I have a multi-room Sonos system, which works flawlessly with the Sonos app. I have recently invested in a Rock NUC, which is 95% flawless, but I have a question, and an issue.
The question is: Why is there inconsistency in the graphics shown by Roon against the pictures of the Sonos gear?
So in this picture, the “Bedroom” is a Sonos Soundbar and two surround speakers. And it gets the Soundbar graphic, but the Lounge is similar, yet it gets a generic speaker. Likewise, the Dining Room is a pair of Play 5 speakers, and it gets a picture of a similar speaker, but the Kitchen is a single Play 5 speaker, and it gets the generic picture. Should I be worried that Roon is somehow not “picking up” my system correctly?
To the issue, then. When I group and ungroup speakers it doesn’t always fully ungroup. The issue happens with the stereo pair in the Dining Room. A couple of times now, I’ve been listening to music in the Lounge, grouped the speakers with the Dining Room, and when I ungrouped the Dining Roon, one of the stereo pair in that room kept playing.
This is a first after several years of ownership, they always behave perfectly with the Sonos app, so it is an issue with the Roon control of Sonos.
I realise a system this complex will have glitches, but if I can better understand some of the variables, maybe I can fix it for myself and help improvements for all for the future. I have, of course, rebooted everything, I have reinstalled the Roon control app too.
Yes, all appear to be recognised correctly to my eyes anyway, all with Sonos Streaming (not Airplay). Although interestingly maybe, only the older gear seems to be showing as “Roon Tested”. Here’s the screenshot:
This may be the reason. I’m not a Sonos user, so can’t help further. However, I suggest you edit the original post and move it to Support, so it has greater visibility.
Also, note that Roon are out of the office until Tuesday.
Newer Sonos devices like the Move and Roam do not have icon’s and are not grouped with the other’s.
I generally think Roon do not test or do much work with them and no longer test them.
The ungrouping bug has been there since 1.7 (at least).
Sadly there are other reports of issues from a lot of user’s and the silence is deafening
I think Roon are focused on RAAT and anything else (besides Chromecast and AirPlay) is not getting much attention.
Thanks Michael, I appreciate the insight - as a new member here I haven’t picked up on the nuances of how Roon approaches ironing out bugs and where their priorities are.
@benjamin Maybe you could fill us in on whether the Sonos ungrouping bug will be fixed, and if there is “Roon Tested” status for newer Sonos gear in the pipeline, and maybe a bit more general love coming for us Sonos owners?
Roon is fantastic, but so is Sonos, and I won’t be replacing my investment in Sonos for many years if ever, so this would be important to know. I suspect I am not the only one…
Phil no problem at all.
I came to Roon from an all Sonos house, issue with Roon/Sonos have now made me a half Sonos house.
Truthfully Sonos is a great ecosystem and so easy, but some of my original kit was from 2006 and getting long in the tooth. I still have about 8 speakers and a couple of Moves and Roams as well.
I traded my Sonos amp in due to Roon issues (it was very good) and got a Bluesound PowerNode as it was Roon Ready, then traded that in for an Arcam SA30 which is the best Amp I have ever had in my house and supports Roon, Airplay, Chromecast and Tidal connect so every box ticked for the main listening system.
I will probably end up replacing another room or two over time, but if you have newer Sonos and they have Airplay then I think that is the way to go, rather than SonosNet directly. I don’t see Roon doing much work on that. I have a ticket that is over a year old on a reproducible bug, and crickets.
For Roon tested the supplier (Sonos) has to send devices to Roon and Sonos acts like Roon doesn’t exist if you speak to them.
So Sonos is still great, and grouping and everything else works on AirPlay. If you have any issues I would try that.
To be Roon tested the manufacturer needs to supply devices to Roon to test they don’t test otherwise. So newer S2 Sonos have not gone through the tested programme so dont have an icon. Only tested products get proper icons. They still will work more or less the same.
@Michael_Harris Thanks, ours is a mix of Airplay and non-Airplay which is why sticking with SonosNet would make best sense for us - there’s probably a sequence order I can discover for grouping/ungrouping that will stop the bug occurring, these things usually present themselves with time!
@CrystalGipsy Nice to meet you! It’s definitely an explanation, although a bit of a head scratcher. In my “day job” I run a company that as part of what it does, tests DJ equipment. Most is supplied to us by the manufacturers, but occasionally for whatever reason that doesn’t happen. We just go out and buy it. With a company with such a big user base as Sonos, I am sure if they put their mind to it Roon Labs could do the same for the purposes of testing - it would surely benefit them to have that done. Curious!
It’s their business model I am sure there is a reason they do it the way they do, likely as it’s a small dept and it’s too time consuming for them to put resources into products that the manufacturer has no interest in wanting Roon tested status. They are advertising for more staff for this dept so who knows, but likely that’s to help with the current load of testing for Roon Ready and tested they have already. Itt takes a long time currently for any product to get signed off and a lot of back and forth.
Remember you can group in Sonos and play from Roon to a single device, which is mostly what I have done for the last couple of years after waking Mrs Harris after forgetting that it is broken in Roon (multiple times)… It never ended well
