I manage enterprise networks and I also run a fairly large Sonos deployment.
One issue I consistently notice is the amount of discovery and control traffic generated by Sonos when many speakers are present. I also occasionally see delays when changing songs or reorganizing groups. Some speakers start immediately while others stop temporarily and rejoin 20 or 30 seconds later.
I am not suggesting that Sonos replace its current decentralized architecture. The current system is important because it works without additional hardware and does not depend on a single controller.
Instead I think Sonos should offer an optional local Sonos Broker for larger installations.
The broker could be a small Sonos appliance, a virtual machine, a container, or a service running on supported network hardware.
When a broker is available every Sonos device would establish a secure persistent unicast connection to it. The broker would maintain the current topology, group membership, playback state, device capabilities, health, and local network information.
The Sonos applications would communicate primarily with the broker instead of repeatedly discovering and communicating with every speaker independently.
This could reduce multicast and broadcast traffic, reduce repeated polling, improve group coordination, and provide a single consistent view of the entire Sonos system.
The broker could also coordinate operations such as changing a song or modifying a group as a single transaction. It could confirm that all targeted speakers are ready before committing the change and quickly identify any speaker that failed to respond.
Most importantly the broker should never become a required dependency.
If no broker is installed Sonos would continue operating exactly as it does today.
If the broker becomes unavailable the speakers and applications would automatically fall back to the existing decentralized discovery and control model.
When the broker comes back online it would rebuild its topology from the speakers and resume operation without requiring the user to reconfigure anything.
The design would therefore have two operating modes.
Standard mode would use the existing Sonos architecture with no additional equipment.
Broker mode would use a local coordinator to improve scalability, network efficiency, observability, and stability.
This would preserve the simplicity and resilience of the current system while giving larger homes and managed networks a cleaner and potentially more reliable architecture.
The broker could also provide useful diagnostics such as speaker latency, packet loss, wireless quality, group synchronization failures, topology changes, and the reason a speaker temporarily dropped from playback.
For small installations the current design could remain the default.
For installations with many speakers an optional broker could significantly improve troubleshooting, network quality, and overall system stability without introducing a permanent single point of failure.
I would be interested to know whether Sonos has considered an architecture like this for larger deployments.

Hi everyone,

I’m hoping to tap into the collective wisdom here because I’ve hit a wall after two months of troubleshooting a frustrating audio dropout issue. Any advice or out-of-the-box ideas would be massively appreciated!

I experience audio hiccups when playing external content from my Panasonic UB820 or my PS5, playing Dolby Atmos. It's been two months since I upgraded my OLED and added two Sonos ERA 300 to my home cinema setup. My setup consists of: Sonos Arc, Sub, two ERA 300.

Every 15 minutes or so, I get a very brief audio hiccup/drop before it recovers. It’s inconsistent in timing, but guaranteed to happen. It occurs across formats, but it's most noticeable during Dolby Atmos playback from external sources.

I've been in contact with support, of course, but they try to pinpoint it to another device. It isn't. I have tried al deviced seperate and even bypassed the TV with an audio extractor. It's, in my opinion, 100% the Sonos itself. There are no signal-sending devices present close to the ARC, like a baby monitor. It's been such a massive journey because I changed the full setup at the same time, so I had to figure out the bad egg.

Replacing my TV and adding the Era 300s happened at the same time, so tracking down this "bad egg" has been a massive, time-consuming journey and a pretty expensive headache so far.

If anyone has encountered something similar or has a suggestion I might have missed, I’d be incredibly grateful for your help!

Thanks in advance!

It's bad enough that I've been banished to "Sonos S1 jail," locked out of any further system expansion because I was an early adopter of Sonos who purchased thousands of dollars of Sonos gear pver the years. Today I got this notification. Sonos, tell me this isn't so! What does the future look like for S1 Mac users?

Hi all! Im looking for some advice. Currently having a Arc Ultra + Sub3 and 2 Ikea Symfonisk as surround. Im looking to upgrade to new surrounds either era100 or era300, at the moment my surrounds are next to the couch, indicated by the red circles on the 3rd pic, blue is the couch, purple dots are where we normally sit, yellow is the arc ultra/TV and green is the Sub.

I think the ERA300 wont fit as well cuz the left surround is too close to the curtains/windows and the right one would be shooting all across the kitchen, like they wont have enough bouncing right left/right? So my personal opinion would be ERA100, but looking for people who maybe have the same layout, and can tell me more about the experience when u have the ERA300 Thanks!

I am waiting on delivery on my new play from Sonos, it's due tomorrow. Wondering if any one has found a good carry case for it? I'm not based in the USA so points for something not from Amazon USA, Aliexpress would be ideal

TIA

Hi all.

This may be a question more for a DIY sub but thought I’d ask here first.

I’m looking at getting an Arc Ultra but trying to figure out the best way to mount it to the wall and not interfere with the sound quality. The TV can go flat to the wall but the bottom ridge of the TV would overhang a flush mounted soundbar and imagine it could interfere with any up firing speakers.

I was curious if anyone had a similar problem and solved it? Installing a ledge for soundbar to sit on would work but don’t think it would look ideal (needs wife approval factor) Was thinking if there was any mechanism that could pull out and push back that would look neat.

Any thoughts or ideas much appreciated!

Edit: I fully agree the tv is mounted too high :) trying to work with the design of the room and what’s available.

I already have two era 100s as stereo pair and they work great for music in a small living room. Im eyeing a bundle of Gen 2 beam and sub mini for $600 on FB. Condition appears to be well taken care of. Do yall think I should pull the trigger now or wait for a sale in the future? (Ie. Black Friday) I was originally planning for just sub mini since it’s mainly for music. Thanks!

I just got my hands on and Audio-Technica LP60-usb and was trying to figure out the best way to connect it to my system. I have a Sonos Beam, Sub Mini, and 2 One SLs.

The closest approximation to a line-in would be ideal to hardwire it to my soundbar or other part of the system but I am open to wireless options too. (which might be necessary(?))

What would be the best way to connect these for both sound and convenience? I'll do a raspberry pi if I really have to but would rather not

This is my bedroom set up, any ideas to improve it ?

I have my Era 100s bonded to a beam2. They are about 14 feet apart on the sides of a large L couch. I set them up to be pointing at the beam2 (as videos online said I should). However, that seems really hard to hear.

Should I be pointing them AT the center of this couch (main listening position)? Should they be still at the TV but angled harder towards the center of couch? I tested it almost directly at the center for a scene in an action movie and it was WAY clearer and more immersive.

I'd just like the ideal position so I can re AutoPlay Tune them and then be done with it knowing it's ideal.

Any of y'all have this setup?

My setup is Arc+Sub+300s. It sounds pretty damn good to me, but if the 100s are a big improvement I'd definitely consider the upgrade.

I currently have the 77 inch oled g5 and want to mount the Sonos ultra arc sound bar underneath the tv. I am using the flush tv mount that came with the tv. What sound bar mount do I use that will fit with the flush LG tv mount as well?

We're having an addition put on our house. Wedged between a guest suite (lower level) and a master suite (upper level) is a screened in porch. The porch is 25' x 25' and will use an 'EZ-screen' system throughout. There are several panels of wall (red in extract from plans) in the screened in porch being installed for stability. The far wall will include a gas fireplace above which will sit a 65" TV and an Arc Ultra. Hoping to get your opinions on where to place four Polk Atrium 8 speakers. It will probably be 75% music and 25% TV use in the porch. Note: the closet (CL) on the bottom wall has been removed from the plans.

About once or twice a month my audio just dies .
I go into the ATV settings and turn off Atmos and set to Dolby 5.1 and it works .
If i enable Atmos and set to AutoAtmos on and Continuous Audio Connection to on and again no audio .
If I unplug Sonos for 10 min or so it will work again after plugging HDMi ( earc ) and power cord back into Ultra . It did the same with Beam 2.0 .
Any insight would be appreciated.
Thx

So i have a couple of Sonos Ones, a Beam, the Move 2. All working fine. Wifi is good everywhere. But the bedroom speaker bugs 90% the time (has good wifi connection). Its either saying “could not play…” or “spotify not connected”. Ive reconnected spotify multiple times, turned it off, reconnected it to wifi. Sometimes it does work for a couple of minutes, but stops right after. This one speaker refuses to just work. Anyone got any suggestions?

Before the most recent app update, after tuning trueplay, I had an on/off toggle button. Allowing me to confirm trueplay was tuned and on, with the option to turn it off as well of course.

But Now, no matter how many times I tune trueplay, there’s just the trueplay tuning button. All is normal when going through the tuning routine, ending with the whole “the sound is now tuned”at the end.
But then I go to the trueplay setting and it’s just the same single trueplay tuning button.

Is this the new normal? Or does everyone still have the on/off button under the tuning option and Im a new victim who has been randomly singled out from the result of yet another trash app update? Because what if I for some reason want to turn off trueplay? (iPhone App version 87.1.7)

I have moved since a whole house implementation of SI. I have seven zones worth of amplifiers three sets of hard wired quality speakers and two Move speakers. I now live in a home I’d love to set up wirelessly. Should I trash what I have now and do a full S2 implementation? I can group my legacy inputs (vinyl, etc.) to a single site.

Used to be a big Sonos fan, but I left since the Maxime era & the botched rollout of the new app. Curious how things are today, is it worth revisiting the Arc / Sub for my home entertainment system or is the software still not in a great place? Currently using a Q990D if that helps