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Home theatre with Airplay 2 (Soundbar)

  • 11 October 2018
  • 2 replies
  • 694 views

So I have a home theatre set up with The soundbar, sub & two gen 2 play 5’s. Why does airplay 2 not work when the play 5’s are set as surrounds, similar to the Aux not working when set up this way.

I just wish I could have the home theatre grouped and set up, and still control music from AirPlay 2. Surely this can be sorted with an update, no?

Just to confirm, it does work when the play 5’s arent in set as surrounds.
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Best answer by jgatie 11 October 2018, 19:11

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2 replies

I assume by "soundbar" you mean Playbar? If so, see this thread:

https://en.community.sonos.com/troubleshooting-228999/no-airplay-to-a-surround-setup-room-with-two-sonos-ones-as-the-surrounds-6809382

Particularly this quote from Ryan S from Sonos (substitute Play:5 Gen 2 for One):

To be clear, the Play:1 isn't AirPlay 2 compatible, it's the Sonos One which is voice control enabled and has the specs needed for AirPlay 2 compatibility. The short answer is because AirPlay 2 is a local stream that needs to be sent to a specific player. The way surrounds are configured, audio streams are sent to the main home theater and then converted and distributed to the others from there. Exploring the theoretic possibility of this, the audio from AirPlay 2 would need to go from the iOS device into the network and eventually to the Sonos One (currently, passing through the Playbar as surrounds get network connectivity from the HT coordinator), get converted, then be sent back to the Playbar for distribution across the rest of the system, including going back to the Sonos One that got the signal in the first place. This would take at least double the bandwidth and at least twice the time. With an increased amount of potential failures at every step, it's not a recipe for a good playback experience.


It will work if you group the Playbar with a Airplay 2 compatible speaker. Note: Grouping is not pairing or bonding, which are the terms used for stereo pairs, surrounds, connecting a Sub, etc.
Thank you, sounds like it’s a hardware issue then not software. Only solution I can think of is to buy an airplay 2 compatible device and group it to the theatre set up.