Sonos + Apple TV

Well #1 why airplay is horrible and why Sonos is so great.

When you play from a source on Sonos - the speaker goes directly out to the internet/network and the speaker pulls the music direct to it.

When you use airplay - your phone downloads the music then re-encodes/compresses it and then sends it out to the playing device. You loose reliability in the phone having to actually download the music to it and you loose quality in the compression and sending back out.

Plus when you play music via sonos you can set the rear speaker to full stereo instead of surrounds (when you have full mode set) but when you play music via the optical cable your rears are forced to only be surrounds.

I have a neighbor with Crestron whole home system. They wanted to be able to play internet music and the installer came and put an airport express on their system to give them airplay. All it ever did was drop music and the sound was horrible. I got them to buy a Sonos Connect and I came and pulled out the airplay and hooked up the Sonos Connect instead. Never a drop and the sound quality is 100% better. (Their Crestron system still actually says Airplay as the source as they never had the installer come reprogram to actually say Sonos instead).

Plus when you play music via sonos you can set the rear speaker to full stereo instead of surrounds (when you have full mode set) but when you play music via the optical cable your rears are forced to only be surrounds
Ahhh I think this is part of the problem. Is there any way to make the rears as full stereo even when I’m using Apple TV to airplay? Thanks!


I’m a big fan of airplay. Have used it for years to stream music to my dumb speakers (made smart by airport express) and never had issues. In any case sonos is limiting by forcing use of its app. I have a Philips hue system and is usually use app such as iLightShow to sync music from Apple Music to lights. Now can’t do this if I stream using sonos app which is frustrating.

Also, anyway to play YouTube music on sonos app?

It has its advantages in being able to stream about anything.

No - you can't get the rears to be full stereo when you are playing via the optical input (there must be something about the way it processes the digital input as Sonos was never able to add that).

Good news is - Sonos is supposed to be getting Native Airplay2 support this year. So you'll be able to use airplay without having to go via the Appletv. (and as you have a Playbase you have a 2nd generation Sonos unit so you shouldn't have any trouble then direct playing Airplay2 to it).

There is an app in the App Store called SonosTube which will allow you to play youtube video and stream it direct to Sonos.

Yeah - I read about Airplay 2 and actually switched out playbar (Which I was planning to get initially) for playbase right away.

Thanks for the response. I suppose waiting for AirPlay2 is the next step.