Sonos Connect:Amp and Airplay 2

No I don’t think the Connect Amp will support AirPlay-2, by itself ... these two links below seem to clarify that:

Sonos have made these recent announcements:

https://www.sonos.com/en-gb/airplay

https://blog.sonos.com/en-gb/airplay2-coming

Since there is no new model of the Connect Amp or announced new model.....I think they should incorporate a firmware update to allow Airplay 2 to work with the connect amp also. Unfortunately I purchased the majority of my system (play 5s and 3s) few years back, so they are all previous generation. I held off the last year adding a connect amp waiting to see if it would get an updated model also. Finally purchased it a few weeks ago only to now read it may not be able to get this latest feature.....very disappointing.

Since there is no new model of the Connect Amp or announced new model.....I think they should incorporate a firmware update to allow Airplay 2 to work with the connect amp also. Unfortunately I purchased the majority of my system (play 5s and 3s) few years back, so they are all previous generation. I held off the last year adding a connect amp waiting to see if it would get an updated model also. Finally purchased it a few weeks ago only to now read it may not be able to get this latest feature.....very disappointing.

It's not an issue of firmware for the connect:amp, otherwise it would be updated like the other units. The amp doesn't have hardware required to support airplay 2.

sprgoat400,

If you were to add just one single AirPlay-2 compatible device to your Sonos system, like a Sonos One, for example, then it is understood that you can play an AirPlay source to that player and also group it with older legacy players/rooms, like a Sonos Connect amp or Play:3 etc. and then the audio will play on the entire group... so you could get AirPlay audio on your Connect Amp that way, by grouping it with one of the newer players.

There are currently four AirPlay-2 compatible players...

Sonos One
Sonos Playbase
Sonos Beam
Sonos Play:5 (gen 2)

'Group' your Connect Amp with one of these devices to get AirPlay when the Airpkay-2 update is released by Sonos.

sprgoat400,

If you were to add just one single AirPlay-2 compatible device to your Sonos system, like a Sonos One, for example, then it is understood that you can play an AirPlay source to that player and also group it with older legacy players/rooms, like a Sonos Connect amp or Play:3 etc. and then the audio will play on the entire group... so you could get AirPlay audio on your Connect Amp that way, by grouping it with one of the newer players.

There are currently four AirPlay-2 compatible players...

Sonos One
Sonos Playbase
Sonos Beam
Sonos Play:5 (gen 2)

'Group' your Connect Amp with one of these devices to get AirPlay when the Airpkay-2 update is released by Sonos.

Spot on and in my case also use airplay 2 to two homepods with it as well! In terms of airplay itself (not 2) a good workaround with the amp is just to connect an airport express (i use the plug version) to the line in on the Sonos if you don't want to buy newer hardware (I did this so I could listen to podcasts before I moved to pocket cast) Airplay 2 is nice but it isn't hat much better then 1 from my usage so far.

I understand if I have a newer device and group older devices I can use airplay 2, however, I have six zones all with connect amps so I assume I would need a newer device per zone? Is there any word on an updated amp coming out.

Ummm. Not sure that's correct, depending on what you mean. :)

You could group any number of the six zones with the AirPlay 2 receiving devices. However, if you wanted 6 different simultaneous streams, then yes, you'd need 6 different devices.

Why do you need Airplay in six zones in the first place? Wiring an AEX to one of the plenty of line in jacks that you have on your Connect Amps should meet any requirement of streaming directly from a iDevice or Mac.

I want airplay just because i use Apple Music and prefer to simply send the audio from that app versus the sonos app. It isn’t a huge deal but when I tried Spotify I liked how I could stream to my zones from within their own app. Again not a huge issue but would be nice.

My house is entirely connected with ConnectAmps that I purchased just 2 years ago (version 9: build44254230, hardware version 1.17.3.1-1, series ID: c100)
It is very disappointing that this equipment that cost over $5,000 for all the zones in my house would not be able to support what should be an easy software update.