synched music in different rooms

  • 16 November 2018
  • 4 replies
  • 3095 views

Hi. I have two sonos one in two different rooms. If i group them to different rooms they will not play in sync, but if i set them to the same room they are in sync. Why is that?

They are both connected to the same wifi.

This topic has been closed for further comments. You can use the search bar to find a similar topic, or create a new one by clicking Create Topic at the top of the page.

4 replies

I'm not sure I understand the phrase "group them to different rooms".

If you're trying to play the same music in sync in both rooms, the two rooms need to be grouped together. The system isn't designed to be in sync if you're playing the same music in two un-grouped rooms.

But I think we're running into a language barrier here, too, i.e there's some technical data that we might need to clear up.

Basically, Sonos deals with three kinds of connections for speakers:

1) Bonding. This is a semi-permanent connection of speakers. Generally reserved for adding a SUB to a speaker, or surrounds to a soundbar

2) Pairing. This creates a stereo grouping of speakers, where one is the left speaker signal, the other is the right signal.

3) Grouping. This is setting up two or more "rooms" to play the same music in sync, and is transitory (easy to set up and remove) Note that each "room" can consist of single speakers, stereo speakers, or a 5.1 system.

What you should be doing is 3) in this case. Start the playback of your music in room 1, and then group room 2 with it. Both *should* be in sync. If they aren't, there's an issue somewhere, and you probably need to run a diagnostic and contact Sonos to discuss it. There may be information included in the diagnostic that will help Sonos

If this isn't as clear as you think it needs to be, please feel free to ask for more clarity. Or more help. 🙂
Hi Again and thanks for the fast reply.

I see that this was easy to misunderstand. I use option 3. I just wondered if they could play the same music from radio / Spotify in sync if they where played in different rooms. The music is getting heard from other rooms so it is a bit irretating that it «lags» somewhere.

As You said we fix this lag today by grouping them togheter. But if you turn up the volume on one, you do it at both.

Could this maybe be a idea for a update later? it would be much Easier when you listen to radio around the house.
Userlevel 7
Badge +22
Yes of course you can play the same music in different rooms in sync. And as you point out the way to do it is to GROUP the speakers. You can individually control the speaker volume either by using the volume controls on the top of the speakers or the volume control in the Sonos app when you will be presented with individual sliders for each speaker (or stereo pair).
It really doesn't make any sense to play the same music as separate streams from the internet. These will never even reach your router in sync so there is nothing Sonos could do to sync them. As others have said, grouping is the way Sonos is designed to do multiroom sync, and very clever it is too.

As Stuart said, if you touch the volume slider when rooms are grouped you get separate, independent volume controls for each 'room' in the group.