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Sonos portable audio zones/rooms - What's needed?


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My kid wants audio in per bathroom and my wife wants audio in the master closet where we don't have a ceiling speaker and running a drop is a huge effort. So I'm considering my options for speaks and thought why not a Sonos One or similar. I have plenty of Matrix output opportunities.

Is it as simply as connecting a Sonos Port to the Matrix output on a zone and now the Sonos One in the closet is in sync with the rest of the house? What's the current Sonos driver state? I've seen a few posts on issues with Sonos and a couple references to 3rd party drivers coming soon.

I'm also looking at this Sonos option as perhaps an approach to ducking room audio announcements by using the Sonos speaker for announcements. I can hide one above the kitchen cabinets for instance...

Side advantage of some Sonos is potential future easy Josh.ai ready infrastructure.

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Almost my entire "distributed audio" is through Sonos, either through Soundbars, Play 1's, 5's, Roams, etc.  I don't use any sort of Matrix, but for my Master Closet, I have a Play one in there.  All you do on the Composer side is make whatever speaker you choose to be the audio endpoint and audio volume for that room in the project.  Sonos will do the rest.  I also recommend using the Auto power room function in the driver properties, so that way if you launch something from the Sonos app, Control4 will still see that the zone is active, pull metadata, etc.  My Kitchen is the same way.  Play 5 above the cabinets and a keypad dimmer toggling through presets playlists.  Just didn't feel like running wire honestly...

 

Doorbell and security/garage notifications via announcements play on these as well.  Never had a problem.

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Thanks.

 

I am using a matrix so I'm wondering if an output from the matrix to the input of the Sonos Port and output from the port back into the matrix gets me the choice of C4 audio to all zones including any Sonos endpoints AND Sonos controlled streams to all zones and Sonos inputs.

I'm also wondering about running both a wired zone and a sonos in some rooms to use the sonos for announcements so I can gracefully duck the music.

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On 2/3/2024 at 8:18 PM, Shoe said:

I am using a matrix so I'm wondering if an output from the matrix to the input of the Sonos Port and output from the port back into the matrix gets me .....

....an audio feed loop that will make my system go bonkers?

 

Yes, yes it does get you that.

 

Feed C4 into Sonos, or feed Sonos into C4. Don't do both.

 

 

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1 minute ago, Cyknight said:

Feed C4 into Sonos, or feed Sonos into C4. Don't do both.

Hmm.

Not sure why doing like this is problem. Maybe I didn't explain it right. Let me take another approach.

Core3>Matrix zone input 1>zone output 16>Sonos Port>Sonos Port>Matrix input 16

I think that gets me the ability to assign output from audio 1 on the Core3 to all wired output zones  1-15 via input 16 and any and all Sonos devices associated with the Port and playing the rca inputs. It also gets me anything I think I want to play on the Port and assign it to any of the 15 wired zones and any Sonos devices associated with the port.

So, Matrix Input 1 to Matrix output 1-16 gets me audio from the Core3 to all zones and all Sonos because the Port can be configured to take the input rather than streaming something. Matrix input 16 to matrix output 1-15 gets me Sonos Port streaming source for all zones including any Sonos devices associated with the Port.

I'm not sure why connecting inputs and outputs from the Port would be a physical problem. Would that really create a loop on a matrix?

 

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20 minutes ago, Shoe said:

Core3>Matrix zone input 1>zone output 16>Sonos Port>Sonos Port>Matrix input 16

Yep, same thing, same problem.

21 minutes ago, Shoe said:

I'm not sure why connecting inputs and outputs from the Port would be a physical problem

It isn't. It's a software problem,

 

Select TuneIn from C4 to play into a Sonos (via the port) which then outputs it to the Sonos speakers. But because you're feeding tunein via the matrix, it'll use the port output to feed the Port the TuneIn signal, which then feeds the matrix, which feeds the port which feeds .......

 

C4 is NOT setup to allow this sort of double feed in/outs and it WILL cause situations where weird crap will happen.

This isn't a Sonos thing, it's a C4 thing. Same would happen if you feed receiver from a matrix, then feed the receiver back into the matrix. Or a Bluesound. Or a matrix input into a controller (and have controller outputs into that same matrix). Or feed a matrix output directly back into itself.

Some days it'll work, some days you'll be posting here that something broke and what is wrong with C4 - and the answer will be that it's not wired up properly.

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Hmm. If you use the matrix to feed the Port you don't have to assign the matrix input (Ports output) that the port is also attached to to anything.  If you use the Port as the streaming source you do not have to connect any matrix zones to the output zone attached to the Ports input. You can choose not to have both Ports input to the matrix and Ports output to the matrix assigned at any time.

You have substantially more experience than I have so I will trust what you are saying. I'm just still struggling to understand where the problem lies. I have a C4 matrix and I have Videostorm matrix.

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9 minutes ago, Shoe said:

I'm just still struggling to understand where the problem lies

In how C4 handles in/output selection and tracking.

9 minutes ago, Shoe said:

you don't have to assign the matrix input

YOU don't do any of that, Control4 does - and yes, it will screw that up.

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8 minutes ago, Cyknight said:

In how C4 handles in/output selection and tracking.

Ok, I think I'm getting it. The C4 software isn't 100% when tracking state of Matrix and as such it may leave "ghost" connections in the Matrix. It may also think it has assigned a path but didn't check the device to validate it. We want this to work perfectly and it should work perfectly, but the reality and tribal knowledge of the implementation says this can't be trusted. So while what I proposed is logical it's going to by flaky in real life. Check. I can accept that if that's the way it works on 3.4. I can give up on Sonos as an audio source for other zones attached to the Matrix and just use it for output.

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