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I am a custom integrator and just love the Sony Music Connect / Works with Sonos automation built into Sony ES receivers. Pair a Sony ES receiver with a Sonos Port in the “Works with Sonos” settings menu and voila, you can turn a big home theater into another Sonos zone where control on the Sonos app works like any other zone (even bypassing the Sony’s volume control) and you never need a separate remote to play music.

The feature works by watching the multicast chatter on the network and when it sees a “play” message coming from the MAC address of the associated Sonos Port, it switches on and goes to the input dedicated to Sonos.

I’m having a problem with a new installation utilizing a Sonos Port and Sony STR-AZ5000ES. This feature doesn’t work when all 17 installed Sonos devices are running on the network, although it will start working when you unplug many of the Sonos devices from power. Most of the Sonos devices are wired with ethernet. 

Sony Support says this feature stops working when more than 6-8 Sonos devices are plugged in. Basically the receiver can’t process all of the multicast messages fast enough to pick out the message it’s trained to look for. This feature works great on smaller Sonos setups, but most of the systems I work on are larger so that doesn’t help me.

We are using a Ubiquiti router with managed Ubiquiti switches. Our IT contact is suggesting things like separating half the Sonos to another VLAN or perhaps some kind of IGMP Snooping implementation. This is otherwise a simple home network, but I need some advanced networking advice to make this function work to finish the job. 

Thank you for your help!

Ian

Hi @digitalsuperfun 

Thanks for your post!

If Sony say their product will only work with 6-8 Sonos devices on the network, I’d be inclined to believe them, but I can give you our recommended settings for UniFi systems in case it improves matters:

  • Log into the UniFi controller

  • Click the Settings tab on the left sidebar

  • Click WiFi under the Settings page

  • Click on the network SSID. Note: if there are multiple SSIDs that the players and controllers connect to, the same will need to be done for each SSID.

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  • Scroll down to Advanced Configuration and set it to Manual

  • Verify and confirm that WiFi Type is set to Standard

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  • Click on the Apply Changes button at the bottom of the page.

  • Click on Settings > Networks and select the network that Sonos is being set on.

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  • Scroll down to Advanced Configuration and set it to Manual

  • Verify and confirm that Network Type is set to Standard and IGMP Snooping is enabled.

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  • Disable the following options by unchecking the Enable option:

  1. Multicast and Broadcast Control (blocks all multicast and broadcast for non-listed devices).

  2. Multicast Enhancement (converts multicast to unicast when possible)

  3. Client Device Isolation (prevents wireless client on the same AP from communicating with each other).

  4. Proxy ARP (converts broadcast to unicast when possible).

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  • Apply changes.
  • Once completed, allow up to a minute for the AP to provision (apply the settings) and restore online connection.

 

To be honest, if Sony have support forum with a section for these receivers then I recommend you ask for help there too (if you haven’t already), though there are some very knowledgeable users here so hopefully more advice will be incoming.

I hope this helps.

Thank you, this is very helpful. 
 

I just spoke with Sony support. The feature can work, it’s that when there are more than 6-8 Sonos players you need a managed switch that’s configured to wrangle this traffic so that the Sony receiver isn’t overwhelmed with messages.
 

So advice on how to configure the network is what I need from the Sonos Support side. We will try the above instructions and respond back. Thanks!

I’m also a custom installer.  I was not aware of this.   Just ran into this problem today… Sony ES STRAZ1000ES.. 15 Zones … Have you made progress with a managed switch?  

 

 

I’ll report back in the next two weeks as we have to solve this at two different sites in that timeframe.

Enabling IGMP Snooping didn’t seem to fix it.

Our current thinking is to configure the switch port that the Sony receiver is connected to so that it can only see traffic from the Sonos Port and the router, but we have yet to try that. 

I’m planning on getting the Sony STR-AZ7000ES to replace my Denon.   I have 11 Sonos devices.  Amps, beams, arc, move, roams and of course a Sonos port. It sounds like works with Sonos might be an issue.  I have all unifi ubiquiti equipment so looking forward to learning what’s possible   Anything that has an ethernet port I have the Wi-Fi disabled

Denon didn’t have works with Sonos but I found a partial work around.  on the Denon “TV Audio” input settings page  I made sure coax 1 audio was also assigned in addition to hdmi audio.  This would make it so when the TV is off and there is no longer an HDMI audio source for TV Audio, it would fall back to coax 1 allowing the port audio to come through. (Nothing to manually switch at least).  Would this be possible on the Sony ES?

 

I just setup my Sony and can’t get the port to work automatically so far as expected.   Anyone figure out how to isolate and limit the Sonos traffic to the Sony via Unifi Ubiquity switches?  This is technically possible still yes?

Update:

I’ve been experimenting, and found a few interesting things so far.   

I powered off enough Sonos devices until works with Sonos was automatically switching to the correct Sonos port input on the Sony STR-AZ7000ES

I then powered on my off Sonos devices again one at a time, testing each time before adding another.  I would change the source on the Sony to something else before testing Sonos app playback,  
 

everything is still auto switching and working all 11 devices  

another thing I noticed is the Sonos port Audio is out of sync with the rest of the whole Home Sonos, audio going on.   The fix is to turn on Pure Direct on the Sony. 
 

the pure Direct mode doesn’t seem to stay when the receiver is turned off and on.   (And regular sound field direct isn’t as good as pure direct)

my workaround is to leave the receiver on 24 7 and set it to ignore the TV on off sync on the Sony hdmi settings page. 
 

it’s only been a few hours, but we’ll see how long this lasts.  So, Maybe doing the above steps and leaving the receiver on 24 7 will work or maybe pure direct frees up some CPU cycles? (Guessing)

If this doesn’t last long term as is, I’ll dive into the custom Unifi network settings to try and isolate the traffic.  

 

Pure Direct removes the audio processing section of the Sony from the audio path which eliminates the delay it causes.

I had similar issues on Yamaha and Denon systems.

They should make it so switching to pure Direct is an automatic option when activating the Work with Sonos assigned port. 

the pure Direct mode doesn’t seem to stay when the receiver is turned off and on.   (And regular sound field direct isn’t as good as pure direct)

my workaround is to leave the receiver on 24 7 and set it to ignore the TV on off sync on the Sony hdmi settings page. 
 

Speculation: inserting a CEC blocker into the TV HDMI connection might help.

By the way I figured out the SONOS PORT music being out of sync with the rest of the whole home SONOS music.

I switched the SONOS PORT to use analog L/R RCA cables as the output instead of the single COAX digital output.

Now the Sony STR-AZ7000ES is in perfect sync in the majority of sound field modes, Pure Direct is no longer Required. That means I can resume allowing my AVR to sleep when the TV is turned off.

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