Hi @HappyDaddy007
Welcome to the Sonos Community!
HappyDaddy007 wrote:
I'm wondering if I can connect the Beam to the Amp via ethernet in one of the Amp ports, connecting the other Amp port to the network.
Yes, but with caveats.
HappyDaddy007 wrote:
And then use the Amps HDMI port to connect with the Sonos converter to optical audio to connect to the matrix?
Yes, if the matrix has an optical output. Also with caveats, however.
HappyDaddy007 wrote:
My objective is to group the Beam and speakers connected to the amp together and have them play sound based on switched devices on the HDMI matrix, without any audio delay between the Beam and speakers.
This is where the caveats come in. First though, you wouldn’t need to take both these steps, just one - ethernet or HDMI. In either case, however, audio synchronisation cannot be guaranteed.
In the case of HDMI/Optical, the TV may induce latency on the signals as it processes them and before it passes the audio on to the Beam. You should be able to counter this effect by adding a small delay to the audio on the Amp.
In the case of ethernet, the two rooms can be grouped together in the Sonos app, but as the audio stream must go via the router and the Beam will not wait for this to happen so that it can stay in sync with the picture, we again cannot guarantee that the synchronisation will be perfect. The two devices sharing an ethernet connection will give the best chance of getting there using this method, though. In this setup, Amp would be behind, so a delay would not help, and any delay on the Beam would put it out of sync with the picture.
Another option would be to have a second TV for the Amp and matrix to connect to, but again, synchronisation may be difficult. In this case, I don’t think they would be far out, and a small adjustment should help.
I hope this helps.