Sonos amp: line-in autoplay question

  • 30 March 2021
  • 3 replies
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Hello - 

I have the new Sonos amp and have plugged an spdif switch into the hdmi port via the spdif to hdmi cable and I have a phono preamp plugged in to the rca inputs. I have autoplay turned on for both the line in and for the TV. Based on searches in this community it sounds like the TV will always win out. I think this explains why even when I turn off my phono preamp and back in again and play a record the line in is not auto playing. 

So, my question is, is there an alternate way to get the line in to play other than many clicks on my iphone to dial up line in (this assumes I didn’t forget my iPhone upstairs)? It would be great if there was someway to do it with a button press on the amp similar to how I can hold the play button to join the most recent speaker already playing.  Or, am I missing something with autoplay and is it not behaving as expected?

 

Thanks in advance. 
Matt


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3 replies

As I understand it, on the line in “autoplay” function, it triggers on a “the stream started” function, and not “the stream already exists”. So if you’re wanting to switch from the TV, you would need to turn off the TV (hence killing the stream from it), and then it should automatically switch over to the Phono input when the Phono input gets a new stream. And turning on the TV will start a new signal to the Sonos Amp, and switch it from the Phono to the TV input.

 What I don’t think can happen is leaving the TV on, and then starting the Phono input. I believe it requires the TV stream to have stopped. For X seconds….which is likely not zero, but probably fewer than 10 seconds? I’d want to do some testing around that. The key is non-simultaneousness of the streams. 

And I agree, as you indicated, I do think the TV wins over all. 

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Thank you for the reply! For me, even with the TV off, it seems to win and that’s because I am using an spdif switcher which is always on. So I suspect that the switch may always be sending a signal all the time, causing the TV win no matter what. 
 

I just need to make sure I have my iPhone with me so I can change sources. I just wish there was a hot key I could hit on the amp so wasn’t tied to the app for source changes. 
 

thanks again. 

Worth a test without that optical switcher...or just unplugging it from power, which might be the same. 

There have been a multitude of suggestions made over the years for these kind of ‘shortcuts’. If they had been all implemented, the interface would probably be so confusing as to be unusable. That being said, I feel your pain, and would encourage you to look at third party controllers, which may have such a thing. Unfortunately, I don’t use any of them, so don’t have a specific recommendation.