Yes, you will get a delay. The minimum is 75ms.

Also, switching between the PC audio Line-In and streamed audio on the Port could get tiresome. You’d have to either manually switch or enable auto-detection (Autoplay). The latter would mean that any PC notification/error sound could accidentally interrupt the music.

A better solution would be to get PC speakers with simultaneous dual inputs: one from the PC and one from the Port. You could optionally wire the PC to the Port’s Line-In as well, to pipe audio around the house.

Hi ratty,

Hadn’t considered that, I would have assumed switching the audio-in source is as simple as it is with my TV set up, i.e. switch from ‘TV Audio’ to a source / group.

Sorry for the dumb question but is the 75ms delay also seen with the optical out I use on my Play Base?   I do not notice a delay here…

Yes, it is similar. Line-in Autoplay works a bit like TV Autoplay. My point was that any blip or bleep from the PC would set it off, interrupting your music. After a short silence the Line-In would autostop, but it won’t resume whatever was playing before.

Your Playbase has an optical in, not out.

Sonos home theatre products can manage to keep the delay down to ~30ms, so as to preserve lipsync. This is because they connect with their satellites (surrounds, Sub) over a dedicated 5GHz connection. 

If you were to group other speakers with your Playbase for TV audio you’d find they were delayed -- and slightly out of the step -- since they require the same network treatment as a Line-In.

Sorry, my mistake - that was what I meant, Optical In.

I am happy to live with the need to auto switch the source, I do this already with the Playbase.  Good point though.  Good to know the delay may only be felt when grouping other speakers to the PC audio source 

I have also been looking just now at AirParrot 3 and whether or not this might serve as an option. Get a couple of One’s and airplay audio from the PC to the One using AirParrot for windows.

I’m afraid you misinterpreted things.

• The delay for Line-In is always there, whether from the Port or from speakers grouped with it. It’s 75ms minimum.
• The delay for TV in (on Playbase et al) is 30ms. The delay for grouped speakers playing TV audio is 75ms minimum.

As for AirParrot, using AirPlay to Sonos is likely to incur substantially greater delay than a Line-In.

With you now, thanks for your help ratty.

I think I’ll go for the Port + 2.1 speakers. I’ll have to live with the issue of switching sources.

If you don’t already have the PC speakers, consider Audioengine. They support multiple simultaneous inputs, via an internal mixer.

Great, I’ll check them out.  Failing that I was thinking of using an Audio Mixer, something like THIS

Your audio mixer link currently points to this very thread, but an external mixer could work too.

Not sure what happens there, updated the link,

thanks again ratty.

Yep, that should do the trick.

Just a suggestion: if you can find a used Gen 2 Connect, that would be a much cheaper option than a Port, and you’d get the benefit of physical controls.