Line-In Latency/Delay Disable PLAY:5

Thanks for acknowledging that. Most persons lives are busy enough that they tend not to read every detail about a product, particularly a feature of a product that works in a particular manner in their experience. When someone views a line-in, they do not necessarily ask themselves “does it work like other line-ins” because in their experience, there is a specific pattern for line inputs. They rarely have delays. Clearly Sonos wants to do the right thing, clearly they want as much marketshare and customers as possible. They can either add functionality such that when there is a line input and there are not other Sonos speakers in the network, the delay is 0. Or they can adjust their marketing materials to simply note the delay more upfront and then customers like myself won’t be surprised or caught off guard with what is otherwise a first class experience.

Thanks for your condescending reply; does that line of response net you many friends? When 99% of consumers see a line input on a device, they don’t immediately run for the FAQ to find out if there is or isn’t a delay on said line input. They just expect it to work like any other line input. Sonos doesn’t advertise that fact on the product box or anywhere obvious, so we all get to “discover” this in real time after buying it. I found a great solution though by putting my Sonos device on Craigslist. 

That’s a real shame. They are missing a large pain point and market expansion opportunity. Additionally, the website advertising which has pictures of turntables everywhere in the marketing makes people believe otherwise about the use for DJs. One would think seeing a line input on the Amp or Sonos Five that it would behave just like any other line input without a delay. 

Having this same issue and am confounded by the response. I DJ and discovered the latency issue across the entire Sonos range. Sonos Amp, Sonos Play Five. The latency completely throws off my mixing. Fast cuts? Forget about it. 

I understand the need for the delay if we are synchronizing multiple Sonos devices wirelessly. But for basic single line in on the Sonos Amp or Play Five? That is completely unnecessary, unexpected and had I know, I would never have bought these devices. 

Sonos seems to be ignoring this.

I LOVE my sonos, but +1 on this being an issue I’d not anticipated and is stopping me buying further into the ecosystem.

The input delay was rather peculiar to me when I first learnt about it, while of course I understand the reason for its existence.  Sonos is the only product I am aware of that has this delay for a locally connected device, as pretty much every other device on earth has a line-in connected directly to the preamps. In the Sonos case of course the line-in is fed to the audio processing circuitry, so they can generalize the case and allow cross-device connections without altering the latency. If you are listening locally, the signal is simply looped back to the local device. So it's both a smart and a dumb move. I'm sensing that they had a really strong architecture guy holding his hands over this, and nobody was allowed to mess with his beautiful simple design. :-) 

It does makes Sonos a bit of a show stopper when it comes to use for certain AV applications, live instruments, karaoke or some computer applications.  Nobody in their right minds would buy Sonos for Audio/Video applications unless they have the ability to delay the video stream the required 70ms. If you can do that (which most high end TVs can do), then there is absolutely no problem whatsoever. If you can't delay the video, then just don't buy Sonos for this application. 

But congrats to the Sonos team for putting together a solid architecture that has really stood the test of time. If I feel daring I might take one of my out-of-warranty devices and examine the signal path.  I suspect it has an all digital connection to the class D amp, which makes it non-feasible to wire a line-in to the audio amplifier directly. I do have an application where direct connection would be beneficial, and I see no reason to introduce new competitors into the food chain.
 

Oh man I’m exactly in the same situation. Beam and Sub for home theater, and now wanted to extend for the real musical experience and connection my DJ setup with two Play5. What did you come up with by searching for an alternative?

Btw even tried the monitor setup, but the delay is too much for a normal living room, this gives a huge sound mess.

+1 for the direct line-in with 0 delay for isolated use. 

Just had a marketing email from Sonos suggesting that I use a Sonos speaker in my home office as a “ home office assistant”. I’m confused - why would you introduce a Sonos [rather than, say, an Echo Dot] into a home office where the chances are you already have a computer with speakers … unless of course you could replace the computer speakers with the Sonos … but for many, the latency issue may be a barrier to doing so … ? 

Can you perhaps provide an ‘example’ of what audio source you are playing through the Sonos line-in and where you are playing it to, that it plays out of sync for you. There might be, in some cases, ways to resolve some of these things so they do play in sync, but it depends on what you are trying to do.

+1 to wanting this.   my setup:  I have my entire house using a sono network of speakers.    in my office , i have a play5.  sometimes i use this in the network.  and love the buffering and the delay is invisible.   other times, i just want it to be a speaker in my office.  not on the network.

i have a set of digital drum kits in my office.  it’s my man cave.  sometimes i just want to play the drums.  since *all* of the speakers in my house are sonos… i just want to use the play5 already there in my office.  via line in. with zero delay .

when you play the drums .. 75ms doesn’t work.  it needs to be zero delay .

sounds like i now need to buy 2 speakers.  one in the office for the “network play” .. and one in the office as a plane jane speaker.

as a sonos whole house customers.. sure would be nice to use that speaker in “stand alone” mode.  turn of all the fancy stacks.  just pipe the music from line in, to the single speaker.  don’t rewrite all the software.  just have a very simply mode of “ zero delay” that only works with one speaker, from it’s line in.

i would love that :) 

Dude.  Use actual PA speakers built for your purpose.  Nothing fancy.