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Hey everyone! I have owned several different Sonos products over the years, but have a couple of questions related to the Sonos in ceiling speakers and an appropriate setup in a detached garage. I have built a 36’ wide x 25’ deep detached garage and I’d like to add in ceiling speakers. I’m going to have my 65” tv in the far left bay and want full audio throughout the garage for watching movies/sports and listening to music. I purchased a Sonos Amp and 6 Sonos inceiling speakers, but is that overkill? If not, should I evenly space them in the ceiling area or is there a setup that is best recommended to cover that space considering the TV will be located on one end of the garage?

I think 2 pair of speakers are plenty for covering that space.  One pair could be fine too, depending on placement.

How do you intend to use the garage space?  Will you be using the space to park cars, as a workshop, or just as a secondary living space.  Will the garage door(s) be open often?  Is the TV goin to be placed along the back wall or a sidewall?

I had 2 ceiling speakers in my typical 2-car garage.  The worked fine to cover the space, particularly with the garage door closed.  However, garage open impacted the sound a bit, even though the door didn’t cover them, and didn’t carry out to the front driveway like I really wanted it to.  I’ve since switch to 2 Play:1s mounted on the back wall, and they perform much better.  Not impacted by the open/closed door and carry out into the front well.    Could go with bigger speakers maybe, but it’s fine for my needs, and have handled dust and such in the garage just fine.

Also worth considering that you generally want the audio to come from the direction of the TV.  Not a big deal if the TV is mostly just going to be on in the background while you’re doing something else in the garage. But if it’s an extra living space, the ceiling speakers are not a good choice.  In wall, or outdoor speakers attached to the wall would be a better choice.

 


I’ll park two cars in the space, but it will be used as an entertainment space and we can pull the vehicles out when we do this. There will be a small garage door window that closes onto a bar top on the far left bay where the tv will be as well. I was thinking about using the in ceiling speakers for music and then adding a separate Sonos Beam for the tv.


I’ll park two cars in the space, but it will be used as an entertainment space and we can pull the vehicles out when we do this. There will be a small garage door window that closes onto a bar top on the far left bay where the tv will be as well. I was thinking about using the in ceiling speakers for music and then adding a separate Sonos Beam for the tv.

 

You can connect the amp directly to the TV.  However, if you’re going to use a Beam and amp, a couple things need to be considered.  Each would be a separate Sonos ‘room’, meaning that they can play different audio at different volumes.  For streaming sources, they would play in sync when grouped together temporarily.  When playing TV audio, the Beam will play immediately to better match the video, but your amp will play slightly behind for buffering reasons. You’ll get an echo effect in your garage.

One option is to ‘bond’ the amp to the Beam to play surround sound duty, but I don’t think that will work well for your space.