Send audio from a turntable to Sonos speakers

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I joined the crowd of vinyl enthusiasts earlier last year, hoping that I’ll be more intentional about and appreciative of my music choices. After some research, I picked Audio Technica’s LP120XBT-USB, which is a great value turntable.

I selected that particular model because we (incorrectly) assumed that we’d be able to send the audio signal from a Bluetooth-enabled turntable to the Sonos speaker setup. As you can imagine, the reason for this post is that the setup didn’t work as expected. I learned that Sonos speakers are not Bluetooth speakers at all. The only way you can play music on them is via Apple AirPlay (AirPlay devices are controlled in the same place on the iPhone as Bluetooth speakers) or via Sonos’s music service integrations over the Internet. Sonos is pretty much a closed system that integrates well with the Apple software and devices. The Bluetooth connectivity from the LP-120XBT-USB is only compatible with true Bluetooth headphones or speakers. This, or cashing out an additional $450 for a Sonos Port.

Thankfully, I was able to locate a few Reddit and audiophile forums where people were trying to connect their turntable with the Sonos set-up and learned that if you send a wired signal to an iOS device, you’d be able to forward it further to the Sonos speakers via AirPlay. Basically, send the audio from the turntable’s USB-out to the lightning port on an iPhone or iPad and then broadcast from the iOS device as you normally would to the Sonos speakers via AirPlay.

There are a few applications that can capture the audio-in signal:

Let me know if you find some other options, and I’ll be happy to add them.