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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
There is a fair bit of misguided comment on this thread. Here is what I understand the situation to be, based on long experience with the Sonos system and on the forum.
When the Sonos system is used, whether with one speaker or many, there is a lag that is essential for synching play between speakers. One could argue that this should be unnecessary if there is only one speaker in the system, but I can see that there may be good programming reasons for not making this distinction.
It has always been the case that a known and positive feature of the Play:5 / Five is that the line-in can be used when the speaker is disconnected from a network, and hence not part of a Sonos system. It has always been necessary to set up line-in Autoplay first, while the speaker is networked.
Now, it is clear that when the speaker is not networked and not being used as part of a Sonos system, the line-in does not need a delay. The fact that in this situation there was a delay has been the subject of numerous complaints and feature requests down the years, from people who wanted to use the speaker standalone for things like electric pianos, karaoke, DJ-ing etc, but who could not do so because of the lag. So I am fairly confident that it was there at one point. It is just possible, but unlikely, that everyone was testing the line-in while still part of a networked Sonos system.
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.
I have not tested the current position myself, but if there is no lag then I am fairly confident in saying that this is nothing to do with SonosNet vs WiFi or WiFi vs Ethernet. It would be to do with Sonos used as part of a networked Sonos system controlled by the Sonos app, where a lag to allow synching is part of the fundamental system design, and the speaker used as a dumb standalone speaker fed audio from an attached external device,
It would be good to have confirmation from someone in Sonos as to whether there is indeed no lag in this particular use case and whether this has always been the case or there has been a change.
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.
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.
