soundbar grouped to amp changes "group volume" without changing amp volume

If the second set of speakers is set up as another ‘room’, no, Sonos, via CEC, will only send the volume command to the CEC connected speakers (the first ‘room’), and will not pass it to other rooms.

Dammed if you do and dammed if you don’t. My preference is that when you adjust Group Volume in your room, I don’t want my room to be adjusted too. CEC could adjust the Volume in any Grouped players too, but I would come after you if it did.

I think the proper solution to this is for a Soundbar to let you “add front mirror” the same way that it allows you to “add surround”… because in my application it really isn’t grouping rooms, it’s setting up a single room with multiple amps to all have the same front-left/right channels..

However, the soundbar doesn’t support this configuration presently.

@Bruce - sonos doesn’t send HDMI-CEC volume commands in this case, it receives them in the soundbar via HDMI-eARC. They are sent by the AppleTV in this case (or a TV if someone is using a TV remote)

Another approach would be to connect both pairs of front speakers to the AMP connected to the TV. You may need to insert Volume adjusting controls into each speaker feed in order to balance the two pairs.

Indeed, I misspoke, Sonos is only a receiver. But it still doesn’t pass that information on to any ‘grouped’ rooms. 

Unfortunately, that’s not practical in this case, because the ceiling speakers are all wired to a central wiring closet via conduit, not to the TV install locations.

This is a very common setup in luxury homes… This home formerly had a Crestron system (that I removed)….with 4 AppleTVs in a central closet with an audio/video matrix…. and then every TV had it’s own crestron Video receiver, which would put video on that TV synced with the audio crestron piped into the ceiling. 

However, I don’t care for Crestron… because I’m a computer engineer and programmer, and I can’t stand how unreliable it is, nor that I have to go through incompetent dealers to do the programming for the system. Plus, I like the nice AppleTV remote that has voice-search and lasts months on a charge, rather than the junk crestron removes that die in 4-hrs off a charger and are clunky with no voice search. 

To wire the ceiling speakers to a Sonos AMP connected to the TV, I would need to rip up the ceiling and walls (some of which are paneled not drywall) and rewire it all. That’s why I’d like to plug some sonos device (bar or amp) into the TV via HDMI, and use this device to distribute the TV FRONT-left/right audio and volume control commands to the other sonos amps. 

For now we’ll end up just dealing with using the Sonos App for Ceiling volume control when needed…..

...but if sonos doesn’t provide a way to do this, I’ll probably eventually switch to an open-source solution based on SoundSync and Orange Pi 5, so I can get it to do what I want without using these bass-akwards whole home automation solutions.

Both Alexa and Sonos Voice Control can adjust the Sonos "group" volume - So just install either, or both, voice assistants on the Sonos Beam and say “Alexa (or Hey Sonos) set the volume to ?%” where the ? is your chosen volume level. You will see the entire group linked with the Sonos Beam will goto that requested volume level …and that’s without even touching a remote.

Thank you, this is a genius idea. That would be alot simpler than actually replacing my Sonos amp hardware with an alternative system. I will look into it.

I didn’t notice any time skew between the soundbar and a grouped amp when I tested it today. Though I wasn’t really listening for it. If it was a problem, I would be happy to stick a Sonos AMP with HDMI-ARC sound input on the TV, but with no speakers connected, and then just group that with the zone for output to come out of the AMPS in the remote closet.  (I tried doing something like this with Sonos Port, but the TV → port → AMP delay using line-in on the port was horriffic, over 800ms)

@Ken_Griffiths - we’re not a fan of voice control, and when we use this room it’s way too noisy for voice control…. try using voice control when you have a sports game on pretty loud, and 20 people talking over the game and laughing. I find voice control hardly works when it’s just me and my daughter in her room trying to turn down the loud alexa music.

The latency does not need to be more than 75ms. Check your Audio Delay setting.

Or your network…

Using a ‘dummy’ amp connected to TV won’t resolve the latency issue.  When playing audio to multiple Sonos rooms, 2.4 Ghz wifi is used with a bit of a buffer so that the different rooms have time to get the data and play in proper sync with other rooms.  This buffer isn’t noticable for music playback.  When you setup a rooom with a soundbar or amp connected to a TV, the TV audio is played in that room without the large buffer so that it can still be in sync with video.  Any surround speakers or sub bonded to the soundbar/amp are connected via 5.0 GHz for faster transmission, without the need to penetrate multiple walls and reach every room in your house.

So your setup of connecting a soundbar or amp to the TV and separate Sonos room (ceiling speakers by amp) is grouping and will be delayed for TV audio.  The fact that the speakers are physically located in the same room isn’t relevant.  Unfortunately, Sonos doesn’t have an option for you to bond speakers and amps in whatever way you wish to form a unique combination for a room.  Your best bet, as Buzz stated, is to try and adjust the delay in settings.