Hi @srcspl, welcome to the Sonos Community!

You mentioned that you experience the audio dropouts on “one or more" Sonos speakers, does this mean that other speakers will continue to play when this happens?

If so, then I would recommend starting with a network refresh, by rebooting your router and each Sonos speaker, and then testing again to see if there’s any improvement.

Let us know how you get on :)

Hi Xander

I rebooted the router and all devices on the network, and did some more testing.

Marley Stir-it-Up Turntable →  BT  → Roam

I connected the Marley turntable to the Roam via Bluetooth and played a full album with no issue.  Sound quality on the Roam was as expected.

Marley Stir-it-Up Turntable →  BT  → Roam  →  Sonos Network  →  Beam

I then grouped a Beam with the Roam and played the same album.  It wasn’t long before the sound on the Beam started dropping out for 1 or 2 seconds.  The sound on the Roam, however, didn’t drop.

All devices are connected to the wireless network, the wifi signal is very strong, all devices including the router are in close proximity.  I have not experienced any issue with the Sonos network or sound quality before the introduction of the roam (i.e: I can group all devices on the network and play from online sources without any issue whatsoever).  The problem only occurs when using the Roam as an input to the Sonos network.

Mike

Understood @srcspl, certainly sounds like the issue is on the WiFi side of things - while the wireless network in general may be strong, there are other things to be considered with Sonos. With the devices all being in close proximity, it sounds like you may be being affected by wireless interference - it may be better to create some distance between the devices.

Mind testing the system again, and then submitting a diagnostic shortly after if you continue to experience issues? If you take a note of the confirmation number, feel free to either paste it in a reply to this thread, or alternatively get in touch with our Support Team via live chat or phone call to take a closer look, and perform some live troubleshooting :)

Hi Xander

Thanks for your reply.

I would like to try to understand why you think the issue is on the WiFi side, considering the fact that I have experienced absolutely no issue whatsoever listening to online sources (Sonos Radio/Amazon Music/Audible/Spotify/Tidal/YouTube Music) on any devices, whether individually or grouped.  I only experience this issue when using the Roam as a Bluetooth input from my turntable to the Sonos network (I purchased the Roam specifically for this reason - prior to this I used a Move for audio from the turntable).

I’m happy to do the test and submit the diagnostic, but would like to try to understand the reasoning behind suspecting the WiFi.

Regards

Mike

Hi @srcspl, as you mentioned that the Roam itself continues to play without issue, that would indicate that the Bluetooth end of the connection is working fine - we would expect to see the Roam also dropping out if the issue was with the Bluetooth connection.

When the Roam is sending the audio to the remaining speakers, however, that takes place over WiFi. This isn’t necessarily a sign of issues with the wireless network as a whole - the path taken across the system by music from streaming services (Internet > Router > Speakers) will differ from music sent to the Roam via Bluetooth (Bluetooth Source > Roam > Router > Speakers), so it’s certainly possible to have issues with one but not the other. 

There could of course be something else going on, however a diagnostic should help to clear things up a bit :)

Hi Xander

Thanks kindly. I will find some time to do some more testing and send a diagnostic.

Mike

Yeah my Roam will drop out every minute or two.. for a second or so. None of my other speakers have this problem (I have two Sonos ones and an Arc) both Roams I have do this. 

Try setting your Roam to use your routers 2.4Ghz band with a channel widths of 20MHz and set that band to use either fixed channel 1, 6 or 11 and if using SonosNet, set it’s channel 5 (or more) channels away from your chosen channel. See if that resolves your issue. 

For the uninitiated (ie myself) - can you please confirm how to go about doing this? Is it something I do within the SONOS controller app?

The router channel and channel-width are set in your routers configuration pages - login to your router to change those settings. Your user manual will explain how to do these things, note many routers are different so use the correct user manual for your make/model. Sometimes you may find a YouTube video from another user that can also assist - but it’s a fairly simple process.

To switch WiFi, or WiFi bands, on any speaker, including the Roam, goto “Settings/System/Network/Manage Networks/Update Networks” and follow the onscreen instruction to select your device to change its network settings… ensure the Roam is awake and connected to your network.

The SonosNet channel is changed in the Sonos App in "Settings/System/Network” it can be changed to channel 1, 6 or 11.

Hope that assists further.

Apologies for the late reply. I recently encountered the same issue and was able to resolve it, so thought I would update here for anyone else with the same predicament.

We were in the same boat as you. Purchased the Marley Stir It Up Turntable to connect to the Roam via bluetooth and then share with the rest of the Sonos speakers. The audio played flawlessly through the Roam, but would intermittently drop when sharing the audio with the rest of the Sonos speakers (dropped every few seconds, not all speakers at once). 

We have a Google Mesh wifi network so were not able to adjust channels/bands. We did try static IPs for all Sonos devices but that made no difference. We spent almost 4 hours troubleshooting with Sonos support all to no avail. We relocated the router, plugged the Sonos directly in to ethernet, reduced the number of Wifi devices connected to our network; all with no success.

2 support representatives tried to tell us that the Roam was not capable of sharing bluetooth audio with the rest of the speakers, to which we pointed out to them that it was already doing so, and then referred them to the support article on the Sonos website with instructions on how to do that very thing. Needless to say, it was not the most joyous 4 hours of my life!

Anyway, at the end of it all they had ran out of ideas and processed a replacement of the Roam under warranty. And to our surprise, the replacement works flawlessly! No more dropping audio and we can hear our turntable on speakers throughout the house. So for anybody spending hours trying to figure out a solution, or spending mega $$ upgrading your wifi system, chances are its just faulty Sonos hardware. 

I read a number of support/forum articles about this when trying to troubleshoot this issue and not a single one was able to get to the bottom of it. Hopefully this will save anyone experiencing the same issue a lot of time and frustration. It’s likely not the wifi; it’s the Roam itself.