I’m trying to think of my use cases… I have an AppleTV connected to Sonos sound bar (Arc) and Amp. I’ve never thought about using the AppleTV as an end point, should I?
For other Sonos devices I don’t think I would use airplay. I’m just a bit confused how people are using it.
For Sonos the Sonos protocol has not been stable over later Sonos firmware upgrades. Sonos own networking protocol Sonosnet also a bit flakey. So lots switch to use Airplay instead.
Some devices no longer seem to support Roons legacy Airplay and only Airplay2 such as Samsung soundbars and TVs and other brands of speakers so this is to allow them to be used.
Also if your an Apple HomePod user or have other Airplay 2 speakers you can’t easily use them as a stereo pair via Roon. Using Airplay 2 it will detect the pairing and allow stereo playback to the pair with proper left/right separation. You could only achieve this with DSP and current implementation and it could go out of sync and not always work.
If your current configuration works then you don’t need to use Airplay 2.
Thanks, this was helpful. I don’t have HomePods but have had trouble with Sonos so might experiment more with AirPlay. I always thought it would be an audio down grade for AirPlay but if it’s more stable that would be worth it!