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Music Assistant

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Section titled “Sonos ”

Music Assistant has support for Sonos devices. There are two providers available. “Sonos S1” for the S1 devices and “Sonos” for S2.

Features

Section titled “Features”
  • Sonos devices are auto detected by Music Assistant
  • Sonos devices from the same series (S1 or S2) will play in sync when grouped
  • Sonos devices can optionally be grouped with AirPlay devices

AirPlay Functionality

Section titled “AirPlay Functionality”

Many Sonos devices support the AirPlay 1 RAOP protocol and this enables very useful functionality within Music Assistant.

If the Sonos device is grouped with an AirPlay device, or if the default output protocol is changed to AirPlay, then the AirPlay protocol will be used for playback. Other Sonos players can be synced with this player (even if they themselves do not have AirPlay, as the native Sonos protocol will be used for that connection). This means it is possible to play the same audio in perfect sync to a combination of AirPlay and Sonos speakers.

NOTE

If, as a result of grouping, a switch is required to the AirPlay protocol then a small silence due to the stream restart is to be expected.

Settings

Section titled “Settings”

In addition to the Player Provider Settings when setting up this provider the following settings are available:

  • Manual IP addresses for discovery. Not recommended for normal use. Refer to the description in the MA UI

In addition to the Individual Player Settings the Sonos players have the following settings:

  • HTTP profile used for send audio. This is considered to be an advanced setting and should only be adjusted if needed. For example, try the different options if the player stops halfway through a stream or for other playback related issues
  • Sample rates supported by this player. This setting is automatically set upon player discovery but the sample rates and bit depths supported by the player can be manually set. Please note some older (Generation 1) devices only support up to 48kHz/16bit. Content with unsupported sample rates will be resampled
  • Output channel mode. The default is Stereo but other options are Left channel only, Right channel only or Mono (both channels)
  • Output codec to use for streaming audio to the player. The default is FLAC but other options are MP3, AAC or WAV
  • Try to inject metadata into stream (ICY). Enabling this option attempts to provide metadata to the player which can be used to show track info, even when flow mode is enabled. Not all player support this correctly, therefore, if there are issues with playback try disabling this setting. Some devices have this setting disabled
  • Enforce gapless playback with queue flow mode streaming. Enabling this option will send all tracks as a contnuous audio stream. Use for players that dont natively support gapless or crossfading. Can also help with players that have difficulty transitioning between tracks. May have the side effect of losing metadata to the player

Known Issues / Notes

Section titled “Known Issues / Notes”
  • Issues have been reported with the Sonos Arc and Unifi networking equipment. Ensure Multicast DNS and IGMP snooping are turned on if you have problems
  • Issues have been reported with playback not starting on the Sonos Connect Amp and Play:1. If this is encountered then set Enable Queue Flow Mode to ON in the individual player settings
  • S1 and S2 devices cannot be grouped together in the same Sync Group. S1 and S2 devices can be grouped via a Universal Group but will not play in sync
  • Using the Sonos HA Integration at the same time as the MA Sonos S1 player provider may cause problems. It is not possible to run the HA provider and Sonos S1 provider on the same host and additionally these speakers do not like too many requests from too many sources. It is therefore recommended to only use the MA Sonos S1 player provider
  • Syncing Sonos devices with AirPlay devices requires the enabling of an option on the Sonos player
  • Sonos has removed RAOP support from the following models: ERA 100, ERA 300, Move 2 and Arc Ultra. As such, AirPlay streaming (from Music Assistant) to these devices is not possible
  • Sonos firmware changes has resulted in crossfade not working when the output codec is lossless (i.e. FLAC or WAV). Users can either disable crossfade, switch to the MP3 codec or use AirPlay mode