Making Sonos my speakers for Windows laptop

Hi @David0304.

Thanks for reaching out and welcome to the community! We’d be glad to help.

If I understand it correctly, you want to use your Sonos as your ‘computer speakers’ to play the audio of whatever you stream from the computer. While Sonos speakers weren't designed for that as a primary function, there are suggested workarounds you can try but that depends on what Sonos product(s) you have.

• A great way to get any audio into Sonos that isn’t available through our software is to use the line-in on a Sonos Five, Port, or Amp. Using the line-in, you are able to bring any audio content from a device with an audio output to play across your entire Sonos system. The line-in can be played from the player it’s connected to any combination of players in your home.

Taking the audio signal from a streaming video and playing it through Line-In will introduce a latency of around 70ms. In most cases this isn’t noticeable, however, you may experience lip-sync issues if you’re watching critically. If you’re looking for a speaker to pair your audio and video with, you may want to take a look at the Playbase or Playbar. These use optical audio connections which give higher quality and lower latency.

•  Additionally, you may want to check out this helpful thread that talks about how to bring YouTube to Sonos.

Let us know how that goes.

thank you. what type of line in would I use for a five speaker? from what port on my computer? also if I am understanding you a line in to a five would enable sound across the entire system correct? also just a question If a hook up a sonos port to a receiver that was used for my previous system that is connected via bluetooth to my laptop would that work as well? David

Hi @David0304 

You didn’t mention what Sonos you have at this time. If you want to go wireless from your computer to Sonos you might consider a Five as I believe @Annazel S meant (the Play 5 is discontinued) you can connect a BT receiver to it’s line in port.

so connecting a BT receiver to one five would enable the whole system i.e. 2 fives and a sub?

Yes. You would connect the BT receiver to the left Five.

thank you AjTrek1 and Annazel S. I greatly appreciate your help. I will give this a try.

follow up. So I found a blue tooth receiver with a line in to sonos port worked best in allowing access from my computer to the whole Sonos system of 2 fives and 1 sub.. audio delay of 75  msec caused much disruption in sound. audio delay of 150 msec( high) worked best with videos with the least amount of  audio interruption but still some. delay of 2000 msec ---- no audio disruption but divorces sound from video completely, but good for sound only, with best quality audio.

I am going to try a better quality blue tooth receiver at 150msec and even then 75  msec dealy and see if that can do something about audio disruption. i am going to try this device:

Audioengine B1 Bluetooth Music Receiver with 5.0 aptX HD, Extended Range and High Fidelity 24 bit DAC, Optical

the one i tried was the cheapest I could find

As you’re finding out, there is a reason that Sonos doesn’t market themselves as PC speakers. 

so it seems like the above mentioned audioengine B1 makes a big difference in solving interruptions in audio, at least at 150msec delay, which for me makes any audio/video disconnect not noticeable.  it may work just as well at 75msec delay, but havens tried that yet