Sonos Pairing & Grouping Explained

all right internet I'm not gonna sugarcoat it you all suck at Sonos specifically when it comes to understanding how speakers can function together and just like any other superhero I want to fix it this video will have two parts Part One unraveling the two speaker combining methods we'll dive head first into the two distinct methods of combining speakers highlighting what sets them apart and why it matters part two a step-by-step Sonos home theater configuration demo that incorporates both combination methods by the end of this video I hope to equip you with enough knowledge so you can get more juice out of your existing Sonos components improve future purchase decisions or at the very least enhance fertility rates so get ready to level up your Sonos game Let's dive in so let's dig deeper into the two ways that Sonos products can work together the first is pairing the second grouping pairing combines multiple Sonos components into a single entity a stereo pair consists of two speakers left and right while a more complex setup involves a home theater with a sound bar rear speakers and a subwoofer despite their differences in complexity both configurations act as a unit akin to a single speaker and just like a single speaker you give a pairing a unique name typically the room in which it resides when components are paired all the components work together to play different parts of the same audio Source think ballroom dancing one dance performance multiple dancers so if you have a stereo pair you can't get the left speaker to play The Beatles and the right to play Rolling Stones the left plays Beatles left and the right plays Beatles Right There are rules about which speakers compare with one another some examples if you want stereo both speakers need to be the exact same model and generation though they don't need to be the same color so Sonos is not opposed to ugly if you want to add rear speakers to your sound bar both rears will need to be the exact same model the outdoor speakers so two moves or two roams can form stereo pairs but are not eligible to be rear speakers indoor speakers compare with a sub the outdoor speakers again move in Rome can't to pair speakers in the Sonos app go to settings which is the Cog icon here system select a speaker of interest and find out what you can add [Music] the pairing process may take a few minutes of waiting around but once paired they are very well synced a tight Bond indeed while a pairing is largely treated like a single speaker or unit and some pairings like home theater you can alter to some degree individual speakers volumes like base level and rear speaker volume but otherwise pairing is treated no different than a single speaker OK the second connection type grouping for the purpose of this discussion I will be calling both individual speakers and pairings units as both can be grouped in the same way grouping is when one unit replicates mimics plays in parallel the audio being played by another unit most likely in a different room so not ballroom dancing line dancing this is a far less formal partnership that can easily be created and broken in a few seconds to group units you go to your unit list so find the vertical lines here find a unit you want to group with another press the share icon and select the unit you want to add to the group and press done easy okay so to reinforce these Concepts and to offer more transparency into my last video I will go through the setup process of the really intriguing but completely unsanctioned Sonos system I reviewed in my previous video which as a reminder is a grouping of a home theater pairing including an arc two subs and two era 300s as rears and an era 300 stereo pair up front so the home theater pairing is grouped with the era 300 stereo pair hope that makes sense okay so I gave all the speakers that make up this Mega setup descriptive names to help you follow along I am assuming all these components have already been added to the network and are available for use okay so let's build our home theater pairing first let's go to settings [Music] system select home theater soundbar and add the home theater rears I'll choose home theater rear one [Music] and then two [Music] select the one making sounds so Sonos knows which one is right and left and let it do its pairing thing [Music] let's all add home theater sub 1 [Music] then home theater sub tube [Music] thank you do I have my five piece home theater pairing now treated by Sonos as a single unit I will name it [Music] home theater demo [Music] if you have an iOS device you should probably take the option to room tune the system with true play [Music] anyway at this point I have a very nice Soundbar system but since I'm broken and always need more let's keep it going now I will create my stereo pair that I will put up front which involves stereo pair front one and two so I'll go to settings and system [Music] and select stereo pair front one [Music] and select setup stereo pair my only option is Stereo pair front two as all the other 300s which are now rears are off the market select which one is making the tone so it knows which is right and left let it do its pairing thing and then again I recommend shrew playing it let's name this pairing front stereo pair demo [Music] okay so now we have two units the home theater which is the sound bar and the rears and the subs and the era 300 stereo pair now all we need to do is group these units so select this vertical lines icon find home theater demo and press the share button and add front stereo pair demo [Music] press done to get both playing sounds from the TV press the music notation icon to choose source and select TV here towards the bottom there we have it two entities grouped you can control the two units volume together or independently foreign [Music] you can also adjust EQ independently like this [Music] okay A bit more advice in this scenario I suggest you choose two settings options in home theater demo so let's go to settings system home theater demo scroll down and set TV autoplay to on so when TV starts the grouping will auto play sound next I suggest untoggling the ungroup during autoplay this means that other units you have grouped with the home theater demo set up like the 300 stereo pair will stay grouped and not get kicked out during autoplay alright gonna wrap this up I hope I brought some clarity to the Sonos speaker cooperation issue as it is a bit more complicated than you might think please help me meet my 20K sub goal by 2024 so YouTube doesn't shut me down for being too depressing thanks for watching catch you on the next one foreign

Channel: NeverEnoughTech

Views: 57,289

Keywords: sonos, how to combine sonos speakers, how to pair sonos speakers, how to group sonos speakers, sonos pairing, sonos grouping

Id: nSTVcVYHfRs

Length: 9min 16sec (556 seconds)

Published: Tue Jun 06 2023