Sonos and wireless music library

[John Duncan]

So I bought a (singular) Play:3 for the kitchen, and besides it being the easiest thing to set up ever (full report to come), when I try to play anything from my iTunes library (which is on my iMac, connected to the network wirelessly), I get "network connection speed insufficient to maintain playback buffer".

A google search suggests that having a library on a wirelessly-connected PC "is not supported". Whilst my first reaction was "wtf?", how does everybody have theirs set up? Are you all using a wired PC or NAS (which I can't believe), or do I just have poor network connectivity (which is quite possible)?

 

[iQ Speakers]

Hi John

Although i mainly use Spotify i do have some tracks ripped to my PC which is totally wireless and and have never had this issue works perfectly.

where does this message come up, is it a PC message or a Sonos megssage?

 

[eggontoast]

I'm not going to be much help I'm afraid, I have all my music on a NAS and haven't tried streaming from a wireless laptop.

When I use the PLAY:3 in my kitchen I must admit I mostly only listen to the radio or stream from my iPhone, so as previously said not much help really.

 

[John Duncan]

Hi John

Although i mainly use Spotify i do have some tracks ripped to my PC which is totally wireless and and have never had this issue works perfectly.

where does this message come up, is it a PC message or a Sonos megssage?

It's a Sonos message which appears on the controller (whether iPhone or Nexus). The problem is worse with lossless (which I can understand) but I can't play even 128k (EDITED - *reliably*). Radio and Spotify are also my prime sources (which work beautifully), but I'd like to understand the problem and find a solution if I can.

 

[iQ Speakers]

Im scrabling in my sonos experience here!

How have you got the Play3 connected? Do you have a Sonos Bridge? I assume the Internet radio is coming from a different point in the network other than your PC ie the router or if you have a bridge which is closer the the broadband router.

If your Wireles PC is at the edge of the normal wireless signal this may be the problem as its going to be used to transmit the Files from the PC to the Sonos Network.

Im assuming your wireless PC runs the internet properly at good speed? Try a Speedtest it might be on the edge of the normal wireless transmission.

I hope this makes sense.

 

[Amadeus1756]

Have you got another computer you can try and copy something to from the iTunes's computer - determine you connectivity speed?

 

[John Duncan]

I can probably do something like that, but first am inclined to find the max bitrates I can cope with. Am getting 128 working reasonably well now, going to try 256 and 320. If it means setting up my entire library at one of those then fair enough, it could do with a tidy up...

 

[bigboss]

My NAS is wired to the router via home plug. But the Sonos also picks songs up from my MacBook connected wirelessly.

 

[John Duncan]

What kinds of bitrates BB?

 

[bigboss]

256K & 320K.

 

[John Duncan]

k thanks. Am trying to find an album that I've only got in one of those bitrates, which is proving a bit tricky... :-D

 

[The_Lhc]

This is why sonos don't support wireless libraries, it's not that they won't work necessarily, it's just that sonos don't want to be responsible for your home network gremlins.

I have a wired NAS so I can't help there but the issue will be from your laptop to the router. Confirm the wireless channel the router is using isn't clashing with the sonos wireless channel and disable any wideband or turbo mode on the router which may be hogging all the 2.4ghz bandwidth.

 

[John Duncan]

Yes, I kind of expect wireless to have limitations but I want to understand what they are so that I can mitigate. Am just refreshing my iTunes library having deleted the lossless version of one album so that I only have the 320k one, and will report back.

I would also add that when i moved the iMac to where it is now, it took some persuading to connect to the wireless network at all, so am conscious that the problem may very well lie there.

 

[John Duncan]

And we now have Moving Pictures playing in the kitchen at 320k. Fingers crossed...

 

[BenLaw]

Very odd. My wifi is pretty slow at home but I have never had this problem. All my music is stored on a windows laptop which is only ever connected wirelessly and plays music in both 256 and lossless with no problems.

 

[Andrew17321]

As far as I know, to use the Sonos network you need your iMac on a hard wired network with a router and connected to a Sonos Bridge.

However, you would be far better to ask your question on the Sonos forums http://forums.sonos.com/

These are very helpful as the moderators are extremely knowledgeable and the participants all enthusiastic about Sonos, and have found all sorts of work-arounds.

Andrew

 

[John Duncan]

Well I think I'm finding that I don't have to have it on a wired network, since I am now getting 320 playing OK, but thanks for the link, I'll take a look.

cheers

JD

 

[richardw42]

The Sonos forums look really helpful.

Perhaps it was just start up gremlins. Never had a problem streaming wireless from a bridge to anyone of my 4 zones.