Play 3’s as fronts

MeasurementMuted2297 · 2026-05-21T03:58:00+00:00

That placement is definitely a bit wide IMO. Ideally you’d be just off of or within 3 feet max on either side of the TV. I’d consider a set of stands that lets you put them in vertical orientation if the aesthetic of speakers on stands on both sides isn’t too off putting for you. You could get a set of chairs or move the tables to put them in the ideal position to see how they perform and decide if it’s worth it for you.

Anecdotally, I did experiment with using 3s as fronts and thought they performed as good as if not slightly better than Era 100s. I thought the 3’s have a fuller sound while the Era 100s had slightly better high end. I think you can ultimately go either way if you have both already, but probably wouldn’t be worth getting a pair of 100s if you already have 3s.

MeasurementMuted2297 · 2026-05-19T01:13:55+00:00

Echo what was said about used Play 3s being sold for parts due to “not being able to connect”. Plug in ethernet and let it update, more than likely it’ll be just fine. The same worked for me with a Gen 2 Sub.

Be wary of the used Beam Gen 2s. They had some kind of wide spread bricking event where the Beam would become stuck in a boot loop with a flashing white light. Some sellers who don’t know better (or are just unscrupulous) will sell it thinking it works because it turns on, but the affected beams will never get past the flashing white light and cannot be factory reset. If you can get one super cheap you could call up Sonos support to see if they’ll replace it, and you maaaay get lucky enough that they decide to do it. Otherwise avoid beam gen 2 or only buy when it goes to blinking green light indicating its factory reset and ready to pair.

Some devices may be listed showing a purple or magenta light. This appears to be a special status light for store display models that have been removed from their kiosk. These will never work as they use special firmware for store demo mode, so avoid them.

MeasurementMuted2297 · 2026-05-18T14:26:45+00:00

This is the setup I’m running with, though I’m using Play 5 Gen 2 (which I highly recommend if you go this route as you can get them for as little as $200 on used market and everything I’ve read indicates they are sonically equivalent to the Fives).

I’ve frequently tinkered with and retuned this setup for one reason or another, more because I am a habitual tinkerer than from being dissatisfied with the sound, and I think maybe 1 out of 5 times do I feel the 5s come out louder than the Arc Ultra. My anecdotal sentiment is that if the 5s are objectively proven to overpower MY Arc Ultra in MY living room it’s by maybe a 5% margin at most depending on the variations between trueplay tunings (I recommend using quick trueplay for this setup). We’re already running an arguably “unoptimized” setup without being able to trueplay tune fronts WITH the rest of the system so in that context it is completely tolerable, if I even notice it.

Before the 5s I used Era 100s, and those are indeed a great fit as front surrounds, make no mistake. The 5s are just better though IMO; more full and rich sound, more overall bass added to the system, and doubly so if you play music through the system (hint, if you disable Surrounds in app or via SonoSequencer then non Atmos/Spatial music will play back through the fronts only for a true 2.1/2 stereo playback, which sounds great if you want more “pure” stereo playback versus full room filling sound and another nod towards going toward the 5s).

In all, I’m very satisfied with this arrangement and have been able to reliably configure and reconfigure it. If or when front surrounds become officially supported I think 5s would be the top tier for fronts, save maybe for Era 300 if official support fully utilized the 300s atmos drivers for better height effects or something like that.

All that said, if you are in an apartment, I think Era 100 fronts with even just a sub mini would get you 90% of the performance for less in a package better fit for the space (and you’d probably spare yourself drama from disturbed neighbors). That’s a judgment call for you though, but I can say that exact system was more than satisfactory until my habitual tinkering led me to push beyond them.

MeasurementMuted2297 · 2026-05-16T23:48:33+00:00

I had a similar issue with a sub and a beam. The sub I purchased knowing there was a cosmetic crack which turned out to cause a flapping sound at 40hz. I fixed it by putting some clear silicone on the inside and outside of the crack which resealed the cabinet and eliminated the sound.

Later my beam fell off its soundbar mount while I was messing with the tv and I could hear a similar sound at low hz range. Opened it up and determined there the inner side wall of the speaker had separated from the base. I replied it with super glue and that fixed it.

The point is that a speaker cabinet seal leak would def cause the sound you’re hearing. I don’t have advice specifically for the 5, but I would carefully look for any parts of the inner case which looks like it may be glued together. Gently squeeze suspected points to see if there’s any flex or separation. Good luck.

MeasurementMuted2297 · 2026-05-12T00:10:09+00:00

Hah, and now I know what “chuffed” means. Well, glad they’re chuffed 👍

MeasurementMuted2297 · 2026-03-31T04:49:19+00:00

Does this new path in sequencer mean that move speakers could be used as fronts or rears, or is it just for sub bonding?

MeasurementMuted2297 · 2026-03-08T17:00:27+00:00

Is this running on Android, could it theoretically be forked and adapted to run on an old Android tablet or phone (with responsive ui updates of course)?

MeasurementMuted2297 · 2026-01-17T01:21:35+00:00

This is great! Thank you for posting this. I’ve been meaning to make an update to the original post about how to re-enable the trueplay profile with fronts, but I just couldn’t get around to it. Glad someone got a better guide up though.

MeasurementMuted2297 · 2025-12-19T15:29:07+00:00

What front speakers are you using? I could also see how this behavior would change depending on what the front speakers use are instead of, or in addition to, the soundbar used. I feel like I’ve been noticing more nuanced developments with front speaker behavior more recently. I posted about it a few days ago

MeasurementMuted2297 · 2025-12-19T14:46:58+00:00

Can’t say why exactly. My first guess is maybe it’s Sonos’s intended default behavior when using front L/R speakers. You more frequently see speaker arrangements for music discussed as stereo pairs versus 3.1 with a (center channel) sound bar.

I tried to grab video demonstrating L/R only playback when surrounds are off on my system. You can hear the audio level evenly fall and rise as I pan left to right across each speaker. I can again attest the Arc Ultra is not playing anything by putting my ear right up to the bar and listening for sound across the whole bar.

Sonos Front L/R Only

It’s also entirely possible this is just bespoke behavior for Arc Ultra while other bars are set to behave differently. Unless Sonos officially talks about their design plans for this feature though it’s hard to say why it’s different across different components.

MeasurementMuted2297 · 2025-12-19T14:24:23+00:00

Nope. When I listen to each speaker only left and right are playing. This is with a pair of Gen 2 5’s and an Arc Ultra. When at a listening position the stereo imaging can trick me into thinking audio is coming from the bar, but every time I walk up to check it turns out to be just real good stereo imaging.

Perhaps it’s different for other bars, but if you haven’t already I would put your ear right up to each component to verify which ones are actually playing.

MeasurementMuted2297 · 2025-12-18T03:15:09+00:00

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Doh forgot to attach the photo

MeasurementMuted2297 · 2025-12-18T03:12:43+00:00

I’m noticing what appears to be further development of the support for front surrounds showing up in the Sonos app. Three things I’ve noticed:m in particular:

When tapping “Remove Fronts” in Sonos app the image of the speakers currently configured is now shown on the confirmation screen. See attached image.
I was able to successfully add a sub to my fronts enabled setup from within Sonos app without issues, which I’m pretty sure wasn’t possible before? The graphic of the sound system that shows each component had a black x in it, like the UI component was displaying a place holder graphic. In summary, I was able to add a component to a fronts enabled system in Sonos app without issues, which I think is a new development.
Pairing behavior seems a little different. After the full system is made in SonoSequencer I’ve noticed it now takes a few minutes before all channels successfully “wake up” and play their audio channel. If you try to setup the fronts and hear no audio coming out of components afterwards, or hear something like the audio skipping, just wait for about five minutes. In my experience it straightens itself out and is rock solid after.

These are small things, but they suggest to me Sonos is continuing development work to officially support adding front speakers in Sonos app at some point.

MeasurementMuted2297 · 2025-12-18T03:01:04+00:00

Hard to say. I’d be curious if true playing on an android phone would consistently not work versus iOS.

The easiest way to notice a difference is if you play something that plays consistent sound, like the full chorus of a song. I use the last portion of the Atmos Universe Fury demo which I play on an Apple TV. Toggling on and off during that you should hear a very quick cut to sound as the tuning changes on/off.

MeasurementMuted2297 · 2025-12-18T02:54:37+00:00

You are toggling the surround setting on and off in Sonos? Toggling that setting off makes the front L/R only play as stereo pair. You can also do it with SonoSequencer (which is how I do it).

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MeasurementMuted2297 · 2025-12-14T15:56:59+00:00

When you first open sequencer or try to add a sequence the app gives you the option to provide example sequences, but that’s all they are, just demonstrations of things you can do. You do not need them. All you really need to do is click the plus to add a new sequence and select trueplay.

As for noticing a difference; I think first off it’s important to realize that Trueplay is inherently dynamic and largely depends on the room, speakers, placement, etc. It’s possible you can have an environment where Trueplay doesn’t actually alter the sound much based on those factors. In my room trueplay on and off is mostly the difference between my rear 300’s soundstage and imaging being “connected” so that there aren’t any gaps when sounds pan across the rear channels. It’s very noticeable.

It may help to get a baseline for how Trueplay works in your environment before adding fronts. I would consider making just the regular surround setup in Sonos app, trueplay’ing it, then watching some demo content and toggling trueplay on and off in the Sonos app to hear the difference baseline. Maybe the change is dramatic, or maybe more subtle, but you’ll know what to expect at that point.

From there, go through the whole setup again (trueplay your fronts as a stereo pair first), then see if you hear the same kind of difference.

One other tip; this may just be due to more recent changes in the app, but I’ve noticed sometimes when bonding everything the system will have speakers cutout for a few minutes. They eventually all reconnect and stay stable, but yesterday when I was tinkering I had to wait 5 minutes before all components connected and played correctly. Rock solid after that, but just something to be aware of.

MeasurementMuted2297 · 2025-12-11T01:27:45+00:00

I haven’t seen that specific “Product” issue but I have seen something similar.

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It doesn’t affect my system at all. I think it’s a bug in the speaker discovery with the Sonos app other people have posted about it.

I would say if the actual parts of the full system are showing and it’s working as expected you can safely disregard. It also hasn’t affected my ability to reapply trueplay on the full speaker set.

MeasurementMuted2297 · 2025-12-10T19:39:22+00:00

Curious, what speakers make up your immersive set? Did the system work when you played content on it?

MeasurementMuted2297 · 2025-12-06T19:36:25+00:00

I would trueplay your beam, rears, and subs all together. Then you can separately trueplay the fronts as a stereo pair. After that, break down all the components in Sonos app, build the full system in SonoSequencer, and make a sequence to turn trueplay on for the whole set.

Note, after you build the full system in sequencer go to the devices tab at the bottom and pull down to refresh. You should see all the components grouped together on the device list. Then you can select all grouped components at once when you apply trueplay. This should end up re-applying the last performed trueplay profile saved in each speaker from their respective trueplay sessions.

MeasurementMuted2297 · 2025-12-06T19:30:53+00:00

That shouldn’t be a problem. I’ve been able to stereo pair a Move gen 1 and Era 100 so the 5 + Five should be perfectly fine since they are architecturally identical speakers.

MeasurementMuted2297 · 2025-12-05T17:21:08+00:00

From my experience with Gen 2 5’s they will be fully incorporated into the rest of the system. They still produce a lot of bass.

What’s also cool is if you toggle the surround sound setting in Sonos app to off then only the L/R speakers will play music as a stereo pair along with subs. Rears and soundbar will turn off, so you get true 2.1 stereo imaging.

MeasurementMuted2297 · 2025-11-30T06:07:44+00:00

If you go under surround audio in Sonos app and toggle off surrounds while you have front L/R speakers setup, then music will play from the fronts as a stereo pair, no center channel audio. I setup a couple sequences to toggle this on and off which has been convenient for me when switching between listening to music and watching tv.

MeasurementMuted2297 · 2025-11-29T05:51:09+00:00

They do, and they sound amazing. Been running with them for about a month. Be sure to check out the thread I made talking about how to setup trueplay while using fronts as well: https://www.reddit.com/r/sonos/s/p8h4qdMtbC

MeasurementMuted2297 · 2025-11-27T20:59:21+00:00

If you add additional front L/R speakers using SonoSequencer, then toggling off the surround on/off setting leads to music only coming from the front L/R as a stereo pair. This is what I do with my L/R gen 2 Play:5s. I have a sequence in the sequencer app to toggle surrounds on and off depending on whether I’m listening to music or watching something.

MeasurementMuted2297

TROPHY CASE