Adding Sonos Surround Speakers: Our Top 3 Tips

so you're looking to add surrounds to your sonos setup well let's cover the three key steps in getting the most out of them by the end of this video you're gonna know which sonos products you should use as surrounds how best to position them and then how to optimize them in the sonos app so if you have a sonos beam or a sonos arc or any of the other older sonos tv speakers and you're looking at upgrading your setup or just wondering if surrounds are worth it then this video is for you let me know in the comments if you find these informational style videos helpful and be sure to click that subscribe button for more so then guys why would you want to even add surrounds to your sonos system in the first place well i'm sure you're all aware of the famous director george lucas but he is regularly quoted in saying the sound and music are 50 of the entertainment in a movie so who are we to argue sonos soundbars do sound impressive on their own but having one box in your room is only going to do so much when it comes to hearing sounds all around you and filling the void between the tv and where you're sitting when you add a pair of surrounds the sonos soundbar that you're using will offload the processing power for those channels and divert all of the surround sound information to the surround speakers letting the soundbar put more effort into the remaining audio channels and adding a new dimension of immersion as you're put right in the center of the action the effect is particularly great if you watch a lot of sports where it feels like you're in the stands with the fans or for action movie content where there could be a lot going on like explosions uh fighting scenes driving scenes aircraft and all sorts any other content that you watch that supports dolby digital 5.1 atmos or dts will play through the surrounds but the great thing about sonos is that even if you're watching in stereo or even playing music it will simulate a surround sound effect as and when it thinks it will benefit so you can get the most out of the surrounds for all of your content now of course don't expect the surrounds to always be playing something because some programs just don't support it like bbc news for example you also probably wouldn't want sound to come from the back either in that situation so that is something to bear in mind so step number one then which sonar speakers should you use as surrounds now this is usually quite a straightforward decision for most of you nine times out of ten we would suggest that customers will go for the sonos one sls for three five eight a pair because these are nice and compact and provide all you need for a powerful surround sound that's not too overpowered now you can get those in black or white and they don't take up too much space either and when you're adding two more boxes to your setup this is actually quite important you might also come across the one gen twos and wonder what the difference is well the only difference guys is the one gen 2 has amazon and google assistant built in whereas the 1sl does not but if you're adding the surrounds to a sonos soundbar that already has voice control built in that is the beam or the arc then you'll still benefit from voice control for that zone so you might as well save yourself the extra 20 pound per speaker on the one sls and let the sound bar handle the voice control however the one gen 2s still make the perfect option for those who still have older sonos tv speakers such as the sonos playbar or sonos playbase and that's like a little voice upgrade to that zone at the same time another option albeit not quite as popular is to add a pair of sonos 5 speakers as rears now you'll notice this speaker is quite a lot larger than the sonos 1 sl and that's because it just outputs a lot more power than the sonos ones and it is the largest and most powerful speaker in the sonos lineup now the only times i'd recommend using fives as your surrounds is if your seating position is quite a distance from your tv i'm talking at least about seven meters away which isn't going to be a very common setup or you're just trying to fill a very very large space now we do get asked but won't i get a much better experience with the fives rather than the ones and the answer overall is yes it will offer a more immersive powerful experience as the speaker is more capable sonically so if you do just want the best that sonos can offer right now then the fives might be right for you for me personally though i think that the extra 320 pounds per speaker is a lot of additional budget and for my home it's definitely not needed but this does come down to the space you have your budget and ultimately the experience that you're after the final option for sonos surrounds is using the sonos amp to power a set of speakers of your choice now that could be a pair of in-ceiling speakers sonos and ceiling if you wanted to keep with the brand you've got in-wall speakers floor standing speakers or bookshelf speakers and as long as you're connected up to the sonos amp you can use any brand you like for those more and more commonly now we're seeing customers explore built-in options where the speakers are built into the wall or ceiling cavity to give a nice flush effect while still benefiting from great surround sound if you're choosing between in ceiling and in wall speakers as surrounds my first port of call would be in wall speakers because then the speakers would be positioned at listening height but if this isn't practical and you're still after a built-in look then in-ceiling will also be fine i will just point out though that for surround channels in-ceiling speakers will offer a slightly different experience as it will feel more like the sounds are coming from above rather than behind just something to bear in mind and unfortunately it is not possible at the time of filming this video to use any of the sonos portable speakers as your surround so the sonos roam the rome sl and the sonos move cannot be used as the rear channels now this is something that we would be really keen for sonos to add in a software update in the future but right now it is not possible so now that you've decided on the product that you want to use for surrounds now let's talk a little bit about positioning them in the best place so let's head over to our sonos arc lounge um as part of the showroom so as you can see uh we've got our surrounds um about a foot away from the listeners head height they are not angled in they are angled perpendicular to the tv and that is because we have enough space behind the sofa to do that so if you have the space to do it then this is probably the most optimum effect but i appreciate that not all of you are going to have space behind the sofa so let's head on back to the sonos beam lounge because what we've done is recreate um maybe like an apartment or whatever whatever building that you've got where there's a wall and your sofa is against the wall what we've had to do is put the surrounds sort of to the side of the sofa and then to counteract that because obviously you're not going to want to have the speaker directly facing the tv because then the surrounds will just go straight back to the tv and you won't get that full effect we've tilted them a little bit not not much just to touch about 20 degrees towards the listener um just so you don't miss out on any of the action also you might be in a situation where your sofa isn't even directly onto the tv so your sofa might be an angle to your tv or you might even have multiple sofas around your tv in like a u-shape what i'd suggest doing then is choosing your main sofa so that might be the one directly in front of your tv or as straight on as possible and then positioning the surrounds behind that the key is that you focus on the main sofa and as you can see we've also got this surround on floor stands now these actually place them at the ideal listening height at one meter but you can also get adjustable stands i know flex undo them and they can adjust the height of the stand from 0.7 meters to about 1.3 meters not including the speaker also you don't necessarily have to have floor stands i mean this room might have been convenient for wall mounts so you could have a pair of wall mounted surrounds but do keep in mind that you want to get wall mounts that you can pivot slightly downwards so the sound is not just firing directly above your head you can also get handy five meter extension cables so if you need some extra reach to get to your closest power socket then i think you can get those for about 15 pounds the link to all of our accessories will be in the description below so you can see what's available to you and how you how you can get your room to work with surrounds in 99 of cases you can add surrounds it just needs a bit of thought and a bit of planning and if you have a particularly odd-shaped room um and one that you'd like us to check with the team and see what we'd recommend then do get in touch we'd be more than happy to help right we're on to the final step now step three which is now that you've got your surrounds positioned where you want how can you make sure you're getting the most out of them well i would highly recommend delving into the sonos app make sure you're running the latest software and this is the sonos s2 app that i'm going to be showing so things might look different if you're running s1 with some of the older sonos products firstly make sure you true play your speakers now this is where the sonos app uses an apple device and test tones to analyze the shape and the layout of your room to acoustically tweak and optimize your setup for your surroundings now once you've done that then i'd suggest having a quick play around with the surround sound settings so you can get the best experience for you so you want to head to settings then tap system then tap your room with the surrounds scroll down to surround audio and here is your menu where you can actually turn the surrounds off and on this tv level slider is to increase the volume of the surrounds themselves when you're watching tv now i would use this with a bit of caution because you don't want them to overpower the soundbar so i would recommend not setting this to more than two or three if you want a little boost from your surrounds music level will increase the volume of the surrounds when you're listening to music now i would tend to keep this on the default because of this setting just below which is this music playback and you can see that there are two options so you've got ambient and you've got full so this refers to when you're playing music not tv and what sort of level you want your surrounds to be when you're listening to that music so if you want them to remain at an ambient level choose ambient but i actually changed mine to full because what this means is when you're listening to music the surrounds will play as a full volume stereo pair at the same volume as the sound bar and then it will switch to an ambient level when you're watching tv as they should do for surrounds you'll also see this surround distance setting so you can tell sonos how far your surrounds are from your seating position now that you've already truly tuned the system this option will be greyed out here because you will already have told sonos where your surrounds are in relation to your seating position and it will have optimized it already but if you're not able to run true play for whatever reason like perhaps you don't have an apple device you still have a certain amount of optimization here which is great and that is all the optimization you need guys you should now find that your setup sounds great in your space and it's nicely balanced for music and movies so that is everything you need to know about adding surrounds to your sonar setup before you go you might also be wondering whether to add the sub as well or you may be torn between adding a sub or the surrounds first with your budget well that's going to be different for everyone but as the beam and the arc are both quite powerful on their own i would actually advise adding surrounds before you add the sub not least because by adding them they're half the cost of the subgen 3. the sub is great to add when you're wanting to add that finishing layer to your cinema but let us know guys if you want us to cover that question in more detail drop a comment for now if you could drop us a like or a dislike below to show me if you'll be adding surrounds or whether you already have them or not leave a comment on your thoughts about surrounds in general see you guys in the next video

Channel: Smart Home Sounds

Views: 386,110

Keywords:

Id: kItCJsKcfq4

Length: 11min 22sec (682 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 06 2022