No amplifier is required. The Port (and the Connect before it) accepts a line-level signal, which is what a CD player puts out. The same is true for any other Sonos device which offers a Line-In, such as Amp and Five.

If you’re considering buying a Port solely to connect a CD player it’s a bit of a waste. A Five would be better value, as you’d also be getting an excellent speaker for your money.

Just to be clear, a Connect is not the same as a Port. And older model (gen 1) Connects are unable to run the current S2 firmware. 

On the turntable question, it would go into Sonos the same way as the CD player. You’d need an input selector switch. Also, if the turntable doesn’t have a phono preamp built-in, you’d need a separate preamp.

Thanks for your help much appreciated 

I already have a beam and 2 x play ones in the same room and would like a cd player in the same room 

Would a port then be a better solution 

Also if at a later date i wanted to also have a separate non Sonos speaker set would the port be a more viable solution 

That would swing the argument in favour of a Port. It could stream audio to the third party kit. 

BTW a Line-In facility is independent of whatever else the player is doing. So for example the CD player could be playing through the Port’s Line-In to the Beam, while the Port is playing something completely different to the third party speakers.

I’ve spent hundreds of hours with Sonos representatives and the GeekSquad trying to connect a CD player--any CD player--to my 6-month-old Sonos Port so I can play CDs through my two Play Five speakers, which I also use with the app to stream music. I thought this would be a common thing and there would be simple solutions out there, but it’s not. I’ve read this thread and was surprised to see the following: “If you’re considering buying a Port solely to connect a CD player it’s a bit of a waste. A Five would be better value, as you’d also be getting an excellent speaker for your money.” Everyone has said I need a Port, including the Sonos representative to whom I spoke today. She also said I need a preamp CD player. I’ve concluded that there are only two kinds of preamp CD players without integrated speakers: $30 portable CD players (which do work for 30 seconds, but stop every 30 seconds); high end CD players such as the Denon DM-41 for $500., which is unnecessarily expensive and too deep for my cabinet (I need one less than 11” deep).

     1) Do I in fact need to use my Port to connect to a CD player? (My two speakers are near the ceiling on opposite sides of the room.)

     2) If I need the Port, how can I find a preamp CD player that will work, is less than 11” deep, and is (ideally) $200 or less?

Grateful for any help (not too techy please: I’m not a tech person! )

Most home CD players come with pre-amp level outputs, any of them will connect to your Port with a simple stereo RCA cable.

If you want to connect the pre-amp out of a CD player to a Five or Play 5 you need an stereo RCA to 3.5 mm male cable.

 I’ve concluded that there are only two kinds of preamp CD players without integrated speakers: $30 portable CD players (which do work for 30 seconds, but stop every 30 seconds); high end CD players such as the Denon DM-41 

The Denon you mentioned is an AMPLIFIER player - it will not connect to your Port of Fives.

Any on this list should connect to your Fives. I didn’t look at sizes.

https://www.crutchfield.com/g_53100/CD-Players.html?fa=1&o=p#&nvpair=AG_Outputs|YCAnalog_RCA_Output

Onkyo there, this is the connection you need.

Thank you so much for your incredibly quick and clear reply! Unfortunately, these are all too deep. I remain confused, since BestBuy and Crutchfield said the Denon was a preamp.

I do have the right audio cables: that’s what I used to try to connect the portable CD player, which unfortunately stops after 30 seconds. Most DVD / CD players ARE less than 11” deep, so we tried one, with audio-video cables (not sure what they’re called). But the GeekSquad guy said problem was that Port couldn’t handle having to recognize that we were playing CDs. 

If you have any thoughts about what words I could use to search for the correct kind of CD player (i.e. like the ones you found but I could look for shallower ones), or how I could use one of the many basic DVD/CD players, I’d be grateful for your further help! (With appreciation!)

The Denon does “contain” a pre-amp but it is not accessible by the user or compatible with external devices like Sonos. 

Who at Crutchfield told you the Denon DM-41  was a pre-amp? I’d like to contact them to make sure that doesn’t happen again. Best Buy is beyond hopeless, verging on criminal in my experience.

Any CD / DVD player with RCA Audio Out jacks as I pictured above should work fine if you use the RCA Audio out jacks. If you try to use the Video Out RCA jacks or other connections it may or may not work.

The Port analog input has no clue what you are hooking it to (nor does the Five) it just sees an analog audio signal coming in from your connection cables and plays that.

Hook the CD player jacks similar to the first picture to the Port jacks in the second picture.

@jsp290 I'm using a Connect, the predecessor to the Port, with a Marantz CD 5400 (http://www.audioreview.com/product/digital-sources/cd-players/marantz/cd5400.html) myself. This is a very common and, despite your experience, simple way to use the Port 9or in my case a Connect). You connect the CD-player's RCA line out (shown in the message above by @Stanley_4 ) to the RCA line in on the Port, and group the Port in the Sonos app with the Sonos speakers you want. You can even set a preferred speaker the Port can play to in the settings for the Port in the Sonos app. I can confirm this works perfectly: I turn on the Marantz, put in a CD, start ist up and the sound comes from my Sonos Beam (my preferred speaker for the Connect)..

My CD-player, like all CD-players from wellknown manufacturers, has a line level output to the Port. Only turntables do not as standard give a line level output so can need a preamp to get a line level output to the Port.

Based on your description you might be confusing “amp” and “preamp” here. The Denon you are referring to is not only a CD-player, but also has an Amp, so it is able to drive passive speakers. It however does not have an RCA output to feed a Sonos Port.

So you just need a CD-player to connect to the Port, not an amp or a preamp. 

This IS a common thing - with reservations I will go into later - and if you have play 5 speakers you do not even need a Port. Any bog standard CD player if it can be found seeing that they are obsolete now, will have an output jack/s that have to be wired to the line in jack on one of the speakers, using the stereo wire with the right jacks at both ends.

The reservation: CD players are obsolete because of how CD content is these days is kept on a hard disc that can be wired to a router and this content can then be wirelessly played via just Sonos speakers. A more common use now for the line in jack on the 5 speaker is for wiring a turntable to it.

The last bit, the GeekSquad response, is rubbish.

I assume that in the first sentence, you had connected the portable CD player to the Port and managed to hear music for 30 seconds from the play 5 speakers? If it stopped only thereafter there are some other troubleshooting steps to take, and not to just abandon this CD player.

And once you get this set up to work well, if you wish the CD player can also be connected directly to one of the play 5 speakers bypassing the port. The jack on the connecting wire will be different because unlike the Port that has two input jacks, the play 5 has just one stereo jack that takes signals from both stereo channels. You may actually also solve the 30 second problem this way if it arises at the Sonos end and not the CD player end. So I would actually try this route first to troubleshoot the 30 second issue. You will just need to change out the connecting cable to do so.

Finally, what can you play on CDs that you can't on Spotify, to go to all this trouble?!

@Kumar @jsp290 's speakers are up high, near the ceiling. That could make placement of a CD-player awkward, whence the need for a Port.

He's already decided he wants to play CD's, so I didn't go in to other propositions. And not all CD's I own are on Spotify

Let’s see what the questioner says; wiring a suitably long wire to just one of the speakers up high is a one time effort, with the portable CD player still remaining in hand.

All this bother only if she has CDs missing from Spotify!

This portable CD player.., using line out or the headphone socket?

Just curious since all the thousand odd I have seem to be there; a couple of examples of such from your collection?

Don’t have Spotify but my collection has several CDs that are missing from Amazon Unlimited. Some of them are for sale as CDs on Amazon, some are not.

Couple of examples? I can then check on Spotify and Apple Music to see if they are missing there as well because I think the libraries of both are close to identical.

It is quite possible some my CDs are missing too, but I have not discovered that till now! There are many in that lot that I haven't troubled myself yet to look for on Spotify. Or thought of, to stream.

I think these were among the ones, not spending the time to dig through the library and verify.

It will take me some time to look up all in a couple of places; the Chants and Ishizaka are there on Spotify.

Any CDs have been privately made and distributed, won’t be there of course; I know I have some of that kind that are not there even on the Gracenote Database.

The portable CD user is silent, and we may never know exactly why CDs are needed to be played at all in her case, so this brief discussion may not be relevant to this thread.

I also wonder if any streaming service offers the option of playing uploaded CDs that aren’t there in the service library. That might be a useful feature even for a small fee.

iBroadcast is a free cloud service - perfect for ripped cd storage and playback. 

That’s an option if missing CDs is the problem, although if a streaming service was to offer this as an add on feature, making playlists that feature missing CDs and also those that aren't would be possible as well as offering a unified interface to all the music one could want.

Actually, the CD I ordered two weeks ago is not on Spotify: https://www.hoornseplas.net/los/

It might not mean anything to you, but posting this here is a good opportunity to mention Pé Daalemmer en Rooie Rinus on a english language forum :-)

Quite right, though albums from these artistes do feature, and more of them on Apple Music. Presumably you can also buy this one as a digital download and then use that for Sonos play via NAS or iBroadcast, so even for this a CD isn't really a must.

When I started using streaming services a couple of years ago, the library size was 30 million songs. Apple Music now has 90 million songs and I suspect so would Spotify. So over time, the population of missing CDs is dropping significantly.

I mostly stream from music services these days, but still have my own CD’s (now stored in the loft gathering dust).

Many moons ago, I just used to ‘rip’ the discs and store the tracks (initially on a computer and later on a NAS box) and enjoy doing their tags and album art etc.

My ‘slight’ regret is I opted for the lossy 320 AAC format, rather than .flac lossless, as storage was very expensive initially and whilst I could perhaps go back and start over, I just don’t think the time spent doing that would bring about any benefit for my own ears.

I use the NAS Box(es) locally and in more recent times ‘remotely’ too when travelling around in the camper van using Plex & Sonos, but my longer term aim is to find a decent online storage method to do away with the NAS boxes completely and just put everting online.

I’ve tried iCloud with Apple Music and Google Play storage, but I personally want more control, where I can rip, upload, edit the tags and play to Sonos through an interface that I can customise for how I like to view my music and maybe still use Plex aswell. I’ve not yet quite found the solution that I’m looking for.. but streaming my own (purchased) music library and still use online streaming services too is what I’m aiming for and the same goes for video/movies, for playing on my Mobile/Tablet/TV’s at Home and whilst travelling. 

Pretty much the same sequence of events here - CDs boxed for many years now, and for the last two, even the NAS that contains the content on the CDs is hardly used. Instead the local music I use is a subset of the NAS, only because I can play that via voice commands to Echo Show devices and get the music to play on Sonos kit downstream, with album art visible on the Show. This, via a USB stick that has the content and is plugged into a Raspberry PI.

Why would you want to put everything in the NAS online and not just the content that is not on your streaming service?