Sonos as Home Cinema or similar alternative

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Soldato
Joined
14 Jul 2007
Posts
3,443
Feels like I'm spamming questions right now but I have a new sitting room and I'm kicking around various ideas on how to kit it out.

Firstly its not going to be a Home Cinema in any dedicated sense of the word. There will be a TV size appropriate to the room and there may be a projector going in next year but first and foremost its a living room and will remain so. Wife is adamant on that and I tend to agree.

This means that as far as surround sound is concerned I want something that improves on normal TV but is as unobtrusive as possible. Has anyone bought the Sonos Playbase? Also has anyone gone on to buy other Sonos kit to further beef it up? Sub and extra speakers?

Its expensive but can be bough piece by piece, its nice looking kit and there would be no wires having to be run around the place. Are there any realistic alternatives that tick the same boxes for this type of situation?
 
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Do you have a budget to work with? You mention the Sonos as expensive so this may limit your options if that is your top end. Also - input wise what are you looking to play through it? The Sonos setup can be limiting in that respect.
 
If you have no other Sonos equipment you want to integrate with then personally I'd not bother. As a stand alone home cinema system Sonos is too expensive, poor compatibility, lacking features and flexibility.

The only real benefit is the lack of wires but there's other options out there that are wireless.
 
I don't have a budget as such but its not going to be high end kit because I feel that would be overkill in the size of room and use Im going to have. the Sonos is probably more than I would spend overall but what appealed was the idea of buying it in stages. I also felt that the little speakers would be quite unobtrusive in the room and the base would slot under the TV similarly.

I acknowledge that its described as expensive for what it is but it seemed like a good solution for me but Im happy to hear of alternative that would fulfil the requirements.

Day to day it would be a music player attached to Spotify and play whatever was on the TV. Ultimately I would want to be able to hook a projector to it also which a believe is not necessarily a simple task but that's a bit down the line yet.
 
Is Sonos expensive though?

Sure, if you judge it purely on the basis of "it's a soundbar or soundbase with a sub that does Spotify" then there are lots of alternatives, many of which are cheaper, and some that sound better too. Come at it from the angle of being the heart of a multiroom music system, and factor in that it has the broadest support of streaming services and a bloody amazing control interface that makes it a dream to use and it supports a home media server and there's the room tuning system... well, then it's much harder to find a competing product to match it at the price.


Is it a serious bit of AV gear with lots of flexibility?

No. Absolutely not. Not even close.

The bloody gear doesn't even support DTS fer Christ-sake. Sonos is a lifestyle product for TV use where the source isn't going to be anything better than DD5.1, and that's it. Forget any thoughts of linking projectors unless you want to involve HDMI splitters and the rest.


What are the alternatives?

You might have to come away from a sound base and look at a sound bar instead if you're after something that will handle better connectivity and do wireless rear surrounds and be available in a modular form so it can be bought in stages.

Have a look at Yamaha's soundbar range which include the MusicCast feature. Yamaha has been doing multiroom music for longer than Sonos, but hey were a bit ahead of the Wi-Fi tech required to do it wirelessly in the early days. Their first systems were wired together with CAT5 and included integrated media ripping and storage. Sonos (and Logitech Squeezebox, but they're no more) went a different route. It took Yamaha quite a while to change tack, but their MusicCast products are now a serious rival IMO.

The Yamaha YSP2700 is just going end of life, so there are some amazing deals at retailers that still have stock. This is a fully-fledged 5.1 AV receiver in a sound bar chassis, so you get all the HD audio goodies. Their control app is also very good.

Yamaha's equivalent to the Sonos Play One is the MusicCast 20. It can be used standalone, or as a stereo pair, or as wireless rear surround speakers for certain MusicCast sound bars and AV receivers.

Denon/Marantz has Heos. There's a Heos soundbar and it will support wireless rear speakers from the Heos range too.



Where you want to add a projector, the sensible way is to buy an AV receiver with dual HDMI outputs. One set carries picture and sound. This is used to connect the local TV so that it can be used with or without sound reinforcement. The second output is often picture only, and this is perfect for use with a projector because you'll never run that without sound from the big system.

You can achieve something similar with a HDMI splitter (and it has to be a splitter, not a 2:1 switch in reverse), but it has to have the ability to isolate the two displays so that you get full multichannel audio even though the connected TV can only do DD5.1/DTS2.0
 
lucid said:
Is Sonos expensive though?

Sure, if you judge it purely on the basis of "it's a soundbar or soundbase with a sub that does Spotify" then there are lots of alternatives, many of which are cheaper, and some that sound better too. Come at it from the angle of being the heart of a multiroom music system, and factor in that it has the broadest support of streaming services and a bloody amazing control interface that makes it a dream to use and it supports a home media server and there's the room tuning system... well, then it's much harder to find a competing product to match it at the price.


Is it a serious bit of AV gear with lots of flexibility?

No. Absolutely not. Not even close.

The bloody gear doesn't even support DTS fer Christ-sake. Sonos is a lifestyle product for TV use where the source isn't going to be anything better than DD5.1, and that's it. Forget any thoughts of linking projectors unless you want to involve HDMI splitters and the rest.


What are the alternatives?

You might have to come away from a sound base and look at a sound bar instead if you're after something that will handle better connectivity and do wireless rear surrounds and be available in a modular form so it can be bought in stages.

Have a look at Yamaha's soundbar range which include the MusicCast feature. Yamaha has been doing multiroom music for longer than Sonos, but hey were a bit ahead of the Wi-Fi tech required to do it wirelessly in the early days. Their first systems were wired together with CAT5 and included integrated media ripping and storage. Sonos (and Logitech Squeezebox, but they're no more) went a different route. It took Yamaha quite a while to change tack, but their MusicCast products are now a serious rival IMO.

The Yamaha YSP2700 is just going end of life, so there are some amazing deals at retailers that still have stock. This is a fully-fledged 5.1 AV receiver in a sound bar chassis, so you get all the HD audio goodies. Their control app is also very good.

Yamaha's equivalent to the Sonos Play One is the MusicCast 20. It can be used standalone, or as a stereo pair, or as wireless rear surround speakers for certain MusicCast sound bars and AV receivers.

Denon/Marantz has Heos. There's a Heos soundbar and it will support wireless rear speakers from the Heos range too.



Where you want to add a projector, the sensible way is to buy an AV receiver with dual HDMI outputs. One set carries picture and sound. This is used to connect the local TV so that it can be used with or without sound reinforcement. The second output is often picture only, and this is perfect for use with a projector because you'll never run that without sound from the big system.

You can achieve something similar with a HDMI splitter (and it has to be a splitter, not a 2:1 switch in reverse), but it has to have the ability to isolate the two displays so that you get full multichannel audio even though the connected TV can only do DD5.1/DTS2.0
Click to expand...

Thanks for your usual comprehensive answer!

I have a soundbar currently and its "ok". Sound is improved certainly but its a bit annoying in front of the TV. If the Yamaha is better for my needs then I would certainly consider another one.

Basically I have a two year old and another on the way and Ive just completely renovated my house so my budget for this stuff isn't huge. Essentially I just want to have better sound, connectivity that means I can use it for music as well and probably chuck Alexa through it too. from my wifes perspective we have just renovated a hose and have a whole new living room - she doesn't want it dominated by tech and I get that so im not pushing for anything that an enthusiast would be looking at if you get me. In the future, I have a projector and screen that I may try and integrate and I also have a barn that ultimately I would like to do something with but that's all in stages.

I will certainly check out the reviews for the Yamaha and see if it fits the bill.
 
Its ok as a soundbar but if you are planning on adding speakers to make it 5.1 I would go a different route. I can see why they are popular as they are very easy to set up but they are also really limited in what it can play (Dolby Digital and PCM Stereo I believe).

Perhaps they'll release a new one that will support more formats but I don't think they want to pay for the licensing as they always have an excuse as to why they don't. :p
 
The Yamaha looks very good from the videos etc Ive watched since it was recommended. Not entirely sure how I would position it in front to the TV without it obscuring the bottom of the screen though. TV feet seem to be getting increasingly smaller. I doubt the TV I buy will be bigger than 50inch so it will be quite close to the top of the TV unit.
 
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