Recommended receiver that does not cause delay

  • 27 March 2021
  • 3 replies
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  • Contributor I
  • 3 replies

Hey guys, 

 

I have a Sonos Connect that I use along with my home theater setup. I used to have a Harmon/Kardon AVR245 receiver, but it finally died on me so I had to get a replacement. I bought a Sony STRDH790 receiver and I noticed that it causes a delay when listening with my other Sonos speakers. I tried Pure Direct mode on the receiver and while that does eliminate the delay, it does not utilize the entire 7.1 system. After researching the issue on here I saw that this is a result of the way that Sonos streams the audio. My previous receiver did not have this same delay, so I’m assuming there are some other receivers that don’t cause any delays. 

 

Can anyone recommend a receiver that does not have this delay? I primarily use my Connect alongside my other speakers in neighboring rooms so the delay is very noticeable.

 

Thank you!


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I tried Pure Direct mode on the receiver and while that does eliminate the delay, it does not utilize the entire 7.1 system. After researching the issue on here I saw that this is a result of the way that Sonos streams the audio. My previous receiver did not have this same delay, so I’m assuming there are some other receivers that don’t cause any delays. 

 

 

The delay is there and is needed to allow 7.1 to work after some processing; I doubt that your previous receiver did 7.1 with no delay.  Every AVR I know of needs the delay to do the processing for 7.1.

Stereo amps cause no delay, but they don't do 7.1.

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@Kumar Hmm can you help me understand how it was working? Maybe I am misunderstanding because if there was a delay it was small enough that I did not notice it. With this Sony receiver it’s much more noticeable (less than a second). 

 

With my old AVR receiver I was able to get all 7 speakers + sub playing and the delay, when played with my Sonos Ones in another room, was not noticeable. With this Sony receiver, when I play thru 7 speakers + sub the delay is definitely there. If I place my receiver in Pure Direct mode the delay is eliminated but only my front two speakers are used. 

 Hmm can you help me understand how it was working? Maybe I am misunderstanding because if there was a delay it was small enough that I did not notice it. With this Sony receiver it’s much more noticeable (less than a second). 

 

Different receivers have different delay times and while I am not familiar with the HK, it probably had a delay that was small enough to not be noticed. As opposed, as it sounds, to the Sony.

Note that almost all music/audio is recorded in 2 channels, so you do not lose any content by playing pure direct. And stereo image is rendered better via just 2 speakers. You can still get the subwoofer in play if it can take high level signal from the two speaker terminals of the receiver; but the downside of that is you will not get the effects contained in the .1 channel when watching movies.