Why is Connect more expensive than Play?

That is, if your using the connect with an A/V receiver connected to speakers AND you are using Play 3/5 speakers, your music will simply be out of sync, because the A/V receiver introduces processing and the sonos system does not have a very simple feature such as establishing an x amount of delay before the music is sent to the Play speakers.



Not all A/V receivers have a delay, and on those that do introduce a delay, very many have a "Direct" mode which bypasses any DSP. To post as if a delay is unavoidable in every A/V receiver is incorrect and misleading.

The connect used to be priced highly, but at least delivered on its promises as part of the overall Sonos setup.

It's not anymore the case.

As reported in several threads, when you link the connect to any modern A/V receiver (which is exactly what is supposed to do), it messes up all the sync the Sonos system brags about.

That's the fault of the AV receiver, not Sonos.

This ruins the whole Sonos promise of everything your system in perfect sync, and suddenly makes Airplay solutions a ton more appealing and cheaper.

Except Airplay doesn't sync at all and will still have a delay if using an AV receiver.

Except Airplay doesn't sync at all and will still have a delay if using an AV receiver.
If you're lucky maybe the lack of sync exactly compensates for the delay in the AVR. 😉

Not all A/V receivers have a delay, and on those that do introduce a delay, very many have a "Direct" mode which bypasses any DSP. To post as if a delay is unavoidable in every A/V receiver is incorrect and misleading.

No, 90% of 2012/2013 receivers, including ALL most popular (Yamaha, Onkyo, etc.) and high-end receivers, have a delay which is simply driven by the processing happening inside the receiver. And this will be more and more true as time goes by.
Secondly, the "direct" mode simply reduces the delay, while having the "little" drawback that you seem to forget that if you have, say a 5.1 or 7.1 system connected to your A/V receiver with the direct mode on you are left with a pure 2.0 speaker set. Wow, what a party.

Simple truth is that at the moment the Sonos system is not usable if you are planning to listen to music from both your expensive latest gen A/V via Sonos connect AND a Play speaker at the same time.
If Sonos is able to introduce a programmable delay to be placed before the Plays start playing it will still be an expensive but worthwile system, if not it will have forever lost one of the very single point of differences vs. the infinitely cheaper airplay solution (that is, perfect sync).

That's the fault of the AV receiver, not Sonos.



Except Airplay doesn't sync at all and will still have a delay if using an AV receiver.

Sonos then better wake up and improve its software, because it looks like all A/V receivers are being built this way. As times goes by, it will look more and more like "hey, it's not my fault, it's all these other people who are driving in the wrong direction".

Regarding Airplay of course is not in sync neither it promises to be, but it's free, while Sonos is not in sync as well now and it costs 50x more. So why pay for it?
At the moment i'm stuck with an overpriced connect and two Play5 speakers which costs more than 1k$ and are utterly useless.

Regarding Airplay of course is not in sync neither it promises to be, but it's free, while Sonos is not in sync as well now and it costs 50x more. So why pay for it?

So you perfectly happy not to have syncing at all, if you're not paying for it (you are paying for btw...) but you're going to ***** like crazy because you can't do something that apparently you're not that fussed about? Make your mind up, either you want syncing or you don't.

At the moment i'm stuck with an overpriced connect and two Play5 speakers which costs more than 1k$ and are utterly useless.

And now you're just talking ****e, are you saying you have two Play 5s AND a connect all in the same room and all playing at the same time, ALL the time?

So you perfectly happy not to have syncing at all, if you're not paying for it (you are paying for btw...) but you're going to ***** like crazy because you can't do something that apparently you're not that fussed about? Make your mind up, either you want syncing or you don't.



And now you're just talking ****e, are you saying you have two Play 5s AND a connect all in the same room and all playing at the same time, ALL the time?

My reasoning is pretty straightforward.

Yes i want the syncing, and this is why i paid a whole loads of money into a Sonos system, because accordingly to Sonos its system is able to play in perfect sync.

As a matter of fact, this is simply not true. Because if you use the Sonos Connect, something that THEY sell for the exact purpose to be connected to an existing A/V receiver, the audio is not in sync. Plain and simple.

Now, what Sonos can do is either one of the two:
A) Specify this and list the "compatible" A/V receivers that allow the user not to suffer from this issue (which is basically "any A/V receiver produced before 2011")
😎 Specify that if a user is willing to have music played in sync across Sonos own Play speakers and Sonos own Connect device, this won't work.

Given the situation, if someone is interested into the Sonos system because of its supposedly perfect sync feature, this feature does not exist anymore in the case you are using a setup composed of a Sonos Connect linked to a modern A/V receiver and any of own Sonos Play speakers.

As modern receivers are airplay enabled and there are plenty of speakers which are airplay enabled as well, you do the math: no reason to spend money on Sonos in this case.

That is, unless they are able to simply add a delay slider in their control app.

Then if you want me to tell that the solution is that we are not supposed to use any modern A/V receiver, or to use our 5.1 setups in a 2.0 setup, or to use either our A/V OR the Plays, be my guest, but Sonos is selling a system that is supposed -among other things- to do exactly this: play your music in sync across all devices. And it simply does not.

But hey, maybe we should call Yamaha, Pioneer, Onkyo, and all the other 10s of A/V receiver builders and explain them that their system suck because it does not work well with the Sonos Connect. My guess is that it should be Sonos to fix this.

to use our 5.1 setups in a 2.0 setup

So I understand: I assume that the above is when playing the AVR in source direct mode, and therefore in sync with other Sonos equipment.

While playing in this mode, does the AVR deliver sound to only 2 speakers, or to all connected ones? If the latter, I don't see that using source direct is bad because all but a few audio recordings are recorded in 2 channel anyway, so the loss of HT related multichannel effects shouldn't matter to the audio experience?

Or am I missing something?

As a matter of fact, this is simply not true. Because if you use the Sonos Connect, something that THEY sell for the exact purpose to be connected to an existing A/V receiver, the audio is not in sync. Plain and simple.
I dare say that Sonos will have this matter somewhere on their to-do list, but I'd just make a couple of points:

The CONNECT (and its predecessor the ZP80) is not sold for the 'exact purpose' of connecting to an AVR. It's sold for those with existing -- often high quality -- amplification (and optionally outboard DAC) and speaker systems. Many are the contributors to these forums who run their CONNECT/ZP90/ZP80 into high-end HiFi setups. In such situations sync with Play:* units is probably very much secondary, and when sync is used the Play boxes are probably in a different room anyhow.

The audio IS in sync, at the outputs of the Sonos players. To say this is not the case is simply not true. Sonos have never claimed that at the end of whatever digital reproduction chain a user chooses to bolt on the end of the player the audio will still be in sync. How could they when it's outside their control.

So, a delay setting is a legitimate request and one I'd personally support. But don't let's get into distorting the truth to justify it.

Your initial post on this thread was titled "Connect is a device that does not work anymore". Well the last time I looked my four ZP80s were working just fine thank you.

So I understand: I assume that the above is when playing the AVR in source direct mode, and therefore in sync with other Sonos equipment.

While playing in this mode, does the AVR deliver sound to only 2 speakers, or to all connected ones? If the latter, I don't see that using source direct is bad because all but a few audio recordings are recorded in 2 channel anyway, so the loss of HT related multichannel effects shouldn't matter to the audio experience?

Or am I missing something?

When you use direct music is played only through 2 speakers, so you miss any other speaker you might have connected in your setup + the sub. In a typical scenario you have the speakers "multiplying" the 2ch, its just a matter of wattage (what Sonos calls party mode).

Regarding the other poster, sure the connect CAN work if setup in a particular hi-fi environment, but let's be honest with ourselves:
1- The overwhelming majority of users use "common" A/V receiver, which by the way can be of great sound quality and connected to great speakers (way above the Sonos Play line...).
2- Being unable to listen to your A/V speaker setup AND to a Sonos Play at the same time is a huge flaw, and a very big loss for Sonos when comparing to other multi-ambient solutions, which as in the airplay case are totally free!