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Sonos is a leading American audio technology company that is best known for pioneering wireless multiroom audio systems, which make it easy for listeners to stream music and other content throughout their homes. The company continues to innovate, creating wireless speakers, home theater systems, headphones, architectural components, and integrated home audio solutions that revolutionize how people listen and connect to sound.

Copywriter, Global Brand Creative

With the lights dimmed, a bowl of fresh popcorn, and the family cuddled on the couch, there's nothing quite like movie night from the comfort of your own home. But to truly get that 

, the sound needs to be extraordinary. In this blog post, we’ll walk you through the process of creating a Sonos home theater — from choosing the right soundbar to adding pulse-pounding bass to demystifying surround sound — and help you make the best choice for your space.

The idea of setting up a home theater may conjure visions of wires snaked through the walls, stacks of complicated gear, and multiple remotes. While this might have been true in the past, getting immersive audio in your home has never been easier or more valuable. With advancements in technology and software, all you need are a few well-chosen speakers to experience sound that rivals the best movie theaters.

Yet the number of decisions you have to make in order to set up a home theater that works for you can be overwhelming. And let’s not get started on the confusing jargon — what on earth are speaker “channels,” and should you really care about 5.1 or 7.1.2 surround sound? With that in mind, we put together this guide to help you make a few simple decisions so you can experience theater-quality sound at home.

Back when TVs were big and boxy, the screen and built-in speakers were about the same size. But as TVs have gotten thinner and thinner, the speakers have gotten smaller and smaller — leaving us scrambling to turn on closed captions just to follow the story. One of the easiest ways to improve the audio quality of your TV is with a soundbar. The sound will be fuller, the dialogue crisper, and the bass bolder.

tuned by Oscar® and Emmy®-winning sound engineers

 to ensure that you’re hearing your favorite films and shows as they were meant to be heard. Our soundbars work with virtually any TV and automatically pair with your existing remote for easy volume control. You can also adjust the volume and manage your system using the Sonos app, Apple AirPlay2, your favorite music app, or 

. And when you’re not watching TV, stream music from hundreds of services including Apple Music, 

Start with a Sonos soundbar

Our sleekest and most powerful soundbar, Arc Ultra creates a massive soundstage that fills every inch of the room and precisely places sounds all around you. Featuring revolutionary Sound Motion™ technology, this soundbar packs unprecedentedly clear, deep, and balanced sound into an unbelievably compact design. When watching movies in Dolby Atmos, Arc Ultra takes your viewing experience to another dimension, with 9.1.4 surround sound you’ll have to hear to believe. And with its distinctive curved shape, low-profile design, and matte finish, Arc Ultra looks beautiful in your home, either 

 underneath your TV or placed on furniture.

Our compact yet powerful smart soundbar does it all. Beam provides high-definition sound for shows, movies, and games; offers a virtual spatial audio experience (more on that later); and, like Arc Ultra, when you step away from the screen, Beam can play your favorite music, podcasts, and more with rich, room-filling sound. It’s our most versatile soundbar — with the ability to dial the immersion to your exact liking with several subwoofer and rear speaker options. Place Beam on furniture in front of your TV or mount it to the wall using a custom 

Don’t let its size fool you — Ray delivers surprisingly detailed sound for a soundbar this small. Our most affordable soundbar offers crisp dialogue and balanced stereo sound for your shows, movies, and games. Designed for maximum versatility, its all forward-facing acoustics make it ideal for tucking into a TV stand without impacting the sound quality. (In other words, you don’t have to worry about your furniture blocking any soundwaves.) And with an optical input, Ray is a great option for pairing with your PC.


If you’re not sure which soundbar is best for your TV, you can learn more about setup requirements 

All of our soundbars feature settings designed to improve your listening experience. With a quick tap in the Sonos app, you can make dialogue even clearer or improve the sound for lower volume levels when watching late at night.


Tap the half moon icon to balance the sound so you won’t wake the rest of the house (or your neighbors). No more turning up the volume when characters whisper and then frantically turning it down when things explode.

Tap the dialogue box icon on the Now Playing screen to emphasize dialogue so you won’t miss a word — even when the action gets intense. With Arc Ultra, enjoy greater control by choosing your preferred level of Speech Enhancement in Settings.

: Already have a pair of speakers you love? 

 allows you to turn your existing audio equipment into a wireless Sonos system. It’s perfect for those who want to keep their analog gear but also enjoy the ease of streaming movies and music from the cloud.

Dual Sonos Sub 4 with Arc Ultra in white in a wooden panel living room

Not only can a subwoofer (also known as a “bass speaker”) produce more immersive and cinematic sound, but it also improves your soundbar’s overall performance.

Your soundbar produces mid-range and high frequency sounds, like dialogue, with exceptional clarity. But because of its slim and compact design, it’s limited in its ability to produce deep, powerful bass. By adding a dedicated bass speaker to your setup, your soundbar is able to offload the lowest frequency sounds — like a rumbling engine — and focus on delivering crisper mid-range sounds and cleaner highs. Ultimately, a subwoofer helps widen the soundstage to create a greater sense of dimension and depth.

Add a subwoofer

If you’re looking for clean, pulse-pounding bass that can fill a large room, look no further than Sub 4. Our iconic subwoofer pairs best with a powerful soundbar like Arc Ultra or Beam for truly immersive sound. Its versatile design lets you find the perfect fit for Sub in your home: face it forward to put it on full display; turn it to its profile for a more discreet look; or lay it flat and slide it under your couch so it’s completely out of sight. For the ultimate home theater experience, you can add a 

 to Arc Ultra for even more balanced and impactful bass. Dual Subs work in harmony to engulf your space with the deepest rumbles of a fiery explosion and powerful roars of a crashing wave.

If you’re wanting to add bold bass to a smaller space, such as an apartment or simply a bedroom, go with Sub Mini. This compact interpretation of our premium subwoofer features advanced processing that helps reproduce the full-toned bass of a much larger subwoofer but at a smaller scale. Its minimal footprint and unique cylindrical design fits nicely all around your home. Display it in plain sight or slide it under a desk for a more discreet look. For the best bass experience, we recommend pairing Sub Mini with Ray or Beam.

A pair of black Sonos Era 300 speakers on stands in a living room

You have a soundbar, and a subwoofer. How much of a difference can two more speakers make? Plenty. When you add two matching rear Sonos speakers to your home theater setup, you’ll uncover greater details in songs, and you’ll find yourself completely enveloped in what you watch.

Connect two rear Sonos speakers for surround sound

As you dive into the world of home theater, you’ll likely see a lot of numbers, like 5.1 or even 9.1.4. If you’re confused, don’t worry. You don’t need to get too caught up in these numbers (known as “channels”) when it comes to building your home theater, but they’re an important way of understanding the type of surround sound experience you’ll hear. Let us explain.

The term “channels” simply means “points of audio.” However, back when audio enthusiasts first started building their home theater systems (the ones with all the tangled wires and stacks of receivers), these numbers became synonymous with how many 

 speakers needed to be present in the room.

For example, if you were looking to create a traditional 5.1 home theater system, you would need three front speakers (placed underneath and to the left and right of your TV) and two rear speakers (typically placed to the left and right of your couch). The .1 indicated the addition of a subwoofer. But with the emergence of the soundbar, this tried-and-true cheat sheet for building a home theater system began to fall apart. You now had 

This traditional way of thinking about channels is not as applicable to today’s technology. With the advancements of audio hardware and software, you no longer need to scatter your room with speakers to get an incredibly immersive sound experience. Premium soundbars like Arc Ultra have the ability to render 9.1.4 surround sound from the soundbar 

 soundbar doing the work of nine ear-level speakers, one subwoofer, and four overhead speakers.)

A better way of thinking about channels these days is in terms of levels of 

 instead of number of speakers. If you are someone who likes a good cheat sheet, a general rule to follow is that the higher the number, the more immersive the sound experience.

9.1.4 Multidimensional surround sound setup with Arc Ultra, Sub 4, and two Era 300 speakers with soundwaves

Now you may be thinking, if a soundbar can produce incredible surround sound on it’s own, why should you add two more speakers? While adding rear speakers won’t always impact the channel configuration (such is the case for Arc Ultra), surround speakers will help disperse audio more evenly across your space, ensuring sound reaches every corner and angle of the room. This will add even greater depth and detail for truly lifelike sound that feels like the action is unfolding in your living room.

Our most versatile and compact smart speaker delivers rich, impactful surround sound when paired with Arc Ultra, Beam, and Ray. With custom-built woofers and tweeters, Era 100 evenly disperses sound across the room to create a wider soundstage that allows you to hear more details and subtle nuances in your favorite music and movies. Its sleek, minimalist design blends seamlessly into your home and fits nicely on furniture or using custom Sonos stands.

A couple on the couch watching TV with a Sonos Ray surround sound setup

If you want the ultimate Dolby Atmos experience at home, choose Era 300. You’ll feel the bass pound deep in your chest. You’ll hear the dialogue as if the characters are standing right in the room. And you’ll feel completely enveloped in the story. When paired with Arc Ultra and Sub 4, Era 300 offers a true multi-channel surround sound experience without the need for multiple overhead speakers or complex wiring. The upward and side-firing drivers project sound all around the room to create a soundstage that completely immerses you, with sound coming from forward, behind, and above.

A couple on the couch watching a movie with a Sonos Arc Ultra surround sound setup

One of the tricky parts of adding rear speakers to a home theater setup is where to place them. We’ve made it easy with a variety of speaker stands and mounts. Choose what works best for your viewing room 

Learn more about placement tips for Era 300 

Pro Tip: Add Sonos Voice Control to your system in the Sonos app to turn on your TV and adjust your home theater audio settings hands-free.

Now that you understand the basics of home theater sound, it’s time to find the right setup for you. To help take the guesswork out of building your system, we've put together this chart with our recommended speaker pairings based on the size of your space, the size of your TV, and level of immersion you’re hoping to achieve.

(Small room size, TV up to 55”)
Ray + Sub Mini + 2x Era 100


(Small to medium room size, TV up to 65”)
Beam + Sub Mini + 2x Era 100

 (Medium to large room size, TV up to 65”)
Beam + Sub 4 + 2x Era 100

 (Large room size, TV up to 65”)
Beam + Sub 4 + 2x Era 300

(Medium to large room size, TV 50” and over)
Arc Ultra + Sub 4 + 2x Era 100

(Large room size, TV 50” and over)
Arc Ultra + Sub 4 + 2x Era 300

*Some channels rendered using virtualization techniques. Requires compatible TV and Dolby Atmos-supported streaming service. Learn more about compatibility requirements 

Once you’ve chosen the right setup for you, there’s no need to build it yourself. Save when you get it as a 

Once you’ve set up your home theater, it’s easy to make sure it sounds its best in your unique space by fine-tuning it with 

. It’s also easy to add additional speakers in other rooms of the house. That way, you won’t miss any of the action when you head to the kitchen for more popcorn. In fact, the most difficult thing to do will be deciding what you want to watch or listen to next.

A family sitting on the couch watching a movie with a Sonos Arc Ultra surround sound setup

The Ultimate Guide to a Sonos Home Theater

At Sonos, we believe in delivering the best sound experience — seamlessly and reliably. But we fell short when our new app release didn’t meet the standards we promised. Since then, we’ve spent time listening to our customers and employees, learning from our mistakes, and taking action. Today, we’re announcing new commitments to show our renewed focus on software quality, customer experience, and delivering the excellence you deserve from Sonos.

We’re working to ensure we don’t just fix our mistakes but actively build a better Sonos experience for everyone. Many of these initiatives are already underway and others will be implemented through the remainder of the year.

These commitments focus on addressing the root causes of the app release issues and regaining the trust of our customers.

To deliver the highest level of customer experience, we will always establish ambitious quality benchmarks at the start of product development. We will not launch products until they meet these criteria. We will also enhance the tools needed to measure and maintain the standards our customers expect. 

Unwavering Focus on Customer Experience

Our beta testing program will include a broader range of customers and more diverse setups, helping us diagnose and resolve issues faster before going to market.

Increasing the Stringency of Pre-Launch Testing

In contrast to the all-at-once automated app release we issued in May, any major change to the Sonos app will be released gradually, allowing customers to adjust and provide feedback before it becomes the default. We will also provide customers the ability to opt in to test new features.

Approaching Change with Humility

We are creating a new role: Quality Ombudsperson. This person will ensure employees have a clear path to raise concerns regarding quality and customer experience. The ombudsperson will report directly to executive leadership, publish reports twice a year, and present regularly to the Sonos board of directors.

Appointing a Quality Ombudsperson

In addition, we are also committing to the following to begin to regain your trust: 

To reflect our strong belief in the quality of our products, we will extend the manufacturer’s warranty by an additional year for all home theater and plug-in speaker products currently under 

Extending Our Home Speaker Warranties

We will continue to roll out updated mobile software versions every 2-4 weeks to optimize and enhance the app experience, even after the current issues are fully resolved.

Relentless App Improvement

We will form a Customer Advisory Board to ensure we never lose sight of our customers' voices. This board will provide feedback and insights from a customer perspective to help shape and improve our software and products before they are launched.

Establishing a Customer Advisory Board

As a demonstration of the significance of these commitments,

 the Sonos Executive Leadership Team will not accept any annual bonus payout for the October 2024 - September 2025 fiscal year unless the company succeeds in improving the quality of the app experience and rebuilding customer trust.

Sonos sign above plants at front reception desk of Sonos office

Since May, the Sonos team has been working diligently to release new software updates approximately every two weeks and rapidly roll out new features and meaningful improvements and fixes.

More than 80% of the app’s missing features have been reintroduced and the company expects to have almost 100% restored in the coming weeks.

share detailed notes on what we’ve addressed

 and what we are working on next through our 

. To track our progress, you can stay updated on specific improvements via the 

Sonos App Improvement and Bug Tracker on Trello

Sonos user holding their phone using the Sonos app to control a white Era 100 speaker

We are committed to making Sonos better than ever, and these commitments are just the beginning of that journey. Thank you for being a part of the Sonos community.

Sonos user in a yellow sweater lying on a blue blanket enjoying the sound of a Roam 2 portable speaker

Recommitting to Quality and Customer Experience

High-resolution audio — or hi-res audio, for short — is a term you come across a lot when comparing different speakers or audio formats. As you’ve likely guessed, it indicates a high level of audio quality. But high relative to 

 The answer is not simply in the eye (or ear) of the beholder.

Let’s start with some points of comparison. High-resolution audio sounds better than MP3-quality audio. It even sounds better than standard CD quality audio, which was once considered sufficient to capture every aspect of sound perceivable to the human ear. We now know that many people can perceive differences in quality beyond what a CD is capable of reproducing, which brings us to a working definition of high-resolution audio.

Put simply, if a digital audio track manages to 

surpass the quality of a standard CD track

, it qualifies as hi-res audio. “Quality” may seem like a subjective term, but we can evaluate the quality of an audio track using two objective measurements — bit depth (expressed in “bits”) and sample rate (expressed in kilohertz, or “kHz”).

High-resolution audio is generally defined as audio that captures more of the original track’s subtle nuances and details than is possible with standard CD quality. In practical terms, this means a more immersive listening experience, with greater detail and clarity. In technical terms, it means 

 — higher than a standard CD’s quality of 16 bits and 44.1 kHz.

Those may just sound like numbers to you. But it’s important to understand bit depth and sample rate if you’re interested in enjoying the best-possible listening experience.

Bit depth and sample rate: The key components of audio quality

When we talk about audio quality, we’re really talking about how fully and accurately an audio track captures the live sound of a recording. The better the quality, the more you feel like you’re actually in the room listening to a song performed live.

, sound engineers generally want to capture as much dynamic range and frequency response as possible. 

 is the difference between the quietest and loudest sound a recording can produce. 

 measures how well an audio track can produce frequencies from the lowest bass to the highest treble.

Each of these qualities corresponds to a specific measurement: bit depth and sample rate, respectively.

 describes how many tiny pieces of information (i.e. “bits”) make up a single snapshot of a soundwave. The higher the bit depth, the more dynamic range the sound has — in other words, the more you can hear the loudest and quietest sounds.

 describes how many snapshots (i.e. “samples”) are taken from the original soundwave. The higher the sample rate, the more the track captures the details of the original recording. Higher sample rates also capture and reproduce higher frequencies of sound.

As noted above, hi-res audio files typically feature a 24-bit bit depth and a sample rate of 48 kHz or higher. Both measurements are significantly higher than standard CD quality, which features a 16-bit bit depth and a sample rate of 44.1 kHz.

The below graphic visualizes how a 24-bit recording actually captures a wider dynamic range of sounds. You might compare it to using a bigger net when fishing, in order to catch more fish. We’ll get to that in a moment.

Depiction of how 16-bit captures the full range of loudness, while 24-bit captures more than the full range.

What audio file types support hi-res audio?

If hi-res audio is so great, why haven’t we been listening to it forever? 

The answer comes down to technology. More specifically, it comes down to what different audio file types can support — and how big they must be to fit all that audio data.

One of the major differences between audio file types relates to a process called compression. This process takes the original audio waveform of a recording and shrinks it down to a smaller size that’s easier to transfer and store.

Compression can be split into two general types:

 loses some of the data contained in the original audio recording, which may result in a perceivable loss of audio quality.

 retains all of the audio information from the original recording, while still managing to shrink the file size. This is the type of compression associated with hi-res audio.

Some audio file types are uncompressed, and these also retain every aspect of the original recording. The downside is that these file sizes can be huge! So, historically, there’s been a real trade-off between audio quality and storage/convenience. This is beginning to change with the evolution of new file formats that support lossless compression.

To better visualize this, let’s trace the path of how a song recorded in hi-res (24-bit, 48 kHz) makes its way to the listener in the form of an audio file:

Illustration depicting the evolution of a song, from the studio to mastering (24-bit and 16-bit) and compression (lossy and lossless), through streaming.

As you can see, the original recording is typically split into two versions for distribution: an uncompressed raw audio format, and a standard CD format. Data from the uncompressed format can then be used to create lossless file formats like FLAC and ALAC, as well as lossy formats like MP3 and AAC.

Another thing you may have noticed from the above diagram is that both hi-res and CD quality are labeled “lossless.” Audio encoded in the CD format is indeed considered lossless because it represents a precise and accurate snapshot of the analog waveform. Though it may not have the same dynamic range or frequency response of a live performance, a CD doesn’t compress the data in a way that distorts or loses information from the original recording.

, the salient point is that hi-res audio isn’t simply about whether data is lost in compression. It refers specifically to audio that offers higher bit rates and sampling rates than what standard CD quality can achieve. So, a lossless audio track 

The short answer is yes. But not everyone can really tell the difference.

Remember, standard CD quality (16-bit, 44.1 kHz) was once thought to include the full range of frequencies humans can hear. It’s since been shown that some people can actually hear frequencies beyond what CD quality is capable of reproducing. For these people, hi-res audio will almost certainly sound better. But for people whose hearing is damaged or not as good as it once was, it may sound no different from a CD or even an MP3.

If you’re wondering whether you can hear the difference, 

 is a good starting place. For the most accurate results, be sure to listen to it through a pair of quality headphones like 

, or through a system that’s capable of 

More streaming services are beginning to offer lossless or hi-res audio options. Amazon Music, for example, now has many songs available in Ultra High Definition, which they define as “better than CD quality audio (up to 24 bits, 192 kHz).” Apple Music’s ALAC file format is also capable of delivering up to 24-bit/192 kHz hi-res audio, though you’ll have to switch it on in your settings.

A true hi-res audio experience requires not just a particular streaming service or file type, but also equipment that’s capable of accurately reproducing the depth and detail of original recordings.

You can actually stream lossless audio over Bluetooth with 

 headphones — and it’s sure to sound incredible. But for the most accurate hi-res playback experience, you’ll need to connect to a WiFi-enabled speaker, or use Sonos Ace’s included 3.5 mm cable to plug your headphones into an audio source.

It’s not just music that benefits from hi-res audio. A Sonos 

 brings hi-res sound quality to your favorite films and TV shows. A 

 such as Arc Ultra not only supports hi-res audio, but beams sound around the entire room for a more immersive experience.

As the capabilities of streaming and file types continue to expand, Sonos is keeping pace with products capable of doing justice to hi-res audio. You can see which streaming services support hi-res playback (such as Apple Music and Amazon Music) in our support article 

 feature several premium options capable of hi-res playback, including 

 offer a first-class high-res audio experience, thanks in part to 

 and their ability to create an immersive, multidimensional soundstages that redefine the possibilities of 

. And our premium over-ear Sonos Ace headphones plug in with a 3.5 mm for a hi-res experience that’s all your own. (Sonos Ace can also achieve lossless quality via Bluetooth or a USB-C connection.)

If you’re interested in upgrading your home audio setup to hi-res, get in touch with a Sonos expert by 

Couple lounging on a sofa with a pair of white Era 300 speakers behind them

The Beginner’s Guide to High-Resolution (Hi-Res) Audio

When shopping for a speaker or soundbar, you might encounter some words that sound more comical than technical. A tweeter? A woofer? What do birds and dogs have to do with producing a well-balanced sound experience?

As it turns out, these names are quite helpful in describing the function and sounds produced by the different components within a typical speaker enclosure. A tweeter is indeed like a bird, in the sense that it is small and designed to produce high-frequency sounds. Compare this to a woofer, which is bigger and produces deeper sound frequencies in the range of, say, a barking dog.

In this guide, we’ll focus on tweeters and the crisp, high end of the sonic range. These small but mighty pieces of hardware can fill a room with dazzling vocals, lead instruments, and other frequencies stretching toward the uppermost limits of audible sound.

In simplest terms, a tweeter is the part of a speaker responsible for producing higher-pitched sounds. Tweeters are specially designed to reproduce the higher frequencies of an electrical audio signal — and the higher the frequency, the higher the pitch you hear in your music.

Though different types of tweeters can be tuned to produce narrower ranges of audio frequencies, tweeters as a group typically produce frequencies within the range of 

. Hertz refers to the number of vibrations that occur in one second, and faster vibration speeds correspond to higher-frequency sounds. High-pitched vocals, crashing cymbals, and guitar solos are examples of sounds that fall within the lower end of a tweeter’s range (2,000 Hz). The higher end of the range (20,000 Hz) is associated with sounds that are barely even audible to humans, like dog whistles.

The Ultimate Guide to a Sonos Home Theater

Recommitting to Quality and Customer Experience

The Beginner’s Guide to High-Resolution (Hi-Res) Audio

What Are Speaker Tweeters (And What Do They Do?)

Introducing Sub 4 - Our Latest Subwoofer

Music for Business: How To Upgrade Any Speaker Into a Sonos System for Sonos Pro

The Beginner’s Guide to Outdoor Speakers

The Beginner’s Guide to Cleaning Headphones

What Is the Bluetooth Range for Speakers and Headphones?

Beginner's Guide to Audio File Types (And Which to Use)

What Is Lossless Audio — And How To Stream It at Home

Update on the Sonos app from Patrick

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