[Highplainsdakota]

Hi all,


I am currently building a house in which I designed a sweet home theater in the basement (Go me!). The trade-off with the wife, however, was that we didn't have large speakers in the main living room. Here's the catch: This is where a sizable TV will go and we will likely be watching much of our normal TV in this area. Furthermore, it is an open floor plan with a large kitchen to the back of the living room that also needs sound...


I figured I'd just put a high quality powered soundbar with some kind of Bluetooth connection to a small sub somewhere in the room. That would take care of L/C/R and sub. Then I'd have in-wall or in-ceiling L/R surrounds somehow connected to the TV/soundbar for reasonable 5.1 experience. (I figured a lot of people do this. Just substitute the L/C/R for a soundbar right?) As an added benefit, I wanted two in-ceiling speakers way back in the kitchen that can be on by themselves so as to watch the TV from a distance in the kitchen without cranking up the soundbar (might wake up the kids, etc.)


Unfortunately I haven't found anyway to do this. My wife gave the OK for the soundbar, but I can't justify forgoing surround sound in the room we will watch 70% of our shows in.


The questions:


How do I connect wired rear surrounds (even if it's just the L/R surrounds) to sync up with a soundbar and sub?


Can anyone dream up a zone system in which the 5.1 (3.1? with soundbar) is in the same zone as two distant speakers playing the TV sound in stereo? Distant kitchen speakers can be turned up/down/off with a potentiometer wheel or something.


Will a sonos system connect up in the above way to wired surrounds without having to use their "Play 1/3/5s"?


Thanks for all the suggestions in advance!

 

[Ellebob]

You can use the Sonos Connect:Amp with wired speakers. It you are using the Connect:Amp for surround sound both the Playbar and Connect:Amp need to be wired to your router or a network switch. If you are using the Connect:Amp to just play stereo from the sound bar and not for surround sound duty you can do it wirelessly.

 

[hoyalawya]

Get a receiver that can downmix audio from HDMI in to stereo zone 2 out. Not all receivers can do that. Wire kitchen speakers with volume control knob.

 

[Manichaean]

Check LG Smart-Audio systems (LG Music Flow) like LAS751M or LAS851M soundbar with a couple of NP8740 or NP8540 or NP8340 for the rear speakers.

They are like Sonos, but much better featurewise. Also much cheaper and they sound at least as good IMHO (the top-level LAS950M sounds much better, then Sonos).

The components connect wirelessly but not via BT but via hi-quality Wi-Fi Direct peer-to-peer connections. You can create multi-room configurations or do multi-channel setups or both. Also lots of other intellectual features.