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 Srather 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 … ? 

Add me to those hoping for a low-latency line-in option!

My Setup:

• PLAY:5 connected to computer (line-in)
• Playing Piano on the computer via Keyboard (MIDI-Connection)
• The delay of 75ms sucks hard when learning to play piano with a software

Please Sonos, this is a legit use-case!

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

The 75ms delay when using line in has just stopped me from buying a pair of Play5’s. Absolutely gutted :(

We purchased a Sonos Beam and Sub (which we love) towards the end of last year with intention of adding the Play5’s for a bit more versatility around the house, including mixing records from my DJ setup when the mood strikes. 
 

Ive been fiddling with hi-fi and audio products for a good part of 25 years and this is the first time I’ve come across a product with a direct line in which suffers from this type of lag (even the salesman who sold me our other SONOS products was surprised to hear this was true) Although highly disappointed, I am glad I discovered this before dropping another £1k on these speakers. In fact, it’s kind of hard to justify the rest of my SONOS setup now and will probably be spending the rest of weekend researching alternatives; THIS SUCKS!

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.

I was very impressed with the sound of Play 5 and Sub when I auditioned them last year.

In December I bought Play 5, Sub and One and just used them for playing music on my phone or laptop. 

I am a Dj but have not really had the opportunity to dj at home using the Sonos speaker until this weekend.

As a DJ, I discovered the latency issues which has really disappointed me, due to its impact on mixing songs.  If I had known the issue present, it would have been a deal breaker.

I truly hope Sonos can address this issue, even if a 0ms latency could be had for Line-in use only,  which will open up these fantastic speakers to a potentially larger market.  

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.
 

I would love to hear from Sonos on this.

Do they reply to these feeds?

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

Hi @sjh.

Welcome, thank you for reaching out to Sonos Community.

You can try to check this link for Use Line-In on Sonos

Let us know if it works. If you need help with any other information, please be sure to let us know.

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.

Sonos has never been suitable for DJ use, or PA use, or other “live” analog sources, and that is not likely to change.

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. 

One would also think that buyers of an expensive multiroom speakers system would invest in a little more research than the pictures on the Sonos website (that show turntables but should not show DJ set ups) but or acting on what one would think when seeing a line input. Yes, the 70ms delay is a disadvantage in some use cases, but it is not a hidden fact and plausible seeing the multiroom system.

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. 

I did not mean to be condescending. I’m just very surprised when people do not read up on stuff before they buy.

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.

Yes! The bypass is really needed when you want to use the system for beat mixing records or watching movies. At that point any speaker connected should play audio directly! I don’t care at any sync issue of others speakers, as I need to sync my record to the beat or watch an movie in lipsync… strange that this is not implemented. Feels broken now, and can’t recommend Sonos to anyone that uses it for these setups...

please fix this

 

just want to add my voice of support for a feature to remove the latency in an ungrouped / local mode

yes this is a scope-creep request- it isn’t how sonos was designed

i have a playbar, sub, two play:1 surrounds, and a play:5… and they work quite well as a connected home theater

but i also play electric guitar with a boss kitana mk2 amp that doesn’t have looping hardware, and an external rc-500 loop station that i would love to be able to throw into the play:5.  it would save having to buy yet another bulky non-sonos speaker or upgrade the whole guitar amp- and could be done with a basic software patch

i’m an electrical & computer engineer so i understand the sync issue and a product manager by trade and yes it’s a questionable call to prioritize building and supporting it

but there’s a big community of passionate hackers and musicians that would benefit from sonos understanding and making a fairly small edit

hopefully folks will continue to post their use-cases here so (1)some people can search and find that the delay won’t work for their particular need before they buy, and (2) maybe sonos will pay attention and decide solving for this community should be in their company DNA

rock on

Great that Sonos has seen this issue and replied in this thread. However, the articles provided do not provide any solution to the problem presented here. 

I would like to connect my Play 5 (Gen 2) via Line-In to another system - a Naim Atom that is already connected to speakers but can also connect via RCA. If there was no delay on the Play 5, this would mean that the Play 5/5 (and its older, almost redundant brother the Gen 1) could have further use in third party set ups (not to mention all those listed above). 

Hi! sorry for my english. I have the same problem as many. I´d like to use the Sonos Play 5 Gen:2 as a DJ speaker and latency is big issue.

I understand that latency is necessary to connect via wifi but when connecting via minijack i shouldn´t have this problem. In my Bowers & Wilkins Zeppelin Air I can use the minijack input for DJ without any problem...

Arrgg.  I just brought home a Sonos amp to drive a second set of monitor speakers in my studio, and use the line in as a drum/bass monitor during rehearsals.  70 ms = unusable for any live performance.  I appreciate the reasons for the design but it is not something I would have anticipated.

There’s probably nothing that has not been said already. But I’m going to chime in anyhow.

I would also really like the no-latency standalone mode. The implementation could be very transparent: no delay on the line-in when not paired, the usual (configurable) 75ms~2000ms delay when paired with any other speaker. That would allow users of TV’s, computer speakers & DJ gear to use their great Sonos speakers to double as direct play speakers and completely replace the legacy systems. This would increase their footing in the industry they actually focus on: To be the prime audio system for the entire home. (Voice assistant, multi-room, streaming, local libraries)

Of course, the way wifi and streaming works, you can not remove the delay in all scenarios. That’s a fact of physics. But that does not mean other customers should vote against this idea while a lot of other users would love to see it. This is a great chance for Sonos, not a threat.

Please let the amount of votes & replies on this thread speak for itself.

Just to add clarification, Sonos already has speakers that can be used for TVs. The Beam, Arc, and Amp.  The Move has bluetooth.  

The three devices that have line-in capability are the Amp, Port, and Five.  As mentioned already, the Amp has the ARC port for no delay/TV audio.  The Port is usually used with a 3rd party amp that will likely have an input itself without delay.  So this feature you’re asking for would likely be used with the Five only.  I’m not sure why Sonos would want to make a no delay mode, to use with a TV, when they already have devices for TV use.

The other negative of this is that it would add some confusion to an already too complex, IMO, system. When in this no delay mode, would grouping be disabled?  Would you need to remove the mode in order to group?  Would grouping be allowed, but grouped speakers delayed, as it currently is for TV audio?

I am not against the idea, and likely would use it myself, but I definitely see reasons why Sonos hasn’t done it.  As far as the amount of replies, ~120 in 4 years doesn’t say a lot.  Granted, these are not people who buy if the feature existed, but more people who bought Sonos without realizing the feature wasn’t there.

This thread has little to do with the reasons why Sonos has not done this before. There are plenty. Otherwise they would’ve done so years ago. It’s a feature request, to persuade Sonos to add the functionality.

So, Sonos supports no-delay with HDMI ARC & optical audio. Why not provide this same functionality in the RCA / mini-jack line-in where available?

Group-wise: the Playbar, Beam & Arc have an implementation, you can set the group delay, expand the feature in a consistent way.

The request is not for just the Five. You forget the RCA line-ins on the AMP & Port. My example provides the exact usecase for those devices. It’s not feasible to run a computer speaker, dj controller or similar gear through HDMI.

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The amount of replies & votes does not imply this should be implemented. What I tried to say: Maybe over time, there will be enough for Sonos to listen.