Contributor I

No delay option for Era100 speakers

18 replies
2167 views

I’m the proud owner of two Era100 speakers and I was planning to further upgrade my System to roughly 8 speakers but unfortunately something crossed that path.

I absolutely love the sound, the design and the features of these speakers but the introduced delay and the missing option to fully remove it destroyed the perfect image of these speakers for me.
(And it seems like for other people too: like here, here, here, here, here, here, or here)

I want to use the Era100’s in two scenarios:

Casually listening to music via spotify / soundcloud / airplay
Djing / live-recorded playback via line-in and an aux cable to each speaker

When buying the speakers, I assumed that the line in would have no delay but this is clearly not the case and can’t be bypassed even though it would be so easy to implement.

I’ve created a sample mockup of how this feature could look like in the app:

Just disable the grouping / pairing feature during the use of the line-in audio source when this delay option is selected.

I guess I have to return these awesome speakers but I would always immedeately buy the Era100’s again with a line-in adapter for each, if this feature would be added in an update.

Please share your opinion on this feature proposal / request and share instances where the None setting would also make sense besides djing.

Kind regards

Simon

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FliensAuthor

Contributor I

Get hired by Sonos, so you can provide them numbers, and convince them to support your assertion that they need to implement this feature.

Well I don’t think this is going to happen soon and that’s also not how a feature request works.

Then you might share with us the cost associated with making such a substantial change. Numbers that cover costs of design, software updating, hardware, testing, manufacturing line, marketing / competition, customer support, as well as the amount of increased sales they would generate.

...

In some way that’s what I was trying to do with this post:

Please share your opinion on this feature proposal / request and share instances where the None setting would also make sense besides djing.

I was trying to find more usecases and people that would benefit from this feature.

Airgetlam

It’s certainly likely more complex than we can imagine. I’d love to see it implemented, but I think Sonos’ perspective on feasibility / profitability / demand doesn’t match ours as individuals.

Bruce

N

nik9669a

Senior Virtuoso

It’s certainly likely more complex than we can imagine. I’d love to see it implemented, but I think Sonos’ perspective on feasibility / profitability / demand doesn’t match ours as individuals.

Sonos’ business model from the outset was, as I understand it, multi-room synchronised music systems. They achieved this with the very small delay inherent in the system. To eliminate this will probably mean a huge re-write of code - maybe even a “begin again” project.

As a nice-to-have feature, I don’t think anyone would complain. But the percentage of users that will really exploit it is, I suspect, tiny. Are there that many home dj’s? There’s other kit available to let you do that. Ditto for karaoke. I personally can’t see a market that Sonos could exploit.

F

FliensAuthor

Contributor I

It’s certainly likely more complex than we can imagine. I’d love to see it implemented, but I think Sonos’ perspective on feasibility / profitability / demand doesn’t match ours as individuals.

Sonos’ business model from the outset was, as I understand it, multi-room synchronised music systems. They achieved this with the very small delay inherent in the system. To eliminate this will probably mean a huge re-write of code - maybe even a “begin again” project.

As a nice-to-have feature, I don’t think anyone would complain. But the percentage of users that will really exploit it is, I suspect, tiny. Are there that many home dj’s? There’s other kit available to let you do that. Ditto for karaoke. I personally can’t see a market that Sonos could exploit.

I don’t think any of us can say how big of a change in development this feature would be. I personally don’t think that it would cause a complete rewrite but who knows.

There isn’t just the dj usecase. I saw some threads here in the community about issues with the delay when using the speakers with a tv.
A further usecase would be a setup with speakers from multiple brands. Let’s say you have a wired speaker setup and also want to use airplay or streaming services. Adding the Era100’s to your existing setup wont work since they introduce a delay that the other speakers probably wont.
Or in general playing live music over the system, like a guitar or a sth similar.

N

nik9669a

Senior Virtuoso

I don’t think any of us can say how big of a change in development this feature would be. I personally don’t think that it would cause a complete rewrite but who knows.

There isn’t just the dj usecase. I saw some threads here in the community about issues with the delay when using the speakers with a tv.
A further usecase would be a setup with speakers from multiple brands. Let’s say you have a wired speaker setup and also want to use airplay or streaming services. Adding the Era100’s to your existing setup wont work since they introduce a delay that the other speakers probably wont.
Or in general playing live music over the system, like a guitar or a sth similar.

Yesterday you confidently announced it was a 5-day software effort. At least today you acknowledge that we don’t know the scale of the project.

Sonos already offers Speakers for tv use.

Sonos has devices to enable connection to other hifi systems.

I don’t think domestic speakers from (most?) manufacturers are recommended for guitar input, at least directly connected. Via line-in from line-out of the guitar amp, maybe - but guitar amps often have line-in input anyway for play-along so there’s no need for Sonos to have the capability you’re requesting.

I’m sorry, but I still don’t see a market for the capability you’re requesting. But I’m starting to repeat myself so I’ll leave you and others to discuss it from here.

jgatie

Guitar connections are Hi-Z (high impedance) and do not play nice with standard Line-Ins. You stand a good chance of damaging your Sonos gear if you plug an electric guitar directly into the Line-In.

F

FliensAuthor

Contributor I

I don’t think any of us can say how big of a change in development this feature would be. I personally don’t think that it would cause a complete rewrite but who knows.

There isn’t just the dj usecase. I saw some threads here in the community about issues with the delay when using the speakers with a tv.
A further usecase would be a setup with speakers from multiple brands. Let’s say you have a wired speaker setup and also want to use airplay or streaming services. Adding the Era100’s to your existing setup wont work since they introduce a delay that the other speakers probably wont.
Or in general playing live music over the system, like a guitar or a sth similar.

Yesterday you confidently announced it was a 5-day software effort. At least today you acknowledge that we don’t know the scale of the project.

I said that it depends on how the software architecture is build. So that if the flags and features that I’ve listet exist, it would or should have rather said could be implemented in ~5 days if Sonos really wanted to.

Guitar connections are Hi-Z (high impedance) and do not play nice with standard Line-Ins. You stand a good chance of damaging your Sonos gear if you plug an electric guitar directly into the Line-In.

And ok the guitar maybe wasn’t the best example. I have no experience with playing live music over a guitar as you both have probably recognized.

Maybe an electronic piano would be a better example.

But we stray of the path.
I think we all can agree that the said feature would be nice to have but I also understand that Sonos probably does not have the biggest interest in implementing that feature.

buzz

Grand Maestro

Any unit with surround sound processing or digital tone controls will likely add a slight latency -- and there is no standard accounting for this. It’s entirely possible that attempting to simultaneously play the same input in a pre-digital system alongside a modern digitally enhanced system will bump into a latency. Sometimes there is a “bypass” mode that can reduce or eliminate the latency.

Unfortunately, marketers don’t want to talk about such things because this would make the product seem “complicated” and the general public will not purchase “complicated”.

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