Hi @Ubet, 

The Amp should be able to power those speakers. I can’t find a lot of information for them online, so I can’t say if they will for sure work, but I would just recommend you make sure those speakers are 4-8 Ohms.

I hope this information helps.

They’re the aw650 not 350, my mistake. 
95db, 85watts/340peak. Will sonos amp be ok for them?

Or is their a better outdoor speaker I should be looking at? 

Hi @Ubet,

As they are 85 watt, you can use them but I would recommend placing a volume limit on the Amp in the Sonos app at around 65%. While it shouldn’t damage the speakers if you go higher than that, you may hear clipping and it could decrease the speakers lifespan.

The Sonos Amp is 125 watts per channel, if you’re under 125 watts, then you’ll want a volume limit to prevent the speakers from blowing or being damaged. If you’re worried about this, then I’d suggest looking for speakers that are 130 watts and above. You can still use the speakers you are talking about, but definitely with the volume limit to prevent any issues.

I hope this helps!

So what speakers would you guys recommend then? I want something loud with a lot of sound but clear. 

Look for high efficiency speakers with the 125 Watt continuous power rating for absolute safety. Of course if driven to that continuous power level they will likely sound quite horrible due to clipping.

I’d not hesitate to use the ones here, with the volume limit as suggested to prevent someone who is not actually listening to the speakers from blowing them out. Anyone actually listening to them would recognize the sound of them being over-driven and dial the volume back. The speakers peak rating is more than adequate to deal with short term sound peaks.

“Clipping” is an amplifier phenomenon occurring when an attempt is made to drive the amplifier beyond its design limits. Speakers don’t clip. Clipping is a form of distortion that is rich in extra high frequency energy that can blow out tweeters. If a user is habitually blowing out tweeters a more powerful amplifier will help, but user education is also necessary. If the sound seems distorted, back off. Unfortunately, for too many users “distorted” equates with “loud” and this leads to damaged speakers.

SONOS amplifiers will are excellent designs that will not enter this clipping mode. Any attempt by the user to do this will result in the amplifier reducing Volume or shutting down. In this respect the SONOS amplifiers will tend to protect speakers from user abuse. However, if the user is persistent, it is usually possible to damage a speaker -- regardless of the amplifier and speaker power ratings.

Speaker power ratings are very slippery. Only the person who assigned the number knows what it means. Cheap, inferior speakers often have higher published power ratings than high quality, more conservatively rated speakers. I assume that this is an attempt by the cheap speaker manufacturer to imply high quality. The AW-650’s are rated at 85W and 340W. I have no idea exactly what this means. Supposedly an occasional peak at 340W is OK, but the spec fails to give a time duration for this peak.

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I’m not sure what you mean by “a lot of sound”. Realize that the “room” outside is rather large and anything smaller than the rock concert speakers that you’ve seen used outdoors, might be a disappointment. That said, the AW-650’s are more efficient than many speakers and, depending on your expectations, can do a decent job outside. Adding additional speakers will enhance coverage. If you want “thumping” sound, you’ll need to add a subwoofer.

I would not hesitate to use these speakers with AMP. If the speakers seem to be struggling, back off. (And my comment would be the same if you were using a 60W amplifier.)

I’ve never had a Sonos Amp to play with to hear what the clipping protection it applies sounds like. I would hope it would be something along the line of an audio compressor (as dBx makes) that applies soft limiting to the signal above a set level to avoid the high frequencies generated when a conventional amplifier clips.

When using a dBx compressor to limit maximum volume peaks while letting me play at a higher average volume than my speakers would safely support, music sounded fairly neutral at lower levels of compression but the sound got progressively worse as I raised the (average) volume, pushing more of the signal into the compressors range window. The higher the compression ratio setting the worse the music sounded once it reached the compression threshold.

I had a Carver M-1.5t (yes I am old) 350 continuous Watts, peak up to 1200 Watts, while my LaScalla speakers were limited to 400 continuous Watts and I did not want to find out what new drivers cost.

Has anyone tried driving the Sonos Amp into the clipping prevention level of power output? How did it sound?

I’s guess Sonos speakers sound a bit different than the Amp and non-Sonos speakers in the same situation due to the multiple channels of amplification.

If I got 4 of the aw650s, would I need to worry about over powering them? 
 

what other speakers would you recommend? 

Connecting speakers in parallel is similar to adding more lamps to a lighting circuit. You can keep adding speakers (lamps) until the current limit is reached. With respect to sound (light) output, there is essentially no change in output for a given lamp (speaker) output until the limit is exceeded. For AMP the limit is two pairs of 8-Ohm speakers.

So I think I am going to do this, Sonos amp, and two pairs of the aw650s. The wife is going to KILL me. My next question is, our house is log, with a steel siding on it. What is the best way to run the wires through the wall? As I am assuming I should not have the amp outside, even though it would be under a roof and generally protected, we live in Montana though, hot summers long cold winters. 

So to go through the wall, should I run all the wires through one hole or should I make multiple and run them as little outside as possible, and keep as much of it inside as possible? I would like to run them through somewhere in conspicuous ,like behind the top of a window sill, so the curtains could hide the wiring. Should I run the wire through a small poly pipe outside to the speakers?

If you use “direct burial” speaker wire, the pipe is not required, but the pipe might result in a more “official” looking installation. This is a judgement call. It’s possible that you could run the wires along a siding seam, painted the same color as the siding, and the wire will essentially disappear. Another scheme would be to run the wires up to an attic, then out to the speakers from under the roof eves. Imagination is your friend.

We have a three decks, two in the front, that are connected by a ramp, one is higher than the other. The other in the back does not see much use. The upper deck is covered and I was thinking I would mount two of the speakers to the 6x6” beam and point them towards the lower deck, a third speaker over a small over hang on the lower deck that covers a swing and maybe the fourth speaker on the same 6” beam but pointed back to the house. I am not sure if that would mess up the imaging though. Or I could install them under the over hang, against the house too, not sure what would be better. We use both porches often but spend more time out in front of them in the drive and towards the road. I don't have to worry about neighbors being pissed off either. 

But I have been reading up on the definitive technology speakers that are rated up to 200w, could the Sonos amp power just two of those correctly? Looking at the aw6500s to be specific. 

As I discussed above, speaker ratings are not worth much. If the 200W DEFINITIVE TECHNOLOGY speakers make you feel more secure, go with them. If they are 8-Ohm speakers, ARC can drive two pairs. I recommend the most efficient speakers.

If you gave me a job “please blowup these speakers”, the last amplifier I’d choose would be a SONOS product because they will make my job harder. I prefer to use a cheap receiver in the 60-80W range.

So doing more research, the aw650 is 85 watts with a 340w peak, and that is from Klipsch website. So even running it at 80-90% which won't happen often, they should be ok, correct? With the 125w Sonos amp

Similar to the accelerator in a car, while sliding the Volume control higher will result in more output, there is no guarantee that limiting to 40, 50, 60% is safe under current conditions.

There are options in professional equipment that can make operating at damaging levels extremely difficult. These options are not available for home equipment. Overall, the SONOS AMP is one of the safest home products available.

There is a Volume Limit option for AMP that could be used to limit the Volume control range, but similar to placing a block under the car’s accelerator to limit travel, this does not guarantee safety.

Ok thanks. 
 

Adding a klipsch outdoor sub, if I get two speakers can the sonos amp also power the sub or do I need a second amp?

 Yes I’m new to all this

You will need a powered subwoofer or a 3rd party amplifier for the subwoofer.

I prefer a powered subwoofer that connects to AMP’s subwoofer output, not a subwoofer that connects to AMP’s speaker output.

So I just got everything in as of today (sonos two day shipping is NOT two day). But I digress, sonos amp, 14gauge wire from crutchfield and two klipsch aw650. I got home late tonight, threw some banana plugs on 5’ of wire and set it up temporarily just to try it. 
 

These speakers sound AWESOME! Even with the bug zapper going off constantly in the background. I think they’re better than the 5s I have inside. Didn’t turn them up past 50% though because it’s 0008 here, the kid and wife wouldn’t appreciate it probably. I’m really happy so far and super excited to get them mounted to tomorrow.