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Audio delay / Sonos Five / Airplay movies from a Macbook

  • 29 March 2023
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I have two Sonos Five speakers set up as my Living Room. When watching movies (set up: MacBook Air connected to my TV via a HDMI cable / output selected as ‘Living Room’), I experience a delay in the audio, the audio being behind the video. I have been told by Sonos that there is nothing I can do about this unless I buy a soundbar and stream the audio through that, using my Sonos Fives as surround sound, but I find it hard to believe that there is no work around here.

Strangely, if I watch Youtube videos with the same set up described above, there is no delay. When using VLC or Quicktime however, there is. 

Does anyone have a hack that can be used here? 

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Best answer by Jamie A 31 March 2023, 17:41

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Jamie A
Userlevel 7
Badge +16

Hi @bobuboy, welcome to the Sonos Community!

What you’ve heard from support is correct, we’d recommend a soundbar when playing TV shows or movies. As TV audio and video is high bandwidth, a HDMI connection is easily able to provide this information to a soundbar in a fast and efficient way. The soundbar then uses the 5ghz band send this information to the rest of your Home Theatre Sonos configuration, such as surround or sub audio.

Airplay on the other hand, uses 2.4ghz to send information to your Sonos speakers, and the speakers themselves communicate via 2.4ghz when they are stereo paired, only using 5ghz while in a Home Theatre Sonos configuration. Due to this, you may notice a delay with certain sources. 

There isn’t any workaround that would resolve this. You could try to force the Fives onto the 5ghz band of your router, but this may break the stereo pair.

I hope this information helps!

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