Contributor I

Feature request: option to disable Line-In Latency/Delay on Sonos Five

Forum|Forum|4 years ago
January 1, 2022
27 replies
3231 views

Hi Sonos team,

This has been requested before, but after extensive reading in the fora I could not find a solution or an answer from Sonos about prioritisation of this issue.

Can you please provide an option to disable audio-delay (latency) when a line-in device is used on a single Sonos speaker setup?

In an older conversation all kind of ideas were proposed by the community. There were a couple of things people agreed on:

Many people are bothered that a minimal 75 ms latency is enforced. And they would be very happy if Sonos could give an option to disable the 70ms latency. Two use-cases where people encounter the latency-problem:
- Creative music production (keyboard, dj-mixer)
- Audio video where the Sonos is used for audio and a laptop/television as screen (for movie watching or video calls).
In a setup with 1 Sonos speaker and a line-in device as audio-source, the 70ms latency seems artificial and not dictated by technical limitations (i.e. buffering with multiple wireless Sonos speakers).

This is that thread:

Can you please consider providing options to the user to further reduce latency?

Thanks in advance.

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jgatie

People have been asking for this for 17 years. At this point, I'd call it an improbable, if not impossible request to fulfill.

A

amun

I doubt that ‘many’ people are bothered at all - just a very tiny minority.

Airgetlam

It would defeat the major selling point of the Sonos system, i.e. the ability to play all connected speakers in sync. Basically, what Sonos is based on.

Bruce

jgatie

It would defeat the major selling point of the Sonos system, i.e. the ability to play all connected speakers in sync. Basically, what Sonos is based on.

Exactly. The very first time they did this (if it is even possible to remove the buffering stage at all, a BIG IF), the first posts of the announcement thread would be complaints that it can't be used for multi-room, and "what good is it for DJ'ing if I can only play it on 1 speaker!!??"

K

Kumar

Echo also does perfect sync just as well; I don’t see any way of testing to see what kind of delay they run since they don’t offer line in, but it would be interesting to know what is the delay there. But some delay seem inevitable given the feature.

jgatie

Echo also does perfect sync just as well; I don’t see any way of testing to see what kind of delay they run since they don’t offer line in, but it would be interesting to know what is the delay there. But some delay seem inevitable given the feature.

It’s different for streaming sources. The speed of the download is far greater than the rate of playback, so the buffer builds up very fast behind the data which is playing, meaning the time from selection to play starting is almost instantaneous. A line-in is real time, it cannot be delivered any faster than it is playing, so you have to delay the start of playback until the buffer is sufficiently filled.

K

Kumar

Since Echo does not do line in, then it would appear that the question as to the lag in their case cannot be asked being not applicable; Bluesound does offer line in, I am guessing, so idle curiosity shifts the question to their approach where I suppose the question is how much lag. And if they offer a bypass mode, that is user selectable.

jgatie

Since Echo does not do line in, then it would appear that the question as to the lag in their case cannot be asked being not applicable; Bluesound does offer line in, I am guessing, so idle curiosity shifts the question to their approach where I suppose the question is how much lag. And if they offer a bypass mode, that is user selectable.

If the lag on a line-in figures in 1% of the purchase decisions between Sonos and competitor XYZ, I’ll eat my shirt. Sonos said long ago after the release of the Play:3 that the line-in was one of the least used features, and it can only be less used now given the current best selling Sonos units don’t have one. Also, the thread the OP linked to was 8 pages over 5 years That’s 200 posts, the majority of which were explanations why the lag was necessary, the rest were a few posters posting multiple times. It’s a fringe request, and any serious live performance artists have specialty PA systems built for live performance. I know those facts are anathema to your constant desire since the S1/S2 split to put down Sonos for any apparent reason you can find, but those are the facts.

K

Kumar

I know those facts are anathema to your constant desire since the S1/S2 split to put down Sonos for any apparent reason you can find, but those are the facts.

Hmm...apart from reading only such posts of mine that allow you to keep saying this, is there anything else you have to say? Grow up, if you can.

jgatie

Hmm...apart from reading only such posts of mine that allow you to keep saying this, is there anything else you have to say? Grow up, if you can.

Whatever. Your comments in these types of threads are pretty transparent. I’m just letting you know that, but go ahead and shoot the messenger.

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