Prodigy III

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Linking two halves of a stereo pair via Ethernet

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I think this question has been asked before - probably multiple times - but a search of the subject line didn’t find anything. I did however check to make sure I haven’t asked the question before…

Is there anything to be gained by linking two halves of a stereo pair together with a crossover ethernet cable?

Ok, I’ve asked it, and it looks stupid now it’s written down, but… the thinking is that one half of a stereo pair almost certainly gets sent the whole stereo signal via wifi - it just throws one half away.

And of course the other half of a stereo pair needs the same amount of wifi bandwidth to get the other half of the stereo signal - and it throws the other half away.

But if the two are linked together, one can send the data to the other via the wired network, thus halving the wifi bandwidth used.

Yeah, I know - sounds unlikely, but I had to ask!

Stereo Pair

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AirgetlamAnswer

In that case, wire one of your speakers (or a BOOST, although they’re no longer in production) to your router with an Ethernet cable. That will put all that are capable on SonosNet (the newer Sonos speakers are not SonosNet capable), a parallel WiFi signal. I think you’ll find, if you do measurements, that Sonos doesn’t actually take huge amounts of bandwidth from your WiFi, but I’ve done a similar thing, running my system from a BOOST, all except my Roam, which is on my WiFi. You do need to take additional care that the SonosNet signal doesn’t interfere with your WiFi signal, but that’s fairly easy to do.

Bruce

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AntifonAuthor

Prodigy III

I was trying to think of ways to make optimal use of the wi-fi bandwidth, to reduce the stuttering effects. I don’t need it to report anything to be able to hear those.

106rallye

Maybe the community could help solve the stuttering another way? How is your system connected?

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AntifonAuthor

Prodigy III

Ach, I just wrote a long reply and the forum software popped up a message saying “something’s gone wrong” and it all disappeared.

In short - I’ve tried for several years - not going to put more into it at the moment. I’ve spent enough time trying.

buzz

Grand Maestro

Been there. Sometimes I’ll select and copy text -- just in case.

buzz

Grand Maestro

Sometimes EoP works, most of the time it’s not worth messing with. If your WiFi coverage is sketchy, you could bring an EoP connection to a switch near the pair and wire the pair to the switch.

Modern WiFi is much improved. Back in 2005 WiFi was crude enough that SONOS developed their own mesh network that was very effective. Modern WiFi has improved to the point where it’s not worth the effort for SONOS to continue supporting SonosNet. That’s why the newest SONOS wireless is WiFi only.

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AntifonAuthor

Prodigy III

I don’t actually know what EoP is! But yes, I had a spare Cat6 wire running across the loft to the other side of the house, so I put a small switch at the other end and wired both of one of my stereo pairs to it.

I’m now at a ratio of four hardwired units out of a total of eleven. It does seem to help, though skipping tracks forward or back still leads to short periods when some speakers drop out. I wouldn’t be surprised if one or two more hardwired connection would give me a near-perfect result, but it’s just too difficult in a 1970s brick-built house.

If I was starting from scratch in a new house I would go with a fully wired solution, but that’s not an option now.

buzz

Grand Maestro

EoP (Ethernet over Powerline). Your scheme is much better.

E

Eric_45

Lyricist I

In my previous setup with 2 Play:1s, that where connected wirelessly to a Boost, this seemed to work and improve connection stability. Currently I’m using a One (L) and a One SL (R) connected through WiFi. When I connect left/right speakers with an Ethernet cable, as soon as I disable WiFi on the One SL, it will lose its connection. So at least with these speakers, it appears this doesn’t work.

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