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Until today, I was under the impression that I could only Airplay to devices that are enabled with this capability. In my case only my Amp is identified in my Sonos app as having this capability. None of my other older devices are identified as Airplay compatible.

However, this morning I was playing a programme from the  BBC Sounds app and was streaming it via Airplay to my Amp, but to my surprise I heard the same programme being played through my other speakers in other rooms.

it seems that if, in Sonos, I select Amp plus other speakers, Airplay not only plays through the Amp but to theseother speakers as well.

Is this news to anyone else?

Is this news to anyone else?

Er, no actually.

You could always Airplay to a compatible player and group other, non-compatible, players with it. As with any Sonos group they’ll all play the source in sync.

The Airplay stream terminates at the ‘Group Coordinator’ node (the Amp in your case). The peer players obtain their stream from the GC, so they don’t have to deal with Airplay themselves.

It’s all set out here: https://support.sonos.com/s/article/1230

biffta,

Just to also add, a similar thing can be done with the new Sonos ‘Roam’ and the Bluetooth protocol. You can play Bluetooth audio to a Roam and group that device with your other Sonos devices aswell to listen to Bluetooth audio - Roam also supports Airplay, so lots of advantages when adding that new portable speaker to a Sonos system.

Thanks for the replies. Useful to know though. Thought before that the only Airplay option I had was through my Amp. Never tried to group with others before. Always thought that to utilise Airplay to a particular speaker it had to be Airplay capable. Now I know it doesn’t.

Thanks again.

Technically, it does. You’re then just using the normal Sonos process to ‘group’ any rooms you want. It’s not quite the same as a line in, where you can ‘direct’ it to play elsewhere. The target of the AirPlay2 stream must be playing that stream. 

Technically, it does. You’re then just using the normal Sonos process to ‘group’ any rooms you want. It’s not quite the same as a line in, where you can ‘direct’ it to play elsewhere. The target of the AirPlay2 stream must be playing that stream. 

As with a Home Theatre player’s TV input, or a Roam’s Bluetooth. 

The GC distributes audio to group members in a different manner to the fetching of data from the original source.

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