Sonos 5 line Only ( no delay )

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35 replies

K

I don’t know enough of all you are saying except to say - experiment away! No harm can come of that.

But I don’t suppose this solution will work if one wants to use two 5 units as left/right channels for TV via audio out jacks on the TV?

PS: It should work actually, if one wires the left channel from the TV to one unit, and the right to the other, with no need to set up the 5 units as a stereo pair?

And then, via some of the stuff you are referring to, also be able to stream music from the net via the two units, in stereo?

That would be neat. Too good to be true?!

M
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I don’t know enough of all you are saying except to say - experiment away! No harm can come of that.

But I don’t suppose this solution will work if one wants to use two 5 units as left/right channels for TV via audio out jacks on the TV?

i think if you only wish to do that and do not care about thr Sonos app, it can work easily, buy following the above steps on each P5 and using ratty`s method to split the jack.

that will work in offline mode.

the challenge is to do that but still use the app to control the Sonos devices.

 

 

K

i think if you only wish to do that and do not care about thr Sonos app, it can work easily, buy following the above steps on each P5 and using ratty`s method to split the jack.

that will work in offline mode.

the challenge is to do that but still use the app to control the Sonos devices.

 

 

As I said in my PS - there is no need to even split the jack if the TV has two. 

As to challenge, yes, but I thought you wanted the next one?!

ratty

the challenge is to do that but still use the app to control the Sonos devices.

An app needs a network. Once upon a time, when Androids could still connect to SonosNet, a device could attach directly to a standalone speaker, or even a whole system, using AutoIP addressing. 

K

If one doesn’t care about such matters and is obsessed with treating Sonos units as dumb reproducers then by all means go ahead. A waste of resources IMO, since a couple of regular active speakers would do the job better, cheaper, and with less energy usage. 

Agreed; this becomes interesting only if said Sonos units could revert back and forth in a quick way between being a regular Sonos pair, and such dumb units.

Such units would sound, IMO, just as good a bar solution for TV, but be much better for music. They won’t do atmos and the like, but I am dubious about how much more that adds to the movie experience in the home at this time of where that tech is.

M
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If Sonos has played a no-network-no-buffering trick for standalone Line-In Autoplay then a stereo pair would imply that buffering would be reinstated for the network connection between the two.

Sending L and R separately to two standalone speakers could result in slight timing differences and hence skew of the soundstage. There’d be no exchange of timestamps to maintain sync between what are still digital computers that can get distracted by internal process scheduling. 

If one doesn’t care about such matters and is obsessed with treating Sonos units as dumb reproducers then by all means go ahead. A waste of resources IMO, since a couple of regular active speakers would do the job better, cheaper, and with less energy usage. 

totally true for the L and R standaone speakers, however i do think that using the same Sonos speakers in this setup will be a good option, again if they exists already

and obviously , purchasing Sonos for just that use case  is overrated.

the purpose of this thread is to have a line-in offline mode with no delay for dumb use cases, as i realy enjoy the quality of Sonos speakers compared to others.

 

 

M
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If one doesn’t care about such matters and is obsessed with treating Sonos units as dumb reproducers then by all means go ahead. A waste of resources IMO, since a couple of regular active speakers would do the job better, cheaper, and with less energy usage. 

Agreed; this becomes interesting only if said Sonos units could revert back and forth in a quick way between being a regular Sonos pair, and such dumb units.

Such units would sound, IMO, just as good a bar solution for TV, but be much better for music. They won’t do atmos and the like, but I am dubious about how much more that adds to the movie experience in the home at this time of where that tech is.

reverting back and forth could be possible using some network tricks

 

my question is it worth it wasting time and experiment on this option?

K

reverting back and forth could be possible using some network tricks

 

my question is it worth it wasting time and experiment on this option?

I would say that depends on your expectations of worth. It may be zero in money terms.

I do not need it; my TV set ups are pretty much of the type ratty describes with no Sonos in them. Where I need the back and forth, this is done via active speakers with twin input jack pairs, both of which can wake up the speakers from standby mode, so I can also have a Echo Show play music on the same speakers that do TV duty, with no user action except a voice command to play the music I want.

But there may be others interested in future; and even without any more work at your end, this will be a useful thread for the next DJ/mixer type that comes here saying why can I not use my Sonos kit for this.

If he can find this thread.

K

 

So if there is now no lag when a P5 / Five is used standalone, off network and from the line-in, my best guess is that Sonos have responded to those asking for the unnecessary lag to be removed in this use case.

 

This is the only part I disagree because I see no reason for Sonos to have been shy about offering such a response.

But yes, any Sonos voice on this would be useful.

S
Userlevel 7
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My thoughts are also nothing has changed from Sonos side - just that nobody had tried as a standalone speaker (which seems also strange that it hadn't been suggested/tried).

For sure, it's certainly not worth buying a smart speaker to use this way - but a great way of using an existing one for non delayed PC/TV use.

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