Sonos 1 and playbar ?

[Mark300zx]

I have a playbar and was thinking of adding two Sonos 1(gen 2) for surround sound, obviously they can be linked for surround sound, but can they be unlinked as sometimes I like listening to music while the tv is on?

[Chester draws]

Yes, they can be unlinked and used separately from the playbar.

You can then define them as a new room after unlinking, and then obviously have to repair them to the playbar when you want to use with the TV.

So, yes you can. But it's probably too much of a faff to be doing more than once a day.

Or... You could keep them as a separate room, and group them to the TV. But this wouldn't give surround, and may give sync issues with the playbar.

[nealeh1875]

Hi OP

i have the arc and a sub set up, waiting to finish decorating to stick up the 2 1's that came in the set and i like the fact i can listen to music while the tv is still on.

Soundbar is connected via hdmi arc, and when i want to play music I just select ''living room' and the tv stops playing audio and it's just my music.
To get the audio back on the tele I just hit the volume button and the tele is on again and music cuts off

Works really well.

[Chester draws]

Yes, question is do you want to listen to TV sound on the playbar, at the same time as music on the surrounds?

If TV is just for picture, then leave the surrounds linked and play music through the playbar and surrounds.

[chrismox]

Be aware that the Sonos Playbar doesn’t process all surround sound formats. They’ve not paid the licence fee to DTS, so only non-DTS signals such as Dolby Digital can be processed. It’s a bit of a cheek, they advertise their surround system capabilities without mentioning this rather crucial shortfall.

Sonos suggest that their customers all watch streamed content from Netflix etc. which is never broadcast in DTS. Nobody watches Blu-rays apparently, not a single person. Nothing to do with being cheap!

[Mark300zx]

Chester draws said:

Yes, question is do you want to listen to TV sound on the playbar, at the same time as music on the surrounds?

If TV is just for picture, then leave the surrounds linked and play music through the playbar and surrounds.

Apologies, I want to listen to music and have the sound on as well from the TV broadcast!

[Chester draws]

Mark300zx said:

Apologies, I want to listen to music and have the sound on as well from the TV broadcast!

In that case, my first reply stands.

Takes just over a minute to remove the surrounds, and then set them back up as a stereo pair. And then about a minute to link them back to the playbar.

All done from the app, just need to select on the app which of the pair is actually the left or right.

[Pixelpeep Z4]

There's a great app called SonoSequencr which allows scripts to be launched with one button on the app.

Example, i have a button called night mode which:

Ungroups all speakers
disables the touch buttons on all speakers (in case the cats walk on them and turn them up loud with their cute little fluffy paws!)
Turns the bass to -10 on bedroom beam
turns loudness off on bedroom beam
turns status light off on bedroom beam
set volume to 0.5 on bedroom beam
play classic FM on bedroom beam

You can set all sorts, including removing surround speakers from Beam etc - might be useful for 'Music mode' which'll detach them from the tv surrounds and change some EQ settings etc.