Zone grouping issues

Hello, Roon community! I’m new to this forum use, so please bear with me.

My issue: I cannot seem to get grouped zones to work, except in highly restricted ways that seem to defy the simple RAAT v AirPlay issue.

My system by room:

•ROOM 1: Roon Core in living room is on a MacBook Air -> PS Audio Perfectwave DAC -> Parasound Amp -> Dali Euphonia MS4s (via AntiCables)

•ROOM 2:
-Mac Mini that I use as my desktop, hooked up to AudioEngine speakers
-Mac Pro that serves as a server and power station for my business, running our 35TB of data. It’s plugged into my flatscreen, which is generally run on an Apple TV 4k. Both of these output (via ethernet) to the same Sonos Playbar 5.1 system (with Play 3s as rear and the Sonos sub).

•ROOM 3: Two Sonos 5s in stereo.

•ROOM 4: A second Apple TV 4k hooked up to Cambridge Audio speakers and a TV in a separate room.

Here’s the rub: Roon will only group as follows:
• It will group Room 1 (Macbook Air) and Room 2 (but only via the Mac Mini or the Mac Pro, not the Apple TV)
• It will group Room 2 (Apple TV) and Room 4 (Apple TV)
• It will group Room 2 (direct to Sonos PlayBar 5.1) and Room 3 (Sonos 5)s.

It will not cross any of the above categories… yet both of the Apple TV 4ks and Sonos systems (Playbar and 5s) all have Airplay. Shouldn’t they all group? Not to mention, shouldn’t it be possible to play across macs via Airplay as well? I recognize this would reduce quality, but I would use it only for a gathering that begged for music across all spaces, which would inherently be one with lots of background noise, so I’m fine with any solution that allows for more flexible grouping than above.

What’s possible?

Thank you!,
SK

Thanks, John!

But might there be a workaround, e.g. use Roon on my iPhone to drive the grouping, including playback to the Phone in the group, and then airplay the phone’s audio to the Sonos, since both systems are AirPlay 2 Sonos systems?

And even that Sonos restriction doesn’t make it clear why I can’t access the macs via AirPlay if I’m willing to suffer that reduction.

Thank you (all),
SK

Roon supports different audio transport protocols, Airplay, Sonos, RAAT (Roon’s own protocol), Squeezebox, now Chromecast. Each protocol can only be grouped with their own.
It sounds like …

Group 1 is using probably using RAAT to output not Airplay. (Screen shots of the audio tab would give additional information)
Group 2 is using Airplay
Group 3 is using Sonos.

If you want to make a new group which has all the endpoints of Group 1 and 2, then the Mac computers need to run something like Airfoil; see:

As to using Airplay on the Sonos, you should follow the Sonos’ guidelines for setting up Airplay on those items.

1 Like

Hey - I am not able to group zones of the same type.
I have 3 Chromecast Audio zones - all can play individually but grouping is greyed out an unselectable.
Any ideas?
Cheers

Let’s keep this in one thread:

Since this one is quite old, I’ll close.