Delay compensation when used with AV receivers

As already posted here I would suggest to add an adjustable delay to single zone players when linked with other zones.

I have a ZP80 with a Yamaha sound projector in my bedroom and another ZP80 in my bathroom connected to some active speakers.

The DSP of the sound projector produces an audible delay when both zones are linked. You can hear annoying echoes within both rooms.

I get the dreaded echo with my theater system (ZP80) that is close to the kitchen zone (amplified ZP120). My theater system has a lip sync adjustment (in milliseconds) to achieve proper lip sync, maybe Sonos could add an adjustable delay (per zone) to eliminate the echo from one zone to another. I know the reason it is happening is because it goes through my "system" before it goes out the speakers and the ZP120 is more direct, or maybe it's a wired VS wireless thing...at any rate, some user adjustable delay would solve the problem. As it sits right now It is so annoying that I cannot "party mode" the home theater.

Jon

jonvan,

Make sure that the SONOS Line-In encoding is set to "Uncompressed". This will minimize, not eliminate the delay. I expect that the kitchen SONOS system is delayed with respect to your home theater sound.

The delay cannot be reduced to zero because of the time required to digitize the Line-In and package it for transport over the network. Certainly, SONOS could add a variable delay function, but solving your problem would require reducing the delay and this is not practical.

Note that there will always be an acoustic delay since the speed of sound is finite at about one foot per second. This implies that you may be aware of a delay between the kitchen and the theater room with a kitchen speaker wired directly to the receiver. Midway between the rooms there will be no delay, but if you walk a speaker in either room, the other room will seem delayed.

You might be able to improve your situation if you make analog audio connections between the input devices and your home theater receiver, then ship the analog output to the ZP80. Now, the receiver's lipsync delay adjustment will work in your favor.

It is a bit contorted, but if your receiver provides a separate Record Out function or a Zone2 analog audio output, connect this to your ZP80's Line-In and connect the ZP80's Line-Out to one of the receiver's inputs. At this point you can select the audio input to the ZP80 using Rec Out or Zone2, link the ZP80 and the kitchen, then select the ZP80's Line-Out to play in the theater room.

Now, the kitchen and the ZP80 outputs will be synchronized. If there is a delay in the theater room, it is caused by the receiver. Some receivers provide a "direct" setting that will minimize the delay.

I think he knows all this Buzz, it's the receiver delay issue he was talking about.

Cheers,

Keith

Some home theater receivers offer a "direct" mode that skips the digitizers. In this mode, analog inputs will not be delayed by the receiver.

Picking up this old thread but I think this should really be added. I'm puzzled so few have asked for it, especially since there are quite a few users of external DACs or other soundprocessors that add some delay to the signal and causing echos when in Party mode/multiple zones..

This made me sell my DAC (by a ZP 80s optical out) since we mostly listen in party mode but if I could delay Zone X and Y (2 ZP100) ms the problem would be solved IMHO.

Hi
It would be great to have an advanced menu option where you can delay the output of individual zones. I have a home cinema system which I use with a ZP80 and the processing that goes on inside delays the sound slightly compared to my other zones. This sounds awful in party mode. A setting to delay the other zones by an amount in milliseconds would solve this.

Dodgycurry,

Sometimes disabling the surround processing in the receiver will eliminate its delay.

I have tried all the settings, unfortunately it isn't possible to turn off processing and remove the delay. It would be a very useful thing if it could be an option in Sonos. Doesn't seem too hard to implement?

I use a Sonos system of four zones (2x ZP120, 1x ZP90, 1x S5). With the ZP90, I have connected an Onkyo TX-SR876 Surrond Receiver. When I use the various surround sound modes, the surround effect calculation of the receiver introduces a little playback delay (approx. 10-100 ms), which becomes clearly audible and distracting when the other zones are playing at the same time. In fact, I need to turn off all other zones when I listen music through my surround receiver.

Would it be possible to introduce a delay setting into the zone player software that would allow adjusting a playback delay manually per zone (on a millisecond scale)? This way, I could just set a little delay in all zone players except the ZP90 to make all zones synchronous.

Many Thanks!
Nick