Question

Audio delay between rooms when playing from AV Receiver

  • 11 December 2015
  • 7 replies
  • 2059 views

Gents,

I am new around this community, although I am using Sonos for about 8 months. I started with a Connect for the living room (to control the AV Receiver powered 7.1 system). Then I got another 2.1 + AV Receiver in the bedroom, which asked for another Connect, than Connect AMP for stereo speaker in the bathroom and another Connect AMP for a pair of B&W in the office area.
When I got all these together I found a buzzing delay between living room and the other 3 rooms. But this is happening only when I play the audio from the TV through Line-In, NOT when I am using online radio or play music from my phone/cloud/any other digital straight source.
Details for set-up of the living room system: the IPTV cable goes into the TV Receiver. Then, through a HDMI cable, both sound and video go to CBL/SAT input from the Denon AVR-X4100 A/V Receiver. The video signal goes out from the A/V Receiver to the TV through HDMI cable (ARC Monitor output from receiver and ARC input into TV). The TV is a 2012 Samsung Smart TV that has HDMI-CEC (Anynet+) function and it is active. From the same A/V receiver I take off the sound through the Optical Link and plugged into Connect's Optical In. So the Connect is basically taking the sound from the AV Receiver and sending it to the other 3 rooms. In the living room there is a 7.1 system (B&W based) connected to the A/V Receiver.
The point is that somewhere on the road, the living room speakers sound is ~ half second in front of the other rooms' sound. I mention that the other rooms have the same delay (all 3 sound the same, only the living room is ahead of time).
Any idea how can I fix this delay? Makes sense to have a small delay, because of the Optical Cable between AV Receiver and Connect, but maybe is something that can be done, as it is annoying to get from one room to another and to get the sound offset....

Sorry for the long post, but I wanted to make it as clear as I can :)

Cheers !

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7 replies

The reason for this is the Connect has to digitize the incoming analog signal in order to send it out to the other rooms. This takes time (approximately 75 ms). Unless your receiver allows you to delay the audio to the speakers, while keeping the audio out to the Connect the same, there's really nothing that can be done.
I am having the same issue with my Connect and a Yamaha Aventage RX-A1030. Adjusting the delay on the receiver isn't going to help because it can only be made slower ... not faster. There needs to be a delay on the Sonos speakers to compensate for the digitizing delay in the receiver. I'm new to Sonos (1 week owner). Is this a problem they are aware of and are trying to address?
thanks @jgatie

I was actually thinking right now to get the audio signal out from TV Receiver to the Sonos Connect (the TV receiver has a optical S/PDIF I remember, and to use the RCA input from Connect) and from the Connect to the AV Receiver through Optical cable.... this way the delay should be 0, as all 4 Sonos play from the Living Room Connect. The problem comes when I want to play something from the Av Receiver (Blu-Ray maybe) in the whole house - I have to switch cables ever time I guess...
This Denon X4100 says that I can adjust the Audio Delay from 0 to 200 ms, and standard setting is 0 ms. I will give it a try, if this is valid only for speakers or also for the Optical Out.
Is this a problem they are aware of and are trying to address?

Not that we are aware of. Technically, this is very difficult because the latency has been incorporated in order to make streaming more robust. One of the reasons that competing systems don't stream as well as SONOS is because they lack this latency.
thanks @jgatie

I was actually thinking right now to get the audio signal out from TV Receiver to the Sonos Connect (the TV receiver has a optical S/PDIF I remember, and to use the RCA input from Connect) and from the Connect to the AV Receiver through Optical cable.... this way the delay should be 0, as all 4 Sonos play from the Living Room Connect. The problem comes when I want to play something from the Av Receiver (Blu-Ray maybe) in the whole house - I have to switch cables ever time I guess...


I don't know why nobody has picked up on this but you are NOT using the optical input on the connect, for the simple reason that it doesn't have an optical input. The connect only has an optical OUTPUT.
I am about to install The Behringer Shark FBQ100 to fix a delay issue I'm having with a Sonos Connect that's splitting my input volume control into 2 zones. Will advise, if it works.