Technics SL1210 Vinyl Setup - 70ms delay on headphones fix

Rik Parr...

I thought your post above was a little concerning, as you say the output through the Sonos speakers is in sync with your Turntable, but your headphones output on your receiver is lagging behind, are you certain that is the case and that it’s not the other way around?

You're probably going to have difficulty with the DJ aspect, if that’s what you are trying to do here. There is a 70ms delay on the analog-in on the CONNECT, as the analog data gets transferred to digital, and then is buffered to be transmitted in sync to all your Sonos Speakers.

So it would make more sense if the speaker output was lagging behind your headphones. So my question is ...'Are you sure?' If it is the other way around then clearly it’s the way the Connect converts and buffers the signal that would be the root cause of your issue.

Hi Ken, many thanks for the quick reply. I have just got home and checked and you are indeed correct, the headphones are slightly ahead of the turntables (I had had a few beers last night during setup - not a wise move!) I have seen a video on you've where the user shows how to use the REC out to bypass the delay via analogue... I have of course tried to replicate what they have done, but alas with no joy. Will post the video.

Yes an interesting YouTube video from 'The World According to Ted' ... I’m not sure he hasn’t just dropped a little lucky with his lounge output setup being in sync with his Sonos Rooms attached via his connect:amp.

There are probably a variety of ways to get the input to sync... in fact I use a Sony HT 5.1 surround Receiver/Amp myself that has its own built in sync function.

In my case, I am able to slowdown the output to my 5.1 non-Sonos speakers attached to my receiver in increments of 10ms intervals to bring their audio output into perfect sync with either an attached 'Connect' or 'Play-5' line-in source... but in your case you want your headphones attached to your Receiver to be in sync.

The only solution I can think of (off the top of my head, at the moment) in your case is to use headphones plugged directly into a 'grouped' Play-5 (gen1) attached to your Sonos network, as then everything output would have the same (70ms) sync delay that your are experiencing currently via your receiver.

In fact, I think you will find that the actual delay is closer to probably 30ms with the audio transfer set in an uncompressed state.

I can’t see any way to get the receiver phono output to be in sync with the Sonos output (via the Connect) without some kind of method of delaying the audio output at the Receiver end.

Maybe others here, far cleverer than I, will find a solution for you some other way, but I personally can’t think of another way to achieve the audio syncing in this type of situation.

Yes, 30ms seems about right. The headphones are connected to my mixer though, so connecting then to my Play 5 (1st Gen) is not an option here. I may just have to go back to wired speakers for the DJ Console 😞 Thanks for your time though Ken, it's appreciated.

Rik Parr,

Because of the delays caused by the 'buffering and syncing' methods of Sonos speakers when grouping 'rooms' together, makes Sonos Equipment not really suitable for DJing, Mixing or Karaoke type setups. You would 'most likely' be better off with a wired non-Sonos system, as you mention.

I understand others, here in the community, have tried to use their Sonos 'Connect', or a Play-5, in these different types of way in the past and have not had very much success.

A method of slowing down and syncing the output from the Receiver (or a Mixer in your case) to its own attached speakers, or headphones, may also initially seem to provide the answer, but even if you were able to do that, it is probably still not ideal for what you are 'really' hoping to achieve. The overall audio-output-lag would still be quite noticeable when Mixing or DJing etc.

Anyhow, I’m sorry I was unable to resolve your problem on this occasion.