Pairing Beam with TV Source = Dropouts

When it comes to the Play:1 speakers, are you referring to ‘grouping’ your speakers with the Beam (on the fly/temporarily) or ‘bonding’ the Play:1’s (on a more permanent basis) as surrounds to the Beam? Only there is a difference how the products can be setup to work together for TV audio.

In the case of your Roam it’s clear that you mean ‘grouping’ them for stereo playback of the TV audio only (which will involve a small audio buffer delay) as those portable speakers cannot be ‘bonded’ as surrounds, but I see you do not mention which WiFi band you are using for your Roam connection to the local network, as these days the speakers can use either the 5Ghz (shorter distance/less penetrating) faster wireless signal, or the 2.4Ghz band (longer reaching and more penetrating) slower wireless signal - it would help to know a bit more detail of which signal is in use by your Roam and what channel/channel-width the Roam is using.

I think once the above additional information is provided, then some suggestions can likely be made to resolve the audio dropout issues.

By the way, it would also be helpful if you can mention the current setting of your ‘group audio delay’ feature for the Beam if you are opting to ‘group’ (not ‘bond’) it with your other Sonos rooms?

Hi

Yes its grouping. Basically I have open plan living / kitchen so I often group the Beam at the TV to the Play:1 in kitchen area so I can listen in. 

Everything is on auto switching on my router, so should be on 5Ghz. Wifi signal is very strong and there must be a maximum of 6m between Beam and Play:1, and when I’ve grouped the roam its 30cm away. 

As I’ve said, I’ve never had issues before and configuration has not changed. I’ve factory reset by router but the only thing I haven’t done is force it to 2.4Ghz (which I had to do previously with Sonos App issues but was resolved by a firmware upgrade on my router).

What is the Beams ‘group audio delay’ feature set to in the Sonos App ‘Settings/System/[Beam Room Name]’? Maybe try setting it to medium/high or max and see if that stops your audio dropouts…

NB: You can also use the ‘TV Dialog Sync’ slider bar too, to help align the TV audio across the grouped devices with the master player (Beam) when all are in the same room (not personally recommended when grouping players and watching video on TV screen).

Currently set to Low…. will give it a try and get back to you.

Still don’t get why Sonos told me this is unsupported...

Maybe there was a misunderstanding of the terminology you used, by the support staff, as you refer to the ‘grouping’ as ‘pairing’ and it’s quite true that the speakers mentioned cannot be ‘paired’.

No he specifically told me that only putting Play: 1’s in surround mode is supported.

So I’ve increased the group audio delay and the only setting it doesn’t drop out on is “Max”.

However, this is so far out of sync with the audio from TV (bear in mind I can see TV from kitchen area) it’s completely unwatchable.

Even you go onto say ‘how is pairing unsupported’ in that posted screenshot. It isn’t supported across different devices and certainly not the devices you have mentioned.

Also, it is difficult to grasp the full context of the conversation, without seeing what other remarks were said beforehand, but I can say that ‘pairing’ is only available for two identical/similar devices, like two Sonos Ones (as an example) you can’t ‘bond’ a Roam and a Play:1 to your Beam - so I think there was perhaps a slight misunderstanding due to the terminology you ‘perhaps’ may have used.

As you can perhaps see, I was slightly confused by your opening post, as it was not clear if you were wanting to ‘bond’ or ‘group’ your setup.

Anyhow we have digressed onto matters that are irrelevant. I think it’s more important here to get your ‘grouped rooms’ dropout issue resolved. 

A max setting for the Beams ‘group audio delay’ feature is a good indicator of network latency and/or wireless interference. So that is likely at the root of your audio-dropout issue.

I would first try to resolve the matter simply to begin with and that is a basic reboot of your local network and all your Sonos devices.

If that doesn’t work, then I would split your 2.4Ghz/5Ghz WiFi bands by renaming one of the SSID’s (I would rename the 5Ghz band only) and start by setting the 2.4Ghz band to a non-overlapping ‘fixed’ channel, use either channel 1, 6 or 11 and set that bands channel-width to 20Mhz only and try that with your devices all using the 2.4Ghz band. Let’s see if that resolves your issue.

Note: The Beam will only use the 2.4Ghz band for ‘group room’ audio as it’s faster 5Ghz WiFi adapter is reserved for use with its ‘bonded’ surrounds and sub so that’s why I recommend the use of the 2.4Ghz band.

Thanks. My main issue is that it was working before… I know there was a FW upgrade on my BT Router sometime in August so I suspect the issue lies there. Last time they provided an emergency fix after much moaning on their support forums so I think I will look there. 

Router has been rebooted and factory reset to no avail. I’ll try the split bands in the interim as I know BT take forever to assume responsibility and work on fixes.

Appreciate your assistance.

So, a summary of terminology may be helpful.  I was certainly confused by the OP here, as I suspect was Sonos Support.

‘Grouping’ speakers is a temporary arrangement controlled by the System screen in the app.  Sonos ‘rooms’ retain their separate identity when grouped and play music sources in perfect sync

‘Bonding’ is reserved for the process of adding a Sub and/or surround speakers to a Home Theatre device (e.g. Arc, Beam).  The whole HT setup appears as a single ‘room’ in the app under the name of the HT device.  The surrounds and Sub play what the main HT device sends them.  All comms between the devices are by direct routing over 5GHz.

I have seen ‘pairing’ used in two different ways:

(i) Stereo pairing of two identical Sonos speakers.  This appears as a single ‘room’ in the app.

(ii) Pairing a Sub to a non-HT Sonos speaker or to a stereo pair of Sonos speakers.  The Sub never appears as a separate room.  

I am not totally sure the second use of ‘pairing’ is strictly correct, but I think it is, and have often seen it used, including by Sonos staff members.

I hope that helps.

Some BT routers have been the subject of much debate in the Sonos community here in the past, but I’ve not used them personally, but some say they have issues occasionally with firmware updates and device discovery, but I think in your case it might just be the router WiFi channel changing on update/reboot..

Maybe try the 2.4Ghz band on fixed channel 11 and set the channel-width to 20Mhz only, rather than 20/40Mhz, as that simple change ‘might’ perhaps quickly fix your issue.

There may be a setting in the router for ‘band steering’ which should be turned off.

Do the two bands appear under different SSIDs?  Or could they?  It might help to have only the SSID of the 2.4GHz band added to Sonos.

Also, having factory reset the router, did you re-update to latest firmware?

@craw19,

I would definitely power-cycle the Beam after you make any changes too.

BT Hub doesn’t even allow me to split the bands - only to turn off 5Ghz. Will give it a try and get back to you.

I have Sonos devices split between the two at the moment so pretty sure that’s the issue, just as it was last time they upgraded the firmware!

Factory reset only resets SSID etc… doesn’t revert it back to original firmware 

Kitchen (Play:1) on 5Ghz and Beam on 2.4Ghz, bet this is the issue. Might force all onto 2.4 by switching off 5 for a bit then switch it back on and hope they all remain on 2.4

Does the router let you set the 2.4Ghz channel-width too (20Mhz)? and/or set it’s wifi channel to a non-overlapping channel (i.e. Ch 1, 6 or 11)?

Yeah I can specify the channel… that’s about it. Only other feature is changing wireless mode

Looks like you should be on mode 2.