Sonos as a home theater

[TeamZissou]

With the new play bar and subwoofer- is sonos a viable option for home theater?

Play bar - $699
Subwoofer - $699
Play 3 (left & right channel) - $299 each
Play 3 (two rear channels) - $299 each

Total- $2,600

[ZIPPO]

Originally Posted by TeamZissou

With the new play bar and subwoofer- is sonos a viable option for home theater?

Play bar - $699
Subwoofer - $699
Play 3 (left & right channel) - $299 each
Play 3 (two rear channels) - $299 each

Total- $2,600

If you were going to set up a 5.1 system, you would only need one pair of Play 3 speakers. The front three channels( left, center & right ) are in the PLAYBAR.

"The PLAYBAR can be paired with a SUB and two PLAY:3s to create a surround sound home theater experience (optional, purchased separately). If you purchased any of these items, position them in your room (see below) and then apply power."
room.jpg



I think the Sonos PLAYBAR( http://www.sonos.com/shop/products/playbar ) offers a simple HT solution, similar to Bose. It's better than most soundbars & probably some HTiB systems, but after doing a little research, I wouldn't recommend it for HT use.


REVIEW: http://www.soundandvisionmag.com/blo...-sonos-playbar
"The six midwoofers use phase manipulation to “beam” sound around your room, much as Yamaha’s soundbars do. They also employ crosstalk cancellation to trick your ears into thinking they’re hearing surround sound, as the soundbars from Polk, Definitive Technology, and GoldenEar Technology do."

"Or if you prefer, you can get real surround sound from the Playbar. Set up a couple of Play:3 or Play:5 speakers in the back, pull up the configuration menu on your computer, and you can set them up to work as surrounds for real 5.1 sound. You can add a Sonos Sub if you want, too."

"Here’s where the Playbar will lose points with home theater cognoscenti: It lacks HDMI inputs, as well as all those fancy things that can accompany HDMI inputs, such as DTS-HD Master Audio and Dolby TrueHD lossless 7.1-channel formats."

"The lack of HDMI, lossless surround decoding, and even plain old DTS decoding may not matter much. Most TVs will send out Dolby Digital 5.1 from “internal” sources, such as the DTV tuner and Smart TV Internet services such as Vudu. But according to my sources, currently only LG and Toshiba TVs pass 5.1 signals from external sources (i.e., your Blu-ray player or cable box) through their audio outputs."

"So even if your soundbar has HDMI input, in most cases it's getting a plain old 2.0-channel audio signal from your TV."

"And let’s not forget: Unless you hook up those extra speakers for real 5.1, the Playbar—like almost all other soundbars—is giving you a phony, simulated version of surround sound. Would you really hear the benefit of lossless 7.1 audio formats when the sound is mashed up, reprocessed, filtered, and phase-manipulated, then piped out through a compact speaker array? I bet not."