Connecting Underwater Speakers to Amp

Note that this is a Sonos community website, and not a Sonos company support website, just in case. But IMHO, you’ll get better data from folks like @jgatie that you might from others, as we’re all users here, not employees. 

Nothing personal to the moderators :)

I am sorry but I don’t totally understand this answer nor do I have a sophisticated knowledge of the topic.   There are 3 underwater speakers for the pool.  They are mono, not stereo.   I am not sure if this detail affects your answer.  Regardless, would you mind elaborating  a bit? 

Thanks. 

The Amp has two channels.  They can be set to stereo or mono.  You can connect more than one speaker to each channel, but the overall impedance load must be 4 Ohms or above.  Since two 4 Ohm speakers connected in parallel give an overall load of 2 Ohms, the one channel connected to two 4 Ohm speakers will be overloaded, and the Amp will shut down.  

https://support.sonos.com/s/article/4730?language=en_US

The link above may help.  You can hook up to 4 speakers that are rathed for 8 ohms, but only 2 speakers that are rated for 4 ohm.  So you would need to use a 2nd additional amp, or add a speaker switch in between the amp and your speakers to handle the ohm issue.  I would go with the speaker switch personally, as it will be cheaper and add an extra layer of protection to your amp. 

The Sonos amp is designed for stereo, but it can be put in mono mode so that both speaker outputs will play the same mono channel.  

Out of curiosity, what’s the use case for this?  Also, be very insistent that they leave enough slack so that you can pull the speakers out of the water without disconnecting the speaker wire.  Should be no different then the power cord for pool lights...because not having enough slack kinda sucks.

Also, also, did I read that you’re using 16 Gauge wire over 100 feet?  I would go with 14G if that’s an option. Is the wiring permanently attached/sealed to the speaker?

edit….just took a look at these.  Pretty cool.  I’m curious.  Can you share how much these cost?  Do you have to touch the speaker to hear the audio, or does it transmit through the water?  Do your ears need to be below the water surface?  And can you hear audio when out of the water at all?   I’m curious as being able to hear audio in the hot tub, without neighbors hearing, would be interesting.  And my hot tub light just went out...

The use case?  I think I understand what you’re asking.  The pool in question is a 50 plus foot long lap pool.   With the speakers you can listen to your favorite tunes while getting your workout done. 

As for the wire size, those are simply the minimum specs provided by the speaker manufacturer.   Thanks for the input too on this topic. 

Regarding the connections you discussed (and linked in the article and elsewhere on sonos.com), it seems that if one connects two 4 ohm speakers to an amp that it generates 250w per channel.  Whereas the speaker manufacturer suggests:  

• Recommended Amplification: 125 – 150 W at 4 Ohms

Again, you know I don’t totally understand the terminology here, but is the 250 W that the sonos will put out a problem for the speaker where their recommendation is 125-150w?  

Thanks for your time and your input. 

I don’t think you have any problems using the Amp, however, thinking about it a bit more and looking into the product, I might have your sales guy pick out whatever amp(s) he recommends, and then use a Sonos port as your audio source. That would help with any warranty issues if you do run into problems. The only downside to this would be that the Sonos amp can connect to the TV...but unless you have an underwater TV planned, maybe not a concern.

And repeating my additional questions you might have missed….

.just took a look at these.  Pretty cool.  I’m curious.  Can you share how much these cost?  Do you have to touch the speaker to hear the audio, or does it transmit through the water?  Do your ears need to be below the water surface?  And can you hear audio when out of the water at all?   I’m curious as being able to hear audio in the hot tub, without neighbors hearing, would be interesting.  And my hot tub light just went out…

Keep us posted on how this turns out!

Connecting a 100W amplifier to a 200W speaker (whatever that means) is not a guarantee that the speaker cannot be damaged.

There is no industry standard method used to assign a number to speaker power ratings. Mostly I think that the marketing department makes the final assignment. I see some really awful, low end speakers with very high numbers and some actual high end, very high quality speakers with much lower numbers. Actually, low power amplifiers are more likely to blow up a speaker than high powered amplifiers. I know that this does not seem fair, but if you ask a low power amplifier to play too loudly, it emits distortion products that damage the speakers, typically the tweeter. In a system that is habitually blowing out tweeters the solution is usually installing a more powerful amplifier.

In the case of the SONOS AMP, you can connect one 4-Ohm speaker to each of the two channels.

In terms of blowing up speakers, SONOS products are among the safest products available. Above I mentioned that when amplifiers are pushed too hard they will emit distortion that damages speakers. A SONOS amplifier will not enter this operational mode. The SONOS amplifier will automatically reduce Volume or simply shut down. This is a suggestion that the system operator should back off.

Specifically for these speakers, the “Recommended Amplification: 125-150W” suggests to me that the speakers are not particularly efficient and the manufacturer is guiding the purchaser to avoid using a low powered amplifier, minimizing the risk of damaging the speakers as I suggest above.

There are “boxes” that allow multiple pairs of 4-Ohm speakers to be safely connected to an amplifier. I don’t recommend using such a “box” in this application.