After looking into a bit more, I have encountered a few shortcomings on Sonos and starting to seek alternative (as I have only one Sonos device for now). But as I read more about other systems, Sonos indeed look attractive in many ways. Initially, I was ignoring SONOS Connect and connect amp but now I am starting to think maybe these devices will close the gap. So let me ask a few questions to experienced forum members.
1. Bluetooth receiver on connect
When we use it, can I play music in any Sononet device or is it only on one that is attached to the aux in? E.g. play 5 or connect that has Bluetooth receiver plugged? Or can I play the music on other room located Playbar?
2. Connect + own external speaker + Sonos Sub?
My existing speaker don’t have subwoofer component. Can I connect it to SONOS Connect then Group it with Sonos Sub?
Thank you for your help in advance,
Question
Understanding Sonos Connect Potential/capability
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1. Bluetooth receiver on connect
When we use it, can I play music in any Sononet device or is it only on one that is attached to the aux in? E.g. play 5 or connect that has Bluetooth receiver plugged? Or can I play the music on other room located Playbar?
2. Connect + own external speaker + Sonos Sub?
My existing speaker don’t have subwoofer component. Can I connect it to SONOS Connect then Group it with Sonos Sub?
Thank you for your help in advance,
I'm not entirely clear on what it is you'd like to accomplish but I'll try and answer your questions.
1. There is no Bluetooth on any Sonos device - this does not exists. Sonos operates via your wi-fi network and via is own ("Sonos net") mesh network that it creates between other Sonos devices.
That being said, if you have a Connect as well as other Sonos speakers in different rooms, yes, you can play music that is being received by the Connect via RCA analog input. It's possible even to *mute* the Connect audio output so you only have the music playing in the other rooms (but you can't use the Connect to listen to anything else at the same time of course).
2. Yes, absolutely, as long as you are talking about Connect:AMP, not just the Connect model. If you already have your own speaker and a good receiver with a home audio setup, then it makes more sense to purchase a wired sub traditionally connected to that receiver, which is fed audio from the Connect. But...
If you do *not* have a receiver and just have your own speakers, then you want Connect:AMP, and in which case yes, SonosSub will group with the Connect:Amp and your speakers just fine.
Now that I typed all of that, I re-read your original post - What other Sonos speakers do you have? You mention a Playbar and that you already have a speaker. Let us know what you have currently, and what you'd like to be able to do. 🙂
Thank you very much for detailed reply.
Basically, my main issue with Sonos is intrinsic delay on Sonos aux in, which I initially thought only on Play 5. This is because I use speaker for karaoke using Nintendo switch where such delay result in audio separation of voice and music. Playbar i have cannot take the delay out anyway I do. So I ended up purchasing eldifier s2000pro and directly connected to switch via aux in and now the lag is gone. But this is something I can still return.
Since I’d still like to make whole house audio option built up, my debate has been Bluesound and Heos vs Sonos. BS has high res, but after reading lot about it on internet, it didn’t sound like worth investing just for that to me. So I came back and thought if I use connect amp or connect, I can make one room 20x20sqft with edelfier and connect amp with possibly Sonos Sub as edelfier 2000pro does not support subwoofer on its own, then move my Playbar to other room. Start investing on Sonos One for kitchen bathroom, and may be soon play 5 for my office.
But.... I saw another post after writing this opening post, connect amp aux in also has intrinsic delay on Sonos due to A/D conversion. If that’s true, I feel like I’m back to square one.
Basically, my main issue with Sonos is intrinsic delay on Sonos aux in, which I initially thought only on Play 5. This is because I use speaker for karaoke using Nintendo switch where such delay result in audio separation of voice and music. Playbar i have cannot take the delay out anyway I do. So I ended up purchasing eldifier s2000pro and directly connected to switch via aux in and now the lag is gone. But this is something I can still return.
Since I’d still like to make whole house audio option built up, my debate has been Bluesound and Heos vs Sonos. BS has high res, but after reading lot about it on internet, it didn’t sound like worth investing just for that to me. So I came back and thought if I use connect amp or connect, I can make one room 20x20sqft with edelfier and connect amp with possibly Sonos Sub as edelfier 2000pro does not support subwoofer on its own, then move my Playbar to other room. Start investing on Sonos One for kitchen bathroom, and may be soon play 5 for my office.
But.... I saw another post after writing this opening post, connect amp aux in also has intrinsic delay on Sonos due to A/D conversion. If that’s true, I feel like I’m back to square one.
+22All Sonos inputs in play5 connect and connect amp work the same. Only the playbar has less delay with the digital input. However that is only when playing to the playbar and any paired speakers. If you group in other speakers in house Sonos is going to add about 70ms delay for syncing purposes.
All digital audio systems have a delay with analogue line in sources. That includes Sonos, Bose, Bluesound, Heos, and others.
Unfortunately it's the inherent nature of the technology.
Even Bluetooth has some latency, and that's largely been optimised for low-latency audio. Phones and tablets typically hide this by delaying video to match. But that, obviously, doesn't work on real-time sources.
If playing analogue sources with "zero-latency" is an essential requirement (and it is in many situations, like using the system as a PA, for live DJ-ing, Karaoke, use as a live instrument amp, etc.) then no digital streaming system is going to work for you. You can really only do this with an analogue amp.
However, you can use Sonos as an input to this amp to get all of the benefits of streaming services, Internet radio, etc. in the places where latency matter, and deploy Sonos One, etc. speakers in other rooms. Those other rooms will not receive the audio from the Nintendo unless you also connect the Nintendo audio out to the line in, which is possible, but then the other rooms will receive delayed audio.
By the way, IMO you are right to consider hires formats as not worth it. In general it's snake oil. No scientific analysis or testing have shown it to have any benefits over standard CD quality formats. It is true that some music mastered in hires formats often sounds better, but that's simply because of the additional care they take with the mixing and mastering: if you buy the hires version and use a conversion tool to downsample them to standard resolutions, they sound just as good.
Cheers,
Keith
Unfortunately it's the inherent nature of the technology.
Even Bluetooth has some latency, and that's largely been optimised for low-latency audio. Phones and tablets typically hide this by delaying video to match. But that, obviously, doesn't work on real-time sources.
If playing analogue sources with "zero-latency" is an essential requirement (and it is in many situations, like using the system as a PA, for live DJ-ing, Karaoke, use as a live instrument amp, etc.) then no digital streaming system is going to work for you. You can really only do this with an analogue amp.
However, you can use Sonos as an input to this amp to get all of the benefits of streaming services, Internet radio, etc. in the places where latency matter, and deploy Sonos One, etc. speakers in other rooms. Those other rooms will not receive the audio from the Nintendo unless you also connect the Nintendo audio out to the line in, which is possible, but then the other rooms will receive delayed audio.
By the way, IMO you are right to consider hires formats as not worth it. In general it's snake oil. No scientific analysis or testing have shown it to have any benefits over standard CD quality formats. It is true that some music mastered in hires formats often sounds better, but that's simply because of the additional care they take with the mixing and mastering: if you buy the hires version and use a conversion tool to downsample them to standard resolutions, they sound just as good.
Cheers,
Keith
However, you can use Sonos as an input to this amp to get all of the benefits of streaming services, Internet radio, etc. in the places where latency matter, and deploy Sonos One, etc. speakers in other rooms. Those other rooms will not receive the audio from the Nintendo unless you also connect the Nintendo audio out to the line in, which is possible, but then the other rooms will receive delayed audio.
Keith
Hi Kieth,
Thank you for your detailed response. My understanding is the delay comes from Analog to digital conversion taking place in aux in of Sonos Play 5, connect or connect amp. Don’t you think other vendors allow complete pass through without digital analog conversion before streaming? The reason asking is on Heos faq site they have a section mentioning about delay when soundbar linked to surround speaker as a solution they suggest just play only to the directly attached device on.
Another question is can the amp be connect from Sonos? Can I connect Nintendo output directly to the external speaker with analog input and then have connect optical out to the external speaker? This way I get delay free from switch karaoke to external speaker and when I want Sonos experience I can switch to optical line and connect covers it.
My understanding is the delay comes from Analog to digital conversion taking place in aux in of Sonos Play 5, connect or connect amp.
Along with encoding into digital formats and buffering/streaming.
Don’t you think other vendors allow complete pass through without digital analog conversion before streaming? The reason asking is on Heos faq site they have a section mentioning about delay when soundbar linked to surround speaker as a solution they suggest just play only to the directly attached device on.
I don't think they do, although it would be technically possible. However, it would complicate the solution and raise the cost for what is, frankly, a niche case. in 99.9% of cases, the delay is irrelevant to users.
The Heos stuff seems to work similarly to Sonos, although it seems to be rather less good as synchronising between speakers (by which I mean there seems, from my brief research, to be cases where different Heos devices don't sync when grouped). I got the impression that in this case they were talking about disabling the surround decoding to reduce the amount of latency. There would still be latency, but it would be reduced.
Note that Sonos does have a global option to use uncompressed audio for line in. This minimises latency in a similar way; by reducing the amount of encoding/decoding required for the line-in stream. There is still some latency as, I believe, there will still be on Heos, BS, and others.
Note that these options do increase the load on the network and you are more susceptible to audio dropouts if your network isn't performing very well.
Another question is can the amp be connect from Sonos? Can I connect Nintendo output directly to the external speaker with analog input and then have connect optical out to the external speaker? This way I get delay free from switch karaoke to external speaker and when I want Sonos experience I can switch to optical line and connect covers it.
If it's an active speaker with some sort of input switching capability then, yes. This is, in effect, the same as using a traditional analogue hifi amp and speakers with Sonos Connect as a source. The only difference is that with active speakers, the amp is built into the speakers themselves.
Cheers,
Keith
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