how to connect to Bose SR1 soundbar

  • 14 August 2013
  • 8 replies
  • 5619 views

Userlevel 2
Hi all,

I would like connect my Bose SR1 soundbar with Sonos. Will I need Sonos Connect or the Sonos Connect:Amp?

Currently, I cannot get any sound out of my Bose soundbar, which is connected to the Sonos Connect being in turn connected to my internet router. Is it my stupidity or just the wrong set-up?

Cheers,

Twoshade

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8 replies

Welcome to the forums.

The CONNECT is what you need. How's it cabled to the Bose?

What Sonos controller are you using? Is there no sound for all music sources you've tried?
Userlevel 2
Hi ratty,

thanks for the welcome.

The Connect is cabled via a coax cable to the soundbar, the TV is connected via an optical cable. The TV sound works just fine. I use an iPhone 5 which has hooked up with the Sonos Connect just nicely via WLAN.

It appears that the Bose SR1 has no internal switch, and appears to prefer the optical TV signal via the coax signal from the Sonos. However, even if I disconnect the optical TV cable and TV being off, I can still get no sound.

I'll try to connect the Sonos via an optical cable, and see what happens.

Any other ideas?

Thanks!

twoshade
The SR does indeed have an internal switch, but it doesn't function the way you'd expect it to. The Aux connection is supposed to 'supplement' the audio from the Aux device to the TV. The SR compares the audio it receives from the TV when watching the Aux device to the audio connected to the Aux jacks, and chooses the higher quality stream. That means that the SR expects to see audio from the TV and from the Aux jack simultaneously, so your TV would have to be On and the Connect wired to it sending audio.

All in all, it would appear the SR isn't really intended to play from audio-only devices. It can be done, but it requires the TV.
Full disclosure: I'm not a Bose user, and have no intention of ever being one.

To judge by the comments in another thread it isn't straightforward to simply tell the soundbar to use the AUX source. Strange if that's really the case. An external optical selector switch would work around the issue.
Would it be possible to take the Line out of the CONNECT to my TV and use it to Bridge to the Bose Soundbar?
Brilliant forum by the way!
Where does the TV accept a sound input? If it has such a thing, I suppose it might work, but I can't imagine a TV that has a sound input active (while playing video) that would accept a signal and then pass it though to anything. If you had the video going in to the same input as the audio was (i.e. a component input on the TV), yea, I'd think it would work. But I'm not sure what data on the Connect would be that you're sending through the TV to the Bose Soundbar.

Are you just trying to get Sonos streaming music over to the Bose?
Yes I simply want to stream Sonos Music to my Bose SR1 soundbar, without having to disconnect the TV, seems simple but I have tried the connect and it was silence. Maybe I will just go the Play 5 route and save some money. thanks for your help.
Really depends on your TV, if it has a component input, I think it's possible. Based on what I see in the manual for the BOSE SR1, they really don't want you connecting anything else to it except the TV.

I think if you connect the audio out from the Sonos Connect to the audio in (component) on the TV, and then use the TV to select that input, it should output the audio through the optical connection to your BOSE device. Your TV would have to be on all the time the music was playing, of course.

Seems like a long way to go to get what you want, but depending on your TV, I suppose it's feasible. Would at least be an interesting experiment.