New home, sonos playbar, Panny TV, speaker cables.....

[ranj]

Hi All

 

I am in the process of moving house shortly. I have an interesting problem which I don't know how to resolve.

 

I have a Panny 42GT30 and have recently won a Sonos playbar which was great as I also use a Play5. The soundbar will be obviously be used with the TV. Love the sound and would like to keep rather than sell.

 

I am moving houses soon and the vendor who lives there at the moment has kindly left all the speaker wiring around 2 areas of the living room. He had works done years ago and managed to hide the speaker cable underneath the laminate flooring, this is great as I want to create a surround sound system, something that is better than what I already have. I know my wife doesnt want too much speakers scattered around the room so a 2:1 system will be fine. I may in the future also buy the sonos sub that is also available depending on how the sound is when I move to the new house.

 

The main benefit I want is good sound when listening to streaming music via the sonos or watching movies/shows.

 

The cables are in 2 locations as I mentioned meaning I can attach some speakers on there. However what I want to build is something where I can still utilise the playbar and then buy an AV receiver where I then can plug in my floor standing mission speakers, however I am not clued up and unsure what to look for in an AV receiver, but I do know I want the best possible up to £500. Unsure about what brand as well and can I connect the receiver using a HDMI connection rather than using the mono red/white jack cables? Would this improve sound dramatically....

 

At the moment I have a cable from TV to playbar over digital optical cable, if I was to get an AV receiver, what would be my options, would I put the playbar via the Receiver or still via the TV.

 

Really I want all speakers to work in tangem.

 

Also whilst on the subject does anyone know how to turn off sound on Panny GT30 via the settings so I know its only using the playbar?

 

Thanks

[CHR1S]

Keeping it simple, if you went down the AV amp route you would lose the benefits of the playbar as it has built in amplification.

 

With the right amp you "could" optical in then out to the playbar and sync it up via the delay settings in the AV amp, however this would be independent of any surround sound processing so you would never get DTS etc etc.

[2097]

I have the Sonos Play bar

 

With the latest firmware release you can connect a Connect Amp/ Zp120 to it ( wireless ) and use a couple of normal speakers as rear speakers

 

Alternatively , you can connect play 1's or play 3's as rear speakers without the connect amp.