Sonos One should be able to use Airplay to play music from Apple computer's external disc drive.

  • 24 February 2022
  • 5 replies
  • 171 views

I am an Apple user and I would love to be able to use Airplay and an external disc drive connected to my iMac to play music DVDs through my Sonos One.    That would be an extremely powerful and useful addition to Sonos functionality.   (Note that uploading the songs from one’s CD collection in order to play them on the Sonos is NOT a good workaround…..)   

Alternatively, Sonos should partner with a few peripheral manufacturers to develop a proprietary "service" -- similar to Spotify Connect --  which would enable at least their devices (eg, disc players) to use the Sonos One as an output when connected to an Apple computer. 


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5 replies

Not sure I understand your request. 

You should be able to use AirPlay 2 to send any signal from your Mac (music, either local drive, or external) by just using AirPlay 2 and connecting to that Sonos One. If the external drive is an NAS, you just set it up in the Sonos software as such, and Sonos will read that drive. 

Not sure what you mean by “uploadoing” either. Sonos just reads data, there’s no storage for “uploading” in the Sonos ecosystem. It either reads from already used storage on your hard drive, or an NAS, or it streams from many different companies who have set up a partnership with Sonos via the process as defined on the Sonos partners page.

Am I missing something? it’s always a possibility that I’m not picking up on all that you mean. 

Userlevel 7
Badge +21

I suggest you approach Apple with your arogant demands.  Airplay is their product and they decide what it can do.

Mind you I am not sure I understand what it is you are asking for?

Are you saying that you want Sonos to be able to access the DVD player connected to your Mac directly, without having to manually go to your Mac, play the DVD, and direct the audio to Sonos via airplay?

Just to make sure it’s clear,  Airplay is essentially a ‘push’ technology.  The source device (Mac, iphone, ipad, AppleTV) sends audio to speakers (Sonos).  Sonos can’t ‘pull’ any music via airplay.   Sonos can pull audio from streaming services, files on your Mac or NAS, etc on it’s own, but not via airplay, and not from a player device attached to your Mac.

Userlevel 2
Badge +4

Sonos has several products (Port, Amp and Five) which let you hook up any analog device you want (turntable, CD player, DVD player, tape deck, etc), digitize the content and stream the results across your entire Sonos system. And any apple device (Macs included) already have the ability to stream music via Airplay 2 to one or more Sonos speakers at the same time. Whether your music is stored on the local hard drive or an external one makes no difference.

If you are asking if Sonos will make their software recognize things like CD players hooked up to a Mac I think you will be waiting a long time as thats a super niche use case.  80% of so now Sonos users are probably streaming from the web.  The remaining ones with lots of CDs are simply hooking those players up to a Port, Amp or Five. Those with huge digitized libraries on NAS’s are linking those to the Sonos app itself.

Sonos' Airplay 2 compatible speakers can play any Airplay 2 stream you send to them. What you can send from your Mac as an Airplay 2 stream is entirely a matter for Apple and not something over which Sonos has any control.