New Sonos Five not playing CD player on the line-in

  • 3 December 2020
  • 19 replies
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J
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  • jefar
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My current Sonos system is only a Play:1 and now a brand new Five so I can hook up a CD player. I’m using a new RCA (red & wht) to 3.5 mm cable. The Play:1 and Five are not grouped and are configured as separate rooms. 

I’ve read and think I’ve followed the Sonos documentation for setting up and using the Five with a line-in device. I simply get no sound, but the system looks like it is playing. I also set the autoplay and checked that the audio-delay was already set for 2,000ms (although I believe this is only needed if the two speakers were grouped, correct?).

My CD player is an older Sony carrousel 5-disk DVD/CD player . I’ve plugged the RCA red//white into the section labeled “TV Audio In” red/white receptacles (also has a yellow RCA receptacle labeled “Video Out” next to it). I’ve also tried the only other RCA red/white receptacles set which is labeled “Sat/Cable Audio In”. There is nothing labeled “Audio Out”. There are two pairs of proprietary speaker receptacles and one “HDMI Out” receptacle. Also a section labeled “Component Video Out” with red/green/blue receptacles, a “DMPORT”, Optical port, and “TV Digital In” section with an Optical and Coaxial receptacles. 

Anyone with any suggestions? 

Many thanks

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19 replies

J

None of those connections sounds like an audio out so that is where the problem lies, almost certainly.  It sounds more like this is an AVR with built in DVD player rather than a CD player, so may be completely unsuitable for playing to a Sonos Five.

 

J
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Many thanks John, I believe you nailed it. Yes, this is an AV unit, which does surprise me that it lacks those connectors. So, once you identified that, I did notice that the HDMI is an output port. And I found a HDMI / RCA female converter, which would allow for the cable with RCA red/white males to 3.5mm male plug for the Five speaker. I’ll get that in a few days and will test it. The description sounds like it does decode the digital to analog signal, not just a physical adapter. Thanks for the tip!

106rallye
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If you could post a picture of the back of the device, maybe we could see if you've missed an output….

J
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Great idea 106 rallye, here it is. 

Sony AVR with 5-disk CD carousel

Thanks

106rallye
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You where right. Only ins, except for the HDMI. So technically this is a DVD caroussel?

J
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I do appreciate the second look. I think John had called it above, that I should consider this an AVR device with a CD player added. In this case, it is a 5-disk caroussel which is just super convenient to throw our older Christmas CDs in and let them shuffle for hours. Can’t get these CDs anywhere and I should get them digitized. It does play DVDs as well, which is the other use I had for it earlier.

I did find an HDMI to RCA converter on Amazon, and will test that. It sounds like it does convert the signal, not just the physical connections, so I’ll test that in a few days. I’ll post the result here, just for reference for anyone else if needed. Thanks again for the double check. 

J

@jefar . Something you should at least consider is ripping all your CDs, not just the Christmas ones.  The files can be stored on a computer or network drive, and then played using any Sonos app.  This is really how Sonos is designed to play the music you own.

J
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@John B . Yes, that would be the ideal. I do have a writer, but haven’t used it for awhile. Any ripping apps for a PC that you can recommend? And what file format would you recommend? Thanks.

106rallye
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I use EAC, https://www.exactaudiocopy.de

It can also rip to FLAC, a lossless audio format.

J
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I’ve done some experimenting with mp3, m4a, and flac formats. The flac is 5x larger, so I’ll pass on that one for now. The m4a is what my android phone has for the digital albums, which plays fine via Sonos as well from my NAS. I also tried separate files for each track, and all tracks in one file. 

Any recommendations for the file format, or files separate for each track vs. one file for the whole CD? Especially related to what Sonos recognizes. My ripped m4a was not seen by Sonos, even tho it sees my purchased m4a tracks. It did see the ripped mp3 file. 

And should I just put all the music files into one folder that I point Sonos to? Or, keep each CD’s files separate. Any pointers would be appreciated, thanks.

J
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Now that is also odd. This morning I posted a much more detailed description of what I tried so far, but when I hit Send, I got a notice that the moderators were going to review my post before publishing it. When I refreshed this page, the notice went away and my post did not show up. So I wrote a simpler version and that posted fine above. Thx

106rallye
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Since FLAC is lossless, I'd advise you to use that, despite the bigger filesize.

In EAC I can configure a few databases for CD-info. Since Freedb does not work anymore I use MusicBrainz.

 

J
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Yes, I agree with your suggestion for using flac. After reading a bit online in general, seems to be the best way to do this. And thanks for the tip about using MusicBrainz, good to know in advance. I mistakenly downloaded the wrong app from the EAC website, called ExpressRip. So I realized that after seeing the interface online and above from you, and will be now installing the actual EAC. One question I do have now is about the choice to rip to separate files for each track, or all tracks to one file. I’m going to start with separate files, one per track. Seems I’d have more flexibility using that choice. Going to start the install and see how the AccurateRip part goes. Seems like that part might be a challenge, we’ll see. Thanks again

106rallye
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I make separate files too.

J
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Many thanks! I got all the Christmas disks ripped, uploaded to my NAS, tested and working with Sonos. @John B got the ball rolling by noticing I had an AV system, not just a CD player and mentioning that digital is the way to go. And @106rallye for so many details on a great way to go about digitizing my CDs. There are so many variables for ripping, it would have been confusing and it saved me a lot of time with your advice. And I will get to my other CDs now that the Holiday ones are playing.

This is really fantastic, and really very much appreciated. Thanks much for all the assists

N
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As a contributor to these forums - albeit not this thread - thank you, @jefar for acknowledging the assistance. Not many thanks are received compared to the number of solutions provided. 

J

@jefar - great to hear that you have an outcome with which you are really happy. Thanks for posting back. 

J
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You all are more than welcome!

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