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?

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).

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’.

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.

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.

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.

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.

@craw19,

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

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

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)?

Looks like you should be on mode 2.