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Audio Latency Play:5

  • 18 December 2020
  • 5 replies
  • 111 views
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Is there a specific amount of latency when plugging a source into the line-in on a play:5?

Considering plugging a DJ into a play:5 so that the play:5 acts as the local “monitor” and ideally needs to have very low latency.

The next scenario is then “grouping” other speakers to distribute this audio around the home…. I presume this will then add latency to the whole system so that all Sonos units are in sync.…

So are there specific details on the amount of latency (in ms) involved? Is it system dependent, does it actually have latency regardless of whether it is grouped or not?

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Best answer by ratty 18 December 2020, 18:48

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5 replies

ratty

There is a minimum latency of 75ms for a Line-In source, even with a single speaker. This can be increased up to 2s when grouping to aid stability, should network conditions require it.

Sonos players are not designed for, nor suited to, DJ type monitoring.

D

That’s a shame…. I guess I’ll just add a connect/port to the DJ setup to send to other rooms.

Does a Beam/arc inherit this latency? Seems rather extreme at 75ms for lip sync issues…. not got one myself but nice to be aware of the delay.

ratty

The Home Theatre players have less latency for the HDMI (or optical) TV input. Around 30ms, to best maintain lip-sync. They can support bonded satellites (surrounds or Sub) at this lower latency since these are on a dedicated 5GHz connection.

Any other rooms grouped with an HT setup experience a 75ms delay for TV (or more, depending on the settings). So they’re not in perfect sync with it for TV. (For normal music play everything is synced as usual.)

D

Ok, good to know these things… shame this info isn’t common knowledge tho.

Sorry to throw all these questions at you today…. but considering a beam can bond sound at 30ms to a play5 for surround, why can’t a play5 have a 30ms latency on its line input? Just saying. Lol.

ratty

Because the Play:5 expects to send the Line-In across a shared network. 75ms is deemed the minimum buffer size to avoid dropouts. And even that may need to be increased depending on conditions.

As I said above, bonded HT satellites are on a dedicated 5GHz point-to-point connection.

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