.

A good way to start this effort is to get one 5 unit and play around with it and then decide what you want to add -  if you are not able to take advantage of the Sonos easy try/return schemes.

However, since the desire is to mount the speakers high on the wall and installing brackets and electrical outlets will be required, experimenting will be a lot of trouble.