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Vinyl & Multiroom

  • 29 March 2020
  • 7 replies
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Looking to start playing vinyl over my Sonos speakers. I have; Play:5 (Gen1) and Play:3, (potentially looking to upgrade both). 

Looking for someone to help with the below / confirm my understanding. 

  1. If I plug in record player (with Phono preamp built in), directly to the Play:5, will this also allow it to stream through the Play:3 (and potentially Sonos One if I add)
  2. What is the benefit in connecting the record player to the Port rather than Play:5? (other than allowing to connect to 3rd party speakers, if record player has Phono preamp built in??). I assume it means the the Sonos speakers can be located away from the record player without anything lined in (other than power)? 
  3. The Amp vs Port would only be needed if record player doesn't have Phono preamp built in? 

 

On a separate note, I have a Bridge and have done for a number of years. What was / is the function of this? This allowed internet to “go to” the speakers? Is it still required? 

 

Thanks in advance! 

 

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Best answer by Airgetlam 29 March 2020, 15:55

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7 replies

Airgetlam
  1. Yes.
  2. None. Other than form factor, the line in is the same.
  3. No. As in 2, any line in, as long as the turntable is line level, either with an external or internal pre-amp, will work. 
     

For practical purposes, the Port is designed to integrate with a normal ‘receiver’ and both accept the input from, and send the Sonos signal to it. The Amp is designed to power third party speakers, and has only an analog and digital input, but no analog output other than to drive the speakers, so it can’t send the Sonos output to a normal receiver. 

Bruce
Airgetlam

Oops, missed the BRIDGE question. It was originally designed to act as a bridge between your LAN and Sonos. At one point, Sonos figured out a way to make any wired speaker work in that fashion, and then allow any speaker to connect to your own WiFi signal, rather than just the one created by a Sonos device. The BRIDGE has been retired for a long time, as it has a strong potential for a bad power supply, and uses old technology. Several years ago it was superseded by the BOOST.

I happen to run a BOOST myself, mostly because I prefer not to have the music bandwidth on my own WiFi signal.

Bruce
buzz

Any Line-In can play in any combination of rooms.

None of the SONOS players incorporate a Phono preamp. If your turntable cannot provide a line level output (built-in preamp), you’ll need an external preamp for the turntable.

---

The original SONOS hardware used a private wireless network known as SonosNet. WiFi ignores SonosNet and SonosNet ignores WiFi. SonosNet requires at least one player to be wired to the network. Multiple players can be wired too. In situations where the only practical wired network connection was not at a location where the user wanted to locate a player, BRIDGE could be wired to the network and support SonosNet. Competitors jumped on SONOS, claiming that it lied about the wireless part because at least one wired device was required. WiFi and “wireless” had become equivalent in the marketplace. SONOS responded by enabling WiFi on the players. It was a cheap trick for SONOS. This deflated the competitors claim overnight. 

BRIDGE can also be used to support players that are at the fringes of SonosNet coverage. A wired BRIDGE could be placed near the distant player or a wireless BRIDGE can be placed about midway between the good and spotty coverage areas. In very difficult situations you can use multiple BRIDGES. BRIDGE is simply a player with the audio section stripped out to reduce costs.If you can wire a player and you don’t have any difficult coverage areas, BRIDGE is redundant and can be removed.

The big, new buzzword with WiFi is “Mesh”. SonosNet has been Mesh since inception in 2005. Mainstream WiFi is just catching up. In my opinion, SonosNet or a fully wired system is more reliable than WiFi, but WiFi is an option.

As a practical matter BRIDGE wireless technology is stale and has been replaced by BOOST, which is much more effective. BRIDGE hardware is also approaching its end of life and we are seeing an increasing number of “issues” associated with BRIDGE.

Edit: Airgetlam types faster than buzz.

ratty

Oops, missed the BRIDGE question. It was originally designed to act as a bridge between your LAN and Sonos. At one point, Sonos figured out a way to make any wired speaker work in that fashion

Just on a historical point, wired players have always worked as ‘bridges’ to SonosNet. The actual ZoneBridge came along after ZP100 and ZP80.

In fact before ZoneBridge appeared there was an ‘extender mode’ option, which allowed one to dumb down a ZP which was being used solely as a bridge, and have it disappear from the zones/rooms menu. 

A
Badge
  1. Yes.
  2. None. Other than form factor, the line in is the same.
  3. No. As in 2, any line in, as long as the turntable is line level, either with an external or internal pre-amp, will work. 
     

For practical purposes, the Port is designed to integrate with a normal ‘receiver’ and both accept the input from, and send the Sonos signal to it. The Amp is designed to power third party speakers, and has only an analog and digital input, but no analog output other than to drive the speakers, so it can’t send the Sonos output to a normal receiver. 

 

Hi @Airgetlam  - thanks for the detailed response, greatly appreciated (apologies, only just noticed responses now!). 

Maybe a daft question, but when you refer to “form factor” - what do you mean? 

My understanding is the Port would just be needed if I wanted the Play:5 not to be located next to the turntable? 

Thanks also for the bridge vs boost response. 

 

 

 

A
Badge

Any Line-In can play in any combination of rooms.

None of the SONOS players incorporate a Phono preamp. If your turntable cannot provide a line level output (built-in preamp), you’ll need an external preamp for the turntable.

---

The original SONOS hardware used a private wireless network known as SonosNet. WiFi ignores SonosNet and SonosNet ignores WiFi. SonosNet requires at least one player to be wired to the network. Multiple players can be wired too. In situations where the only practical wired network connection was not at a location where the user wanted to locate a player, BRIDGE could be wired to the network and support SonosNet. Competitors jumped on SONOS, claiming that it lied about the wireless part because at least one wired device was required. WiFi and “wireless” had become equivalent in the marketplace. SONOS responded by enabling WiFi on the players. It was a cheap trick for SONOS. This deflated the competitors claim overnight. 

BRIDGE can also be used to support players that are at the fringes of SonosNet coverage. A wired BRIDGE could be placed near the distant player or a wireless BRIDGE can be placed about midway between the good and spotty coverage areas. In very difficult situations you can use multiple BRIDGES. BRIDGE is simply a player with the audio section stripped out to reduce costs.If you can wire a player and you don’t have any difficult coverage areas, BRIDGE is redundant and can be removed.

The big, new buzzword with WiFi is “Mesh”. SonosNet has been Mesh since inception in 2005. Mainstream WiFi is just catching up. In my opinion, SonosNet or a fully wired system is more reliable than WiFi, but WiFi is an option.

As a practical matter BRIDGE wireless technology is stale and has been replaced by BOOST, which is much more effective. BRIDGE hardware is also approaching its end of life and we are seeing an increasing number of “issues” associated with BRIDGE.

Edit: Airgetlam types faster than buzz.

@buzz, similar to Airgetlam, thanks for the response. 

My intention is to ensure the turntable has a preamp built in, so sounds like everything would work perfectly as planned. 

Very interesting background on the SonosNet / WiFI / “Mesh” etc. Boost probably not required at present, but good to know for future information. My Bridge is still wired but only about ~2m away from the Play:5, never experienced any issues, but aware with the support / updates for the Play:5 ending this may start becoming problematic (hence my numerous queries). 

Cheers
Andy 

Airgetlam

Form factor: the style/size of the line in input on each device. A pair of RCA jacks on the Port, a single stereo 3.5 mm mini plug on the PLAY:5. The electronics and software past those plugs are the same. 

Yes, if you didn’t want a PLAY:5 in a cable length from the turntable, a Port would be ideal.

Bruce
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