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Antoine Bell-Bottoms
Contributor I
May 7, 2016

Line-In Latency/Delay Disable PLAY:5

  • May 7, 2016
  • 193 replies
  • 32092 views
Hey Sonos Engineers!

I know this has been touched upon. I previously submitted this request to support and they encouraged me to share here to keep the conversation going.

Is there any chance we could implement a soft switch for line-in audio to bypass the computer for "delay disable" functionality.

I understand and appreciate the reason for the delay.

However, I'm running turntables through a mixer and into the line-in of the PLAY:5. Can't teach my son to mix records with that delay, and since we're set-up in a communal space, my wife is not too keen on bringing out the old mix monitors. Can you dig it?

Can we figure out a way to manually disable the delay on an individual speaker basis?

Otherwise love the gear!

Thanks!

Here's quote from customer support. Hope it isn't too heavy handed or out of school to post:

"I'm not on the development team, but I personally think that it wouldn't be too hard to implement some kind of soft switch to bypass the computer altogether and pipe line-in audio directly to the amplifiers (something like a computer-controlled solid state IC relay network)."
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    193 replies

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    Kumar
    July 20, 2017

    It's a really straightforward function that would remove the Play:5 from the group while in standalone mode... it wouldn't exist on the Sonos network. What happens when you unplug a device and use Sonos elsewhere? And who is going to set their Play 5 to Standalone mode and then freak out confused why it isn't streaming with the house?
    To the first question, you may well be right, but the law of unintended consequences - in this case of a Sonos speaker running in this mode on Sonosnet along with other speakers that are not suggests that only Sonos can say for sure, and that perhaps after extended testing.
    As to the second, you would be surprised!
      Quirksmode
      Lyricist II
      September 8, 2017
      The latency issue on the line in is just ridiculous, I am absolutely gutted after buying my play 5 purely for the line in (a feature bizarrely missing from the play 3), I am now unable to use my turntables which was the whole reason I bought this setup. Surely there must be a way to disable this when in standalone mode 😞
        Stuart_W
        Stuart_W
        World-Class Superstar
        September 8, 2017
        The latency issue on the line in is just ridiculous, I am absolutely gutted after buying my play 5 purely for the line in (a feature bizarrely missing from the play 3), I am now unable to use my turntables which was the whole reason I bought this setup. Surely there must be a way to disable this when in standalone mode :-(

        You're going to have to explain how a latency of even 10 seconds is remotely a problem when playing an LP through a single Play 5?
        Arc + Sub (Gen 1) + 2 x Play 1/ Stereo Play 3s/ Era 100 Stereo in Kitchen, One Stereo in Bedroom, Play 1 stereo pair in Study, Play 1in Bathroom, Sonos Move 2
        Quirksmode
        Lyricist II
        September 8, 2017
        The latency issue on the line in is just ridiculous, I am absolutely gutted after buying my play 5 purely for the line in (a feature bizarrely missing from the play 3), I am now unable to use my turntables which was the whole reason I bought this setup. Surely there must be a way to disable this when in standalone mode :-(

        You're going to have to explain how a latency of even 10 seconds is remotely a problem when playing an LP through a single Play 5?

        When you want to use them for mixing. I understand why you may need this latency for streaming between speakers, but I feel that a flagship product like the play 5 should have the option to remove this latency, just like how the tv bar works. I would love to just use the tv bar, but it has no line in. I love sonos, but I do feel their products hold back features unfairly
          John B
          September 8, 2017
          Yep that one has me baffled too. The delay is an issue for AV applications, for which the line in was never intended. But music???
          Quirksmode
          Lyricist II
          September 8, 2017
          Yep that one has me baffled too. The delay is an issue for AV applications, for which the line in was never intended. But music???

          Looking online it seems like so many people share the same complaint, such a shame 😞
            John B
            September 8, 2017
            It isn't designed for mixing. It is a multiroom home hifi system. How much it costs is irrelevant. In a much used analogy on here, the fact that a Ferrari is useless off road doesn't make it a bad car, overpriced, or lacking a feature it should have.
            Haemoglobin
            Lyricist I
            September 10, 2017
            I bought a Sonos Play 5 with the sole purpose of connecting it to my tv (I'm using the headset line out), I was a bit worried about this issue but thought I would take a risk and try, pleased to report it works perfectly and no one in the household can notice any lag. Very happy with the purchase.
            RyanBloomington
            Contributor I
            November 6, 2017
            I just bought a Play:5 and am trying to decide between keeping it and buying more, or going the Chromecast route (probably using JBL Playlists and the forthcoming Google Home Max).

            If I could have them do part-time duty as part of a larger network of Chromecast speakers (including legacy speakers, e.g. outdoors), that would be fantastic, but of course we ran into this delay issue as soon as we tried it. I think it would be completely consistent with the rest of the Sonos UI for it to seamlessly "do the right thing" -- when you have a *single* speaker driven by line-in, minimize the delay, when playing to multiple speakers, add the delay. There wouldn't need to be any option exposed in the UI. With the proposed improvement, the Sonos would be just as good as all our other random speakers when driven by a Chromecast Audio, rather than unusably inferior to those speakers in this use case.

            It sounds like the forthcoming Airplay 2 support may provide another way to do have Sonos play together with non-Sonos speakers, which is exciting.
              m4tsu
              Lyricist I
              January 21, 2018
              It isn't designed for mixing. It is a multiroom home hifi system. How much it costs is irrelevant. In a much used analogy on here, the fact that a Ferrari is useless off road doesn't make it a bad car, overpriced, or lacking a feature it should have.

              I think you guys shouldn't just focus on the mixing idea. Sure, it's quite uncommen for a use case... BUT... I personally bought the Play5 to connect it via Line-In to my computer. Gaming, watching videos, editing... NOT POSSIBLE. The Line-In was the reason for the Play5 in the frist place.

              There has to be a way to direct the sound signal immediately to the speaker without delay IF you dont want to stream to other speakers too.

              SONOS should warn about the delay when advertising the Line-In Option. Otherwise other people with the same idea get dissapointed. Like me.


              Please help & sorry for upping the old post.
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