No delay option for Era100 speakers

  • 2 February 2024
  • 18 replies
  • 449 views
F

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:

  1. Casually listening to music via spotify / soundcloud / airplay
  2. 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

18 replies

N
Userlevel 7
Badge +18

The delay is so that grouped speakers can all play in sync. When streaming, the delay is irrelevant/ undetectable as there’s no “reference point”. It’s why there’s a slight lag when a tv input to a home theatre device is grouped with additional rooms. 

As a consequence I don’t think you’ll ever see (from Sonos or any other manufacturer) a zero-delay multiroom wifi system. 

F

The delay is so that grouped speakers can all play in sync. When streaming, the delay is irrelevant/ undetectable as there’s no “reference point”. It’s why there’s a slight lag when a tv input to a home theatre device is grouped with additional rooms. 

As a consequence I don’t think you’ll ever see (from Sonos or any other manufacturer) a zero-delay multiroom wifi system. 

I understand why the delay is introduced and why it is necessary for the besaid usecases.

But why shouldn’t they allow the user to decide on how they want to use their speakers.
In my second usecase, I want to use the speaker like a regular speaker.. (no grouping, no pairing… just plain line-in) .. why is this not possible?!

Do I have to buy two sets of speakers?
One set for casual listening to music over spotify / soundcloud / airplay
And one set for djing?
Seems like a waste of money and space.

Other multiroom wifi systems that have the option to play music over a line-in port do not introduce a delay. I’ve tested a system from the German brand “Teufel” yersterday at their store. These speakers can be used as a wifi multiroom system but also as a regular speaker when the audio is playing over the line-in. (They lack in other features that I really like about the Era100 so they are unfortunately not an alternative)

N
Userlevel 7
Badge +18

That’s not a make I’m familiar with. Are you saying they switch between zero delay when running stand-alone and auto-switch to be with delay when grouped into a multiroon setup? Or there’s a user-controlled switch? 

In a larger system, I can see a lot of stuttering as some rooms switch on a delay whilst others are already in that mode.
 

For a small number of owners I can see why it might be desirable. But that may be the issue here: it’s only desirable for a very small number of Sonos users. Would the benefit to them outweigh the cost of development?

jgatie

That’s not a make I’m familiar with. Are you saying they switch between zero delay when running stand-alone and auto-switch to be with delay when grouped into a multiroon setup? Or there’s a user-controlled switch? 

In a larger system, I can see a lot of stuttering as some rooms switch on a delay whilst others are already in that mode.
 

For a small number of owners I can see why it might be desirable. But that may be the issue here: it’s only desirable for a very small number of Sonos users. Would the benefit to them outweigh the cost of development?

 

Or the cost of support when every person who buys it for things like DJing call up to complain that the expensive multi-room speakers system they purchased can’t do multi-room in certain configurations.  

F

That’s not a make I’m familiar with. Are you saying they switch between zero delay when running stand-alone and auto-switch to be with delay when grouped into a multiroon setup? Or there’s a user-controlled switch? 

In a larger system, I can see a lot of stuttering as some rooms switch on a delay whilst others are already in that mode.
 

But for a small number of owners I can see why it might be desirable. But that may be the issue here: it’s only desirable for a very small number of Sonos users. Would the benefit to them outweigh the cost of development?

Yeah I think that’s how it worked

I don’t think so. Just make speakers with true line-in ungroupable / pairable so you can’t create stuttering because you can’t group the speakers.

 

I think the amount of people isn’t that small. The links that I’ve mentioned are just some of the posts that talk about the delay issue and these are by just a fraction of the people that would even post in a forum.

 

The cost of development should be pretty small. I work as a developer in a major software company so I would say that I got some experience with developing code for hardware applications.

Disabling the delay should be a pretty easy implementation. It’s more difficult to say when it comes to blocking the ability to group / pair the speaker since this could be a completely new flag that needs to be handled by the speakers, the network and the app. The setting in the app and transfering the 0 delay to the speakers over the network would be pretty easy again.

So I think that fully implementing that feature would take ~5 days + testing

F

That’s not a make I’m familiar with. Are you saying they switch between zero delay when running stand-alone and auto-switch to be with delay when grouped into a multiroon setup? Or there’s a user-controlled switch? 

In a larger system, I can see a lot of stuttering as some rooms switch on a delay whilst others are already in that mode.
 

For a small number of owners I can see why it might be desirable. But that may be the issue here: it’s only desirable for a very small number of Sonos users. Would the benefit to them outweigh the cost of development?

 

Or the cost of support when every person who buys it for things like DJing call up to complain that the expensive multi-room speakers system they purchased can’t do multi-room in certain configurations.  

Well I clearly state in the ui I’ve made that grouping / pairing is not possible in true line-in mode.

On the other hand I have to say that the line-in delay that is currently present also isn’t communicated that good.

N
Userlevel 7
Badge +18

That’s not a make I’m familiar with. Are you saying they switch between zero delay when running stand-alone and auto-switch to be with delay when grouped into a multiroon setup? Or there’s a user-controlled switch? 

In a larger system, I can see a lot of stuttering as some rooms switch on a delay whilst others are already in that mode.
 

But for a small number of owners I can see why it might be desirable. But that may be the issue here: it’s only desirable for a very small number of Sonos users. Would the benefit to them outweigh the cost of development?

Yeah I think that’s how it worked

I don’t think so. Just make speakers with true line-in ungroupable / pairable so you can’t create stuttering because you can’t group the speakers.

 

I think the amount of people isn’t that small. The links that I’ve mentioned are just some of the posts that talk about the delay issue and these are by just a fraction of the people that would even post in a forum.

 

The cost of development should be pretty small. I work as a developer in a major software company so I would say that I got some experience with developing code for hardware applications.

Disabling the delay should be a pretty easy implementation. It’s more difficult to say when it comes to blocking the ability to group / pair the speaker since this could be a completely new flag that needs to be handled by the speakers, the network and the app. The setting in the app and transfering the 0 delay to the speakers over the network would be pretty easy again.

So I think that fully implementing that feature would take ~5 days + testing



As a software developer, you should be aware that modifying an existing, complex system is not straight-forward. Frankly, I’m staggered that you can offer a timescale for software modification without any idea of the task or the scale of the testing. But everyone’s entitled to their opinion: we seem to disagree on this one. 😜

F

That’s not a make I’m familiar with. Are you saying they switch between zero delay when running stand-alone and auto-switch to be with delay when grouped into a multiroon setup? Or there’s a user-controlled switch? 

In a larger system, I can see a lot of stuttering as some rooms switch on a delay whilst others are already in that mode.
 

But for a small number of owners I can see why it might be desirable. But that may be the issue here: it’s only desirable for a very small number of Sonos users. Would the benefit to them outweigh the cost of development?

Yeah I think that’s how it worked

I don’t think so. Just make speakers with true line-in ungroupable / pairable so you can’t create stuttering because you can’t group the speakers.

 

I think the amount of people isn’t that small. The links that I’ve mentioned are just some of the posts that talk about the delay issue and these are by just a fraction of the people that would even post in a forum.

 

The cost of development should be pretty small. I work as a developer in a major software company so I would say that I got some experience with developing code for hardware applications.

Disabling the delay should be a pretty easy implementation. It’s more difficult to say when it comes to blocking the ability to group / pair the speaker since this could be a completely new flag that needs to be handled by the speakers, the network and the app. The setting in the app and transfering the 0 delay to the speakers over the network would be pretty easy again.

So I think that fully implementing that feature would take ~5 days + testing



As a software developer, you should be aware that modifying an existing, complex system is not straight-forward. Frankly, I’m staggered that you can offer a timescale for software modification without any idea of the task or the scale of the testing. But everyone’s entitled to their opinion: we seem to disagree on this one. 😜

I fully agree

I have no clue on how the software works or how difficult it actually is to implement.
Neither do I know how the testing is done or at what scale.

 

But i still think that it shouldn’t be too difficult since some parts of my requested feature are already a part of the software (changing the delay and transmitting that change to other parts of the system)

 

I just wonder why there is absolutely no option to use the speaker as a plain regular speaker.
(should be bare minimum of any speaker that has some type of input port. Ever other feature should build on top of that in my opinion)

Airgetlam

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

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. 

Bruce
jgatie

It would not surprise me in the least that the ADC stage hardware of the line-in is combined with the buffering and volume hardware all in one chip, and thus is not bypassable by software.

F

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
Userlevel 7
Badge +18

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

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
Userlevel 7
Badge +18

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

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

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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