Hi,
If I have both S1 & S2 sonos set up on the same network, can I play an S1 stream on my S2 system?
Thanks.
Best answer by t999
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t999,
The SONOS players extensively talk to each other over the network in order to maintain synchronized play among members of the Group. The originator of the Group becomes the Group’s “Coordinator”. All traffic for the Group flows through the Coordinator. In addition to the music, all players constantly share timing information with each other and are fully prepared to deal with a change in the network, possibly due to wireless interference or a player being added/deleted/powered down, etc — or removing the current Coordinator from the Group. (Think of this as changing socks while running.)
Network technology is constantly changing and responding to a change would be different in S1 and S2 as S2 evolves to take advantage of the new technology and S1 does not evolve. I realize it’s annoying and contributes to the landfills, but obsolescence is not unique to SONOS. How useful is a 15 year old cellphone or an old Apple anything? I had to recycle a perfectly functional cellphone because the local cell towers stopped supporting it. I agree that there are some annoyances, but continuing to accommodate older units with S1 is almost unique among consumer electronics manufacturers. Going forward there will eventually be some old age failures and one would need to find replacement S1 units on the used market, but I expect this will be a viable strategy for many years.
Ken_Griffiths’ comment was certainly very helpful.
“ I’m afraid you have a fundamental misunderstanding of how Sonos actually works”
“This is absolute gibberish. Nonsense. Meaningless“
maybe not so much so! Perhaps the posters were having a bad day.😅
This statement just reinforces the fact you have a fundamental misunderstanding of how Sonos actually works.
Not really what I am suggesting. I would see it more as a sort of digital line out → line in.Pretty sure I’ve seen elsewhere on the forum that this works and if so would imply this is possible at least in theory.
Some facts about Sonos that are relevant to this theory. With the RCA inputs you can use on various Sonos products, there is a slight delay between when the data is received by the unit and when the audio actually plays on the device or any speaker that’s in the group. This is need to convert the analog to digital signal, but also to allow for buffering. I think of the buffering sort of like a group of joggers where some members go slower than they are capable so that the slower members of the group can keep pace. When you have a ‘digital source’ such as optical input or HDMI-ARC, the speaker that’s connected plays the audio as soon as possible to play in sync with video on a TV, but any grouped rooms are delayed for required buffering.
So, following your theory of having the S2 system just pickup the digital stream from S1, if that were even possible, it would need to buffer what it receives so that the speakers in the S2 system could all play it in sync, and thus would be noticiably behind your S1 speakers. Maybe the single S2 speaker that picks up the S1 stream could play it faster and the lag wouldn’t be noticable, but not the entire system.
You maybe wondering why something like Airplay can be used to play audio on both S1 and S2 systems at the same time? Because airplay has a rather large buffer built in at the source. It will send out the data and tell it to play at a timing a bit further out so that every speaker has a chance to get the data and play at the same time with less coordination required. And if there is video involved, it can force a delay for that too.
Also, important to know that Sonos made a significant change to how devices in a S2 system communicate to each other, in order to better facilitate hires streaming audio. Sure an S2 device could sort of do some translating between the S1 language and the S2 language, but it’s still another bit of processing that would have to be done.
Do you work for Sonos? If not can you point me in the direction of more technical info on the protocol?
Sonos employees are clearly marked as such.
I don’t think they publish much, probably due to other companies trying to steal their efforts, on protocols. They do, however, publish the API that all services inside the Sonos controller use at the Sonos partners page.
Yeah that seems reasonable - the posters above seemed to be claiming in depth technical knowledge of how the system works so I was wondering if this was from having worked for Sonos or if there was info available online somewhere.
For me, it’s more of a black box knowledge. I can accept that it works this way or that way without knowing all the details of what bits are going where at every instance. And something, like playing TV audio in groups out of sync, is clearly something Sonos would want to avoid if it was technically possible and reliable.
Nothing has to be binned. This is surely the most common piece of misinformation on this most common of troll topics, the S1/S2 split. It was 2 years ago. It's not going to change. This thread is a complete waste of all our time and I'm not wasting any more of mine..
Ah ok. Is this not a bit odd considering the rationale for S2 was to allow compatability with more music services etc. than S1 hardware could support. Surely playing an S1 stream (albeit with no control over it other than volume) would be pretty basic / obvious here?
If you want to ponder the wisdom of perpetual backward compatibility, hackers can easily exploit some ancient code that has been brought along. A prime example is the SMBv1 protocol required by S1 to access NAS (Network Attached Storage) drives. Hackers love this protocol. Moving away from SMBv1 requires (at least) more RAM be installed into the S1 player because its operating system kernel must be replaced. This cannot be done in the field. The trip to a service center could easily approach or surpass the cost of a replacement unit. Since very old units might begin to fail due to unrelated issues, this upgrade would be a questionable investment.
Sure, a few DIY elites might be able to handle some of this at home, but only if they have surface mount soldering skills and tools. And, this assumes that new IC’s have the same pin-out as the IC’s they replace.
“Backwards Compatibility” is a great marketing claim, but our global computer security could be greatly enhanced if we would trash everything and start over, rather than attempting to maintain compatibility with ancient hardware and software that was never secure.
One way to stream the same music to both S1 and S2 systems is to use Apple Airplay2 (I sometimes use Apple Music and Airplay from an iPad) - but that requires a compatible speaker (a Sonos One for example) to be available in both systems and target them both with the same playing stream, but a note of caution, the streams can occasionally go out of sync, but it’s not a bad workaround - I use it myself occasionally.
Attachment shows one speaker selected from each system for playback.
No I stand by everything I said. When using Airplay you aren't even using the Sonos system.
There is no such thing as an 'S1 stream". It is a meaningless concept.
Nothing you have written on this thread has made sense.
Userlevel 7
No. Speakers have to all be on the S1 app to play an S1 stream.
Ken_Griffiths’ comment was certainly very helpful.
“ I’m afraid you have a fundamental misunderstanding of how Sonos actually works”
“This is absolute gibberish. Nonsense. Meaningless“
maybe not so much so! Perhaps the posters were having a bad day.😅
This statement just reinforces the fact you have a fundamental misunderstanding of how Sonos actually works.
Presumably when I play something on my S1 system, the master unit streams whatever I am playing to the other units in the group, along with some sync information. This is what I mean by an S1 stream, I accept it may not be official terminology but I would be surprised if there is no such thing.
Assuming (I may be wrong) that sonos didn’t start from scratch with S2 and used some of the existing code from S1, it doesn’t seem like it would be technically all that difficult for and S2 system to play whatever music is already playing on S1 in a similar fashion to how it would play what I am playing on Spotify on my ‘phone.
Commercially there may not be a huge benefit from this, other than S1 diehards might but S2 devices to supplement their existing system.
Which part of the above would you say is wrong? Buzz has desscribed a scenario below which seems much the same as what I describe in the first paragraph.
The second paragraph seems like common sense, why would Sonos have reinvented the wheel when moving to S2 - they may have added extra stuff to support newer technology but do you really think they would have thrown away years of work and started from scratch?
No I stand by everything I said. When using Airplay you aren't even using the Sonos system.
There is no such thing as an 'S1 stream". It is a meaningless concept.
Nothing you have written on this thread has made sense.
Standing by it does not make it helpful!
On a S1 system with several zones playing the same media it seems obvious that the master unit must be “streaming” whatever is playing to the other zones. I have called this an S1 Stream. Seems perfectly reasonable if perhaps simplistic.Are you suggesting that the master unit doesn’t stream media to the others?
Network technology is constantly changing and responding to a change would be different in S1 and S2 as S2 evolves to take advantage of the new technology and S1 does not evolve. I realize it’s annoying and contributes to the landfills, but obsolescence is not unique to SONOS. How useful is a 15 year old cellphone or an old Apple anything? I had to recycle a perfectly functional cellphone because the local cell towers stopped supporting it. I agree that there are some annoyances, but continuing to accommodate older units with S1 is almost unique among consumer electronics manufacturers. Going forward there will eventually be some old age failures and one would need to find replacement S1 units on the used market, but I expect this will be a viable strategy for many years.
I agree with what you are saying, but given that Sonos probably started S2 with the guts of the S1 code in there it would have been relatively simple for them to have provided backwards compatability in some way, whether this was by emulating an S1 system (albeit with limited features) or otherwise. This would be simplified by the fact that the S1 protocol is - as you have said - not going to evolve.
What I am suggesting is that not doing so was a “business” decision rather than a technical one. Given that providing a means for S1 users to add new S2 only equipment would allow them to buy new equipment from Sonos, they must have decided that the revenue from this would be less than the revenue from people binning all their S1 kit and buying full S2 systems.
I agree with what you are saying, but given that Sonos probably started S2 with the guts of the S1 code in there it would have been relatively simple for them to have provided backwards compatability in some way, whether this was by emulating an S1 system (albeit with limited features) or otherwise. This would be simplified by the fact that the S1 protocol is - as you have said - not going to evolve.
What I am suggesting is that not doing so was a “business” decision rather than a technical one. Given that providing a means for S1 users to add new S2 only equipment would allow them to buy new equipment from Sonos, they must have decided that the revenue from this would be less than the revenue from people binning all their S1 kit and buying full S2 systems.
Or it actally was a technical reason, and Sonos had to give up on S1 people buying more Sonos devices or cease growing as a company. Because that's exactly what it was. As
Otherwise, if Sonos really wanted to force people to upgrade, why allow S2 capable devices which existed at the time of the split to remain on S1? Why not force all S2 devices to ugrade?
Hi. What is an S1 stream, please?
By S1 stream I mean music currently playing on a Sonos S1 system zone or group. Apologies I should maybe have explained this more clearly.
Ah ok. Is this not a bit odd considering the rationale for S2 was to allow compatability with more music services etc. than S1 hardware could support. Surely playing an S1 stream (albeit with no control over it other than volume) would be pretty basic / obvious here?
In order to group S1 and S2 rooms together to play the same stream, both the S1 and S2 units need to recognize/identify the other unit(s) in the group. Since the S1 units are memory bound, there is no room in the S1 firmware to add the support for the new S2 units like the Arc or Roam. Which is the reason for the S1/S2 split in the first place - S1 doesn’t have enough room to accommodate new devices and/or functionality.
Ah ok. Is this not a bit odd considering the rationale for S2 was to allow compatability with more music services etc. than S1 hardware could support. Surely playing an S1 stream (albeit with no control over it other than volume) would be pretty basic / obvious here?
In order to group S1 and S2 rooms together to play the same stream, both the S1 and S2 units need to recognize/identify the other unit(s) in the group. Since the S1 units are memory bound, there is no room in the S1 firmware to add the support for the new S2 units like the Arc or Roam. Which is the reason for the S1/S2 split in the first place - S1 doesn’t have enough room to accommodate new devices and/or functionality.
Yes, I get that S1 doesn’t have the capacity to do this, however, surely an S2 system could detect that an S1 system is already playing on the same network and “lock on” and play this stream.
The S1 system would be effectively unaware of this, but the net effect would be that the two systems would operate as one.
This is absolute gibberish. Nonsense. Meaningless
There is no such thing as an "S1 stream" . There is a music source playing on a group of speakers within a Sonos system. To play on other Sonos speakers they have to be grouped. That is how Sonos plays synched music. It is fundamental to the system design.
So Sonos cannot play across two systems; not even two S2 systems. Certainly you cannot group speakers from S1 and S2 or that would completely negate the purpose of having S1 and S2.
Ah ok. Is this not a bit odd considering the rationale for S2 was to allow compatability with more music services etc. than S1 hardware could support. Surely playing an S1 stream (albeit with no control over it other than volume) would be pretty basic / obvious here?
In order to group S1 and S2 rooms together to play the same stream, both the S1 and S2 units need to recognize/identify the other unit(s) in the group. Since the S1 units are memory bound, there is no room in the S1 firmware to add the support for the new S2 units like the Arc or Roam. Which is the reason for the S1/S2 split in the first place - S1 doesn’t have enough room to accommodate new devices and/or functionality.
Yes, I get that S1 doesn’t have the capacity to do this, however, surely an S2 system could detect that an S1 system is already playing on the same network and “lock on” and play this stream.
The S1 system would be effectively unaware of this, but the net effect would be that the two systems would operate as one.
Sonos does not work that way. Put a different way, Sonos never designed the S2 system to allow users to select “S1 system playing on the same WiFi network” on the same network and play that instead TV, aux input, or a streaming service. There are numerous issues with that. For one, it would be difficult if not impossible to keep the music in sync, since the S1 system would not be aware that it’s to play in sync with another system. Two, what if there are more than one stream playing in the S1 system? How do you identify them and properly pick up which stream you wish to play? Three, I’m not sure you can just easily hijack data being transported from one device to another, or a net as the case is with Sonos, particularly when it’s Sonosnet and not your actual Wifi. Four, if you’re an Apple user, this would be much better accomplished by using Airplay, I believe. So, most of your customers are no longer using S1, many of those don’t also have an S2 system, and rougly half of the remaining already have a solution...and the number will always get smaller. It’s hard to argue that such a feature would drive product sales, or worth charging a subscription fee over. Does it really seem like a wise development effort for Sonos to pursue?
This is absolute gibberish. Nonsense. Meaningless
Apologies, didn’t mean to cause any offence.
Ah ok. Is this not a bit odd considering the rationale for S2 was to allow compatability with more music services etc. than S1 hardware could support. Surely playing an S1 stream (albeit with no control over it other than volume) would be pretty basic / obvious here?
In order to group S1 and S2 rooms together to play the same stream, both the S1 and S2 units need to recognize/identify the other unit(s) in the group. Since the S1 units are memory bound, there is no room in the S1 firmware to add the support for the new S2 units like the Arc or Roam. Which is the reason for the S1/S2 split in the first place - S1 doesn’t have enough room to accommodate new devices and/or functionality.
Yes, I get that S1 doesn’t have the capacity to do this, however, surely an S2 system could detect that an S1 system is already playing on the same network and “lock on” and play this stream.
The S1 system would be effectively unaware of this, but the net effect would be that the two systems would operate as one.
Sonos does not work that way. Put a different way, Sonos never designed the S2 system to allow users to select “S1 system playing on the same WiFi network” on the same network and play that instead TV, aux input, or a streaming service. There are numerous issues with that. For one, it would be difficult if not impossible to keep the music in sync, since the S1 system would not be aware that it’s to play in sync with another system. Two, what if there are more than one stream playing in the S1 system? How do you identify them and properly pick up which stream you wish to play? Three, I’m not sure you can just easily hijack data being transported from one device to another, or a net as the case is with Sonos, particularly when it’s Sonosnet and not your actual Wifi. Four, if you’re an Apple user, this would be much better accomplished by using Airplay, I believe. So, most of your customers are no longer using S1, many of those don’t also have an S2 system, and rougly half of the remaining already have a solution...and the number will always get smaller. It’s hard to argue that such a feature would drive product sales, or worth charging a subscription fee over. Does it really seem like a wise development effort for Sonos to pursue?
Presumably when I play something on my S1 system, the master unit streams whatever I am playing to the other units in the group, along with some sync information. This is what I mean by an S1 stream, I accept it may not be official terminology but I would be surprised if there is no such thing.
Assuming (I may be wrong) that sonos didn’t start from scratch with S2 and used some of the existing code from S1, it doesn’t seem like it would be technically all that difficult for and S2 system to play whatever music is already playing on S1 in a similar fashion to how it would play what I am playing on Spotify on my ‘phone.
Commercially there may not be a huge benefit from this, other than S1 diehards might but S2 devices to supplement their existing system.
Yes, I get that S1 doesn’t have the capacity to do this, however, surely an S2 system could detect that an S1 system is already playing on the same network and “lock on” and play this stream.
The S1 system would be effectively unaware of this, but the net effect would be that the two systems would operate as one.
Not the way it works. For the S1 unit to play in sync with the S2 unit, careful timing cues are communicated between the two units, and these timing cues need to go both ways, from S1->S2, and from S2->S1. Thus the S2 units need to support the S1 units (easily done) and the S1 units need to support the S2 units (impossible for the Arc/Roam). Since the latter is impossible, S2 cannot “lock on” to an “S1 stream”. .
Presumably when I play something on my S1 system, the master unit streams whatever I am playing to the other units in the group, along with some sync information. This is what I mean by an S1 stream, I accept it may not be official terminology but I would be surprised if there is no such thing.
Assuming (I may be wrong) that sonos didn’t start from scratch with S2 and used some of the existing code from S1, it doesn’t seem like it would be technically all that difficult for and S2 system to play whatever music is already playing on S1 in a similar fashion to how it would play what I am playing on Spotify on my ‘phone.
Commercially there may not be a huge benefit from this, other than S1 diehards might but S2 devices to supplement their existing system.
I’m afraid you have a fundamental misunderstanding of how Sonos actually works.
I’m afraid you have a fundamental misunderstanding of how Sonos actually works.
I’m more than happy to learn!
Assuming two way communication is essential for sync (what does this acheive - presumably the master unit can’t slow down playback if the syncing unit can’t keep up) then could the S2 unit not simply mimic an S1 unit?
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