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yet another inital setup question: 4x play 5 or 6x play one with the sub

  • September 6, 2019
  • 16 replies
  • 843 views
T
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Hi,

I am considering to make the move over to a wireless sound eco system. To start of: a HEOS is also still in the race, altough I lean towards Sonos for esthetic point of view: so pretty!

Our house is not to big, but i would like to get as close as possible to an "immersive sound experience" wich means (for me): more or less the same sound experience all across the room.

Sound quality is more important than maximum volume (but I would like to have some punch in the setup when having a small party/get together). Detail and well balanced sound is most important.
I'm not really interested in the smart features with voice control etc.

For TV sound there would probably also be a beam involved.

See drawings below for the setup... Now the questio, what is the best way to go, and why? Or are there even better setups (without adding to the budget)

In the upper half, across from the beam, is the couch. In the middel area on the left is kitchen, and the lower half is the dining area. Also, there are french doors wich lead to outside, were the music should also be good to hear and enjoy (not all the way, directly outside is the outside dining table)


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    16 replies

    T
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    • Tyzz_a
    • Author
    • Trending Lyricist I
    • September 8, 2019
    Well that was a waste of my time....
    buzz
    • buzz
    • September 8, 2019
    In terms of "immersive sound experience", the scheme with SONOS ONE's will deliver better results. The SUB location is not appropriate if you intend to use it with BEAM. Note that SUB will be bonded with a pair of speakers or BEAM and that "Room" will control SUB. I recommend moving SUB close to BEAM and bond it with BEAM.
    T
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    • Tyzz_a
    • Author
    • Trending Lyricist I
    • September 9, 2019
    I wanted the sub to extend the end of the ones, mainly for music, and at the same time give the ones some headroom to perform better. When you say the sub will be bonded with one pair, does that mean only that pair gets the lower frequentie cut-off and the rest of the ones are run full range?

    I would intend to run the beam for TV sound which doesn't have to be booming or anything, just some decent TV sound instead of the crap speakers that are build in. Does the beam without sub deliver on that end? It also doesnt have to be overly loud, we do not watch a lot of movies and when we do there is no need for a movie theater expierence.

    I was also thinking that 4 play 5's would maybe be somewhat overkill? Can anyone comment on that?
    buzz
    • buzz
    • September 9, 2019
    Each pair of ONE's becomes a "Room". In this context you would have a total of four Rooms. SUB can be part of only one Room. You can Group all of the rooms and play the same music with a single Volume control. With everything playing it will not matter much which Room owns SUB, however, if you change the level of SUB's Room or turn that Room OFF, the bass level will change.

    Without question, BEAM will sound better than the TV's speakers.

    It's quite a lot of fun to watch TV in a surround sound environment. If you keep SUB near the TV, you can easily move a pair of ONE's into the TV end of the space and setup surround, including SUB. It will only require a few minutes to reconfigure the system for movie night. You can break down the surround and move the ONE's back to their usual spot for a party.

    It's not so much a question with level, I don't like the arrangement of the PLAY5's because it will not be quite as "immersive" as the ONE arrangement. If you go with the PLAY5's keep the two central PLAY5's as individual rooms for a total of four or five Rooms.
    T
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    • Tyzz_a
    • Author
    • Trending Lyricist I
    • September 9, 2019
    It was more a question if adding the sub can also "relief" the ones that are in a different room in the lower end. As I understood it, adding a sub will change the low frequency cut-off for the speakers its bonded to (so the pair of ones wil not go any lower then say 100 Hz or something, so they can play louder without distortion and also opening up the sound a bit, or so I'm told)
    That is also why I would like to set the sub at that point, I'm afraid it wil be too far away from the two speakers at the far end (dining room)

    In the past I did play around with surround movies. I had 5.1 setup at the apartment I used to live before. After I moved I haven't bothered with setting it up again because I wasn't really missing it.
    A
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    • atherda1
    • Lyricist III
    • September 10, 2019
    If it was me, I'd bond the sub to the beam and use the 5's. Why do I say that the 5 has a lot better bass response than the ones and the sub will add less. Bonding 1 sub to one pair of ones and then grouping the rest may give an odd effect as the ones will behave differently depending if they have the sub bonded to them.
    Dare I say it but for your application sonos may not be an ideal solution as grouping is a temporary configuration and resetting the groups up can get frustrating.
    T
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    • Tyzz_a
    • Author
    • Trending Lyricist I
    • September 10, 2019
    If it was me, I'd bond the sub to the beam and use the 5's. Why do I say that the 5 has a lot better bass response than the ones and the sub will add less. Bonding 1 sub to one pair of ones and then grouping the rest may give an odd effect as the ones will behave differently depending if they have the sub bonded to them.
    Dare I say it but for your application sonos may not be an ideal solution as grouping is a temporary configuration and resetting the groups up can get frustrating.

    The idea was to either get a beam with the 1's and a sub, OR the beam and the 5's.

    I really don't think I need a sub with the tv to be honest, I do like some body to the tv sound but I dial back the bass in my current setup because the thunders kinda annoy me when just plain watching TV. In any case, I think I would just start of with the beam for TV sound.

    Your last remark however is interesting. I was under the impression that I could set it so that when I choose TV as the source, only the beam would play, but when I choose for example Spotify all speakers would play... Is this not the case? Do I need to set that everytime i use the system? Or does it just stick with the last known configuration?
    A
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    • atherda1
    • Lyricist III
    • September 10, 2019
    Yes you can send Spotify to all the speakers but if you want to hear the same music and have it fully in sync you will need to group them. This is easy enough and you can add the beam into the group. It’s just not as solid as bonding say a sub to other speakers. It all depends how often you want them playing all together.
    T
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    • Tyzz_a
    • Author
    • Trending Lyricist I
    • September 10, 2019
    Yes you can send Spotify to all the speakers but if you want to hear the same music and have it fully in sync you will need to group them. This is easy enough and you can add the beam into the group. It’s just not as solid as bonding say a sub to other speakers. It all depends how often you want them playing all together.

    Well, preferably I would like all the speakers (beam, ones or fives, maybe sub) to pay altogether when playing Spotify, and probably just the beam when playing TV sound. the question is do I have set this all up (grouping/ungrouping) everytime i change from TV sound tot Spotify and back?
    T
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    • Tyzz_a
    • Author
    • Trending Lyricist I
    • September 12, 2019

    Yes you can send Spotify to all the speakers but if you want to hear the same music and have it fully in sync you will need to group them. This is easy enough and you can add the beam into the group. It’s just not as solid as bonding say a sub to other speakers. It all depends how often you want them playing all together.Well, preferably I would like all the speakers (beam, ones or fives, maybe sub) to pay altogether when playing Spotify, and probably just the beam when playing TV sound. the question is do I have set this all up (grouping/ungrouping) everytime i change from TV sound tot Spotify and back?

    So no answers on that one? I would have thought there would be something of presets for settings/groups etc.
    Offcourse I could always leave all rooms grouped together, and just leave them like that? Or do need to group them together everytime you want to play them together?
    K
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    • Keithmac
    • Virtuoso
    • September 12, 2019
    The Beam has "Ungroup on Autoplay" setting so will not effect the main group when you turn TV on.

    The Sonos One is a very good speaker and the Sub is excellent, I'd go for them.

    We have Dining room Kitchen and Landing grouped together and don't have a problem with ungrouping.

    The Sub is bonded to our Playbar and Play:1 5.1 setup in the Living room but I listen to as much music with that as the TV to be fair!.

    You could set a 5.1 up with the beam and Sub and two Ones, but you'd have to group that to your other "rooms" when using it in full house music mode. Grouping is a 10 second job with the Phone app.
    T
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    • Tyzz_a
    • Author
    • Trending Lyricist I
    • September 12, 2019
    The Beam has "Ungroup on Autoplay" setting so will not effect the main group when you turn TV on.

    The Sonos One is a very good speaker and the Sub is excellent, I'd go for them.

    We have Dining room Kitchen and Landing grouped together and don't have a problem with ungrouping.

    The Sub is bonded to our Playbar and Play:1 5.1 setup in the Living room but I listen to as much music with that as the TV to be fair!.

    You could set a 5.1 up with the beam and Sub and two Ones, but you'd have to group that to your other "rooms" when using it in full house music mode. Grouping is a 10 second job with the Phone app.

    The auto ungroup function seems neat at least.
    Do you have to regroup it afterwards again, or does automatically restore to the group after the tv is of again?

    Another question, say I have 6 or so 1's, those can only be 3 (or 6 if not paired) rooms. I would like the to always be grouped at least, is that possible or do I have to regroup them everytime?
    Airgetlam
    • Airgetlam
    • September 12, 2019
    Groups survive session to session, unless broken by an implicit command (start playing room 1 and 2, ignore 3, autoplay), power interruptions, or software updates.

    I've got my bedroom and bathroom grouped, and play there every morning, I don't have to touch the grouping commands except when there's a software update, or when there's a power outage at my house.
    Bruce
    T
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    • Tyzz_a
    • Author
    • Trending Lyricist I
    • September 13, 2019
    Groups survive session to session, unless broken by an implicit command (start playing room 1 and 2, ignore 3, autoplay), power interruptions, or software updates.

    I've got my bedroom and bathroom grouped, and play there every morning, I don't have to touch the grouping commands except when there's a software update, or when there's a power outage at my house.

    So with the setup with the 1's it would be like this:
    Room 1: beam
    Room 2: pair of 1's
    Room 3: pair of 1's with Sub
    Room 4: pair of 1's

    When I group all the rooms together, they will stay that way until I play a single room, a power outage, a software update or autoplay on the beam.

    Leaving a power outage, software update or playing single room out (won't happen that often), playing TV sound would break up the group because of autoplay. Does that mean the whole group breaks up, or just the beam is moved out of the group?

    Yesterday I read that I cannot assign speakers to more than one group (which personally I think is ridiculous and might even still be a deal-breaker, haven't decided yet) so effectively I either be grouping everytime I have been playing TV sound, or create a group without the beam (in which case I might even forgo the beam altogether and just get a cheap soundbar for TV sound, it's not that important for me)
    106rallye
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    • 106rallye
    • September 13, 2019
    I don’t understand your last remark. A group consists of two or more rooms, playing music/sound from the same source. As you can’t play two things at the same time, groups are made he (easily) as you want them at the time you make them. What would the result be if a speaker would be put in two groups at the same time?
    T
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    • Tyzz_a
    • Author
    • Trending Lyricist I
    • September 13, 2019
    I don’t understand your last remark. A group consists of two or more rooms, playing music/sound from the same source. As you can’t play two things at the same time, groups are made he (easily) as you want them at the time you make them. What would the result be if a speaker would be put in two groups at the same time?

    Could be the second group is just greyed out as long as the other group is playing, or the speaker that is in both groups just keeps playing the first group while the rest of the second group plays other content (probably more difficult to realise and would not be my first choice)

    For me being able to setup presets with different layouts with rooms and speakers would be much more user friendly than constantly creating the groups over and over, even it's only a few actions...

    I
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