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One room, 2 stereo play:1 pairs, 1 sub

  • 7 October 2017
  • 8 replies
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I have one room with four speakers (all Play:1s) and a sub. Currently it's set up as two "rooms", with the Play:1s acting as two stereo pairs. Is there any way to use the sub with all four speakers?
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Best answer by Airgetlam 8 October 2017, 03:09

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No. The SUB can be paired with one room at a time. Grouping the two rooms is the only way for you to get the SUB to work with all four speakers simultaneously.
That will work since they always play the same music, how do I do that?
Go to the rooms menu, and click on the second room’s group button?

Hmm, depends on where you are in the Sonos system. Generally, pull down from the top so that you get the tabs to appear at the bottom. Click on the Rooms tab, then the Group next to the room that is currently playing, and then you can click next to the room you want to group. I’m not at home, and dont want to mess with my friend’s Sonos, so I may be slightly off, but it should get you in the right direction.
Oh, so when 2 rooms are grouped like that the sub works on both sets of speakers? That doesn't show up very clearly, since when I go to group the rooms it says for example "Room 1 L+R+SUB" and "Room 2 L+R"
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My understanding - if this answers the question - is that you can only bond a sub to one set of speakers. Therefore, if you have the two rooms/stereo sets grouped together, then actually what you’ll be grouping is a) plus b) as described below:

a) One stereo pair of Play:1s bonded to a sub - this pair will have had their EQ settings slightly modified (automatically) by the system in order to maximise their performance to be used in conjunction with the sub (the lowest frequencies will not be sent to this set of Play:1s).

Plus - playing at the same time when grouped...

b) One stereo pair of Play:1s NOT bonded to a sub. This pair will play in full-range, i.e. all frequencies. Therefore (sub aside), pair a) will have different sound characteristics than pair b).

Depending on speaker placement and room characteristics, this may or may not matter.

Please someone correct me if I have explained incorrectly 🙂
J Daniel, that's exactly my understanding as well.
My understanding - if this answers the question - is that you can only bond a sub to one set of speakers. Therefore, if you have the two rooms/stereo sets grouped together, then actually what you’ll be grouping is a) plus b) as described below:

What you describe is how I also think things are working (and also what I hear, there is a pretty noticeable difference between the set with the bonded SUB and the set without). So basically if I want the same sound for both sets I need to buy another SUB? Seems ridiculous to me as one SUB should be able to handle more than two speakers....
So basically if I want the same sound for both sets I need to buy another SUB? Seems ridiculous to me as one SUB should be able to handle more than two speakers....
On the other hand, some may want the fill in second pair to be full range to fill in all frequencies in the further parts of a large room which the only time a second pair is needed.

So that means giving options for how the Sub handles the second pair; probably consuming of more development resource than what Sonos thinks there exists a market large enough to justify this consumption.

In my large space the two additional fill in full range speakers pairs are Connect Amp driven, not bonded to the Sub; overall, when all speakers are playing I don't feel any need for the Connect Amp to be low frequency limited when there is a Sub in play when all are grouped together.