has anyone used two sonos amps to power a pair of speakers, one for the left and one for the right to eliminate speaker wires ?
Best answer by Corry P
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I’m guessing you mean that you would have the amp very close to the speaker it’s wired to, so you don’t have long speaker cables. But the answer would be no, since you can’t bond two amps together, one for each stereo channel.
If you’re trying to eliminate speaker wires, why not get a pair of Sonos Ones or Fives? No speaker wire and you’re saving a lot of money. If this is for an outdoor application, then perhaps 2 Moves makes more sense?
Interesting but expensive idea:-)
Wire the left terminal of one amp and the right of the other, to respective speakers, and then group the amps. Should work.
Interesting but expensive idea:-)
Wire the left terminal of one amp and the right of the other, to respective speakers, and then group the amps. Should work.
That is what I’m thinking, I'm wondering if there would be any delay between the two amps messing with the stereo. I could keep my speakers and eliminate a lot of components and wiring
There would be zero guaranty that the stream each one is getting would be in sync. It could be, it might not be. I’ve often run two different streams of the same thing in different rooms, and more often than not, they’re slightly out of sync. It’s likely why Sonos uses a group coordinator when playing in multiple rooms, rather than setting each speaker to grab the same stream multiple times, not to mention the extra bandwidth that would be necessary.
It would be an interesting experiment, but it’s certainly outside of the normal usage pattern, and I’d expect zero support from Sonos on it.
Interesting but expensive idea:-)
Wire the left terminal of one amp and the right of the other, to respective speakers, and then group the amps. Should work.
That is what I’m thinking, I'm wondering if there would be any delay between the two amps messing with the stereo. I could keep my speakers and eliminate a lot of components and wiring
It depends on your audio source. If one of the amps is connected to a TV, then that TV will play the audio immediately while the other is delayed. But if you aren’t using TV as a source, I still think you’d be better off, and save money by using Sonos speakers.
I think it will work just fine if used for audio. But two amps means two power cords, more footprint, and still some speaker cable. Why not try to place one amp close to one speaker and run speaker cable discreetly to the other speaker?
There would be zero guaranty that the stream each one is getting would be in sync. It could be, it might not be.
Why would it not be? The two amps would be in one group, that would be in perfect sync. And I see no reason why Sonos won’t support this - the only concern is are the two unwired speaker terminals, but these are solid state amps, so that isn't a problem.
Maybe
They wouldn’t be in one group. You can not set up a single Sonos device to be a mono right or mono left stream. You’d have to, I think, set them up as a stereo stream, and then force the use of one set of posts, rather than setting the device to mono. That ‘mono’ setup includes both left and right, which would defeat the intended purpose of this set up.
I guess you could group them in the Sonos app at that point, so yea, you’re right. But this setup isn’t going to do much of the “eliminate wires’ that I perceive the OP was looking to do, as you’re just replacing speaker wires with power cords. It certainly isn’t a supported method of using Sonos, and will likely provide a substantial set of issues in its set up, not to mention expensive, as Danny and you have indicated.
Bruce, I see no issues other than expense, higher footprint for two amps and two power cords, as I have also pointed out in my preceding post. The OP is looking to do exactly this by the way - if you see his first post. He probably hasn't realised the consequences we have pointed out. Or he may have power outlets behind the speakers, so that speaker cords are not a visible issue.
Sonos will be happy to support this because it means more sales:-). And there is nothing that they need to specially do to support what is basically just a grouped set up of two amps.
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But the answer would be no, since you can’t bond two amps together, one for each stereo channel.
You can not set up a single Sonos device to be a mono right or mono left stream.
Well, you kind of can, but it wouldn’t be supported.
It’s possible using SoCo-CLI’s stereo pairing function: sonos amp1 pair amp2
amp1 would be the left channel, amp2 the right. Both speaker outputs of amp1 would play the left channel, and of amp2 the right.
https://github.com/avantrec/soco-cli#grouping-and-stereo-pairing
Yea, was trying to stay within the ‘Sonos standard’ world. Anything is possible, if you want to jump through hoops, and potentially spend gobs of money. It’s electronics and software, not rocket science.
But the answer would be no, since you can’t bond two amps together, one for each stereo channel.
You can not set up a single Sonos device to be a mono right or mono left stream.
Well, you kind of can, but it wouldn’t be supported.
It’s possible using SoCo-CLI’s stereo pairing function: sonos amp1 pair amp2
amp1 would be the left channel, amp2 the right. Both speaker outputs of amp1 would play the left channel, and of amp2 the right.
https://github.com/avantrec/soco-cli#grouping-and-stereo-pairing
Why do this? One can't just connect both terminals of the amp to one speaker. ..not without hardware modification.
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Why do this? One can't just connect both terminals of the amp to one speaker. ..not without hardware modification.
Just answering the OP’s question, really. I agree that it’s somewhat academic.
Th only practical application of this would be with bi-wirable speakers, with Amp-L to one pair of speaker terminals and Amp-R to the other. This is similar to bi-amping, but whether this would actually meaningfully increase the power available at the speaker I do not know.
There’s also a corner case (e.g., with multiple ceiling speakers), where one might want more than one speaker delivering a single stereo channel.
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Bruce, I see no issues other than expense, higher footprint for two amps and two power cords, as I have also pointed out in my preceding post. The OP is looking to do exactly this by the way - if you see his first post. He probably hasn't realised the consequences we have pointed out. Or he may have power outlets behind the speakers, so that speaker cords are not a visible issue.
Sonos will be happy to support this because it means more sales:-). And there is nothing that they need to specially do to support what is basically just a grouped set up of two amps.
Over to
I agree - I see no problems with this, if cost and electricity usage aren’t issues.
The Amps would protect themselves from any overload, and I can’t see that happening with only one speaker connected.
The two grouped Amps would play in sync.
I also agree that there are better options, but we don’t know exactly what
I previously had a bi amped home theatre with bi wiring driving into some relatively inefficient but sweet sounding speakers. I’ve gone back to a simpler set up (preferring simplicity to hi fidelity) with a Sonos amp for the fronts and another for the rears. But I would love to bi amp the system just to give it a little more power and take a load off the amp - more power is normally good!
Would be awesome if Sonos could have one amp as Left, and one as Right, like they do with the Sonos Play (and then use one half of each amp to drive bass and the other treble). The cutover is all managed by the speakers so no issue there. Alternatively have mirrored amps, each processing stereo signals which would need the grouping persistent and volume always in sync. I don’t see any issues with staying in time as Sonos do that now with the amps for the rear channels today (which I am using).
I’ve tried using grouping but its way too easy for it to be ungrouped (causing others in the house to get confuzzled?) and volume control is a bit of headache.
Limited use case I know but would sell a few more amps when power is required and where the speakers support bi wiring
The OP wants to do what he does merely to avoid and hide long speaker cables.
Yeah not so much a bridged mode as offloading bass to a seperate amp. Class D amps do so much better when they aren’t driven too hard - hence why I’d love to see a way of doing this. Would look to be a control change only - link volume levels and keep the 2 Amps permantly grouped.
It’s not quite like suggesting backlit VU meters (although that would be cool for about 0.5% of users)
I am thinking about the same: two Amps for two large speakers with four terminals (bi-wiring), with Amp1 Left wired to high frequency terminals of Speaker1 and Amp1 Right wired to low frequency terminals of same speaker.
But would Amp1 then feed Speaker1 2x125 watts?
I am thinking about the same: two Amps for two large speakers with four terminals (bi-wiring), with Amp1 Left wired to high frequency terminals of Speaker1 and Amp1 Right wired to low frequency terminals of same speaker.
But would Amp1 then feed Speaker1 2x125 watts?
In the above scheme, Speaker 1 would get both left and right channels fed to it?
What are you seeking to accomplish? The Sonos Amp has enough power to drive over 90% of the speakers out there in 90% of domestic environments to a point that they will either burn out or damage your ears if played too loud for too long..
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