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digitalsuperfun
Contributor I
May 10, 2023

Sony Receiver "Works with Sonos" Automation Issues in a Larger Sonos System (6 or more Sonos devices)

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

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    TronicJon
    Contributor I
    August 29, 2023

    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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