Network Details (Including networking gear model/manufacturer and if on WiFi/Ethernet)
Orbi router, and wifi extenders. Wifi speed is always 350mbps or higher.
Audio Devices (Specify what device you’re using and its connection type - USB/HDMI/etc.)
Bowers & Wilkins Formation Duo + Sub in one room.
Bowers & Wilkins Formation Wedge in three separate rooms.
Description Of Issue
When playing music via the Roon Nucleus with all four rooms grouped as one room, the music in each room slowly becomes out of sync – causing an annoying echo like throughout the house.
I am very familiar with the multi-room Sonos setup.
I recently bought the B&W Formation set-up – they sound great.
I can play music from any source directly to the speakers via the Spotify app (for example).
However, once I play via Roon, things get all out of sync.
The Roon iPhone app, by the way, is useless – just crashes after 15 seconds of use – always.
I am extremely frustrated and want to return the Roon Nucleus and delete my Roon membership.
However, I’m not sure if it’s a Roon issue, or a B&W issue, or an Airplay issue or what.
Can someone please help? I’m going nuts!
I just want to play the same music, in multiple rooms.
I have Apple Music, Spotify, Tidal, and my music connected to the Nucleus via the USB port and a hard drive.
I had to do a little reading up on the B&W Formation speakers. Not sure I understand correctly but it sounds like they have a wireless communication ability separate from your home network. So, how do you have the speakers configured in Roon for the multiple rooms? Separate zones or one zone with the speakers handling the wireless sync?
Sorry if this is a silly question, just trying to understand your setup.
I have three separate B&W Wedge speakers in three separate rooms, each set up as its own “room.” Then I have the B&W Formation Duo (two speakers), and the B&W Formation Sub in one room together set us as its own “room.” Then I go into group zones (the paperclip) and make them all one “zone” or “room.”
I’m pretty techy, but I’m clueless as to what areas I should be investigating. Roon? The Speakers? My WiFi? Airplay?
I have also looked on these forums, and they seems helpful, but I am striking out on finding any answers, searching, or even understanding some of the answers. Many folks are very knowledgeable on here and may have more complicated systems. Mine seems very easy — speakers in a few different rooms — when grouped — all get crazy out of sync. And I think, they sort of s l o w l y get out of sync. They start off okay, and then in 30 minutes or so the acid-trip out-of-sync weirdness slowly begins.
Anyway, if anyone can offer up suggestions on where to start digging around, that would be great. Thanks in advance — it’s much appreciated!
keeping non RAAT (Roon Ready) endpoints in sync will be a challenge. Support will come along soon I hope and give you some things to look at or ask for more info.
I read that the speakers have Ethernet ports. Is that an option?
Also curious if the speakers have their own wireless communication network if its possible to have one zone for Roon connection and the speakers sync up.
Have no idea, just tossing out stuff.
Update: Did a little more reading up on these formation speakers. They are listed as Roon Ready, indicating they have the RAAT network code built in but they also have their own mesh network.
How do you have the speakers setup? Do you have the internal mesh network enabled. Seems to me using them as individual Roon end-points would require the speaker to speaker communication to be disabled. Could be a control conflict causing the out of sync issue.
I also see the formation audio component that is roon ready. The roon signal would go to the Audio component and it would keep the speakers in sync using the internal wireless configuration.
All the reviews are very positive, great sound etc. and mention working well with Roon. I did not find any mention of the sync issue.
Wish I had your speaker setup to play around with.
Sorry to see you’re having issues with your setup, let’s figure out what’s going on.
When playing music via the Roon Nucleus with all four rooms grouped as one room, the music in each room slowly becomes out of sync – causing an annoying echo like throughout the house.
There is a known issue with Bowers & Wilkins Formation devices and grouped zone synchronization when the devices are waking from standby mode. B&W is aware of this issue and investigating a fix.
Currently this behavior results in the Formation devices playing out-of-sync until playback is stopped and restarted. Based on your symptoms I’m not sure this issue the culprit behind your issues – but it’s worth a shot. To execute a “Force Stop” simply pause the track for more five seconds and then restart playback.
If the “Force Stop” doesn’t resolve the issue, report back and we’ll investigate further.
The Roon iPhone app, by the way, is useless – just crashes after 15 seconds of use – always.
We are investigating reports of crashes of the Roon app on iOS, could you tell us what type of iPhone you are running and what version of iOS you have installed?
At this point in time, we believe that restarting the iOS device resolves this issue for most users. Simply power off and then power on the iPhone and then try opening the Roon app again.
I am extremely frustrated and want to return the Roon Nucleus and delete my Roon membership.
However, I’m not sure if it’s a Roon issue, or a B&W issue, or an Airplay issue or what.
Can someone please help? I’m going nuts!
One of the advantages of using the Roon Nucleus with Roon Ready devices is that we maintain a working relationship with our partners should issues pop up. We’re here to help get things up and running like they should. Let us know the results of your testing and we’ll go from there.
Hi John, has B&W issued a time line that a fix will be in the works? I also just upgraded to an all B&W/Roon system and have been experiencing the same issue with syncing. Pausing and hitting restart does fix it but it eventually will become out of sync again. Pretty frustrating.
Hello @john. Currently this syncing issue is holding me off on going in with Roon. Although I know the issue is not with Roon but on B&W side, did you ever heard from a fix on this from B&W side? I’m beginning to fear that B&W already given up on their Formation suite, they do not respond, they don’t fix issues, there are no updates in like ages! Hope you have some kind of update on this syncing issue.
