When will Sonos make an AC receiver?

It is impossible not to admire your faith in your  understanding of the technical issues involved (simple) and the commercial attractiveness of this development (no brainer).

Sonos sells an amp that covers the need for a receiver already, for the most part. If you want surround sound you can add a second amp.  And of course, you can mix in Sonos speakers to fell either of these roles.  And of course, the Port is an option to connect any existing 3rd party receiver to Sonos.

Like John stated, I don’t know that it’s all that easy, or that there is room in the market for it.   I could see Sonos partnering with a receiver maker to get their wireless audio tech into an existing receiver, but that seems like a long shot.

The “Works with Sonos” program should have this covered, although it has proven tricky to keep those devices working after some updates.

“Works with Sonos” is a more comprehensive integration. The 12V trigger from Port is generic.

I see your all ofbyour points but I still stick by my stance that either byway of a partnership with a existing receiver maker to produce a Sonos branded product or making one of their own its not rocket science.   And yes it would be a commercially viable alternative considering not onlybits use but the fact that Sonos is already not at the " cheap" range of its competitors.   Sonos has already done the same thing with its production partnership for the Sonos sub.

Two questions.  What features would this hypothetical receiver have that is not already a feature on the Sonos amp?   What production partnership for the Sonos sub are you referring to?

I forgot the name of the company that Sonos partnered with to produce the Sub to their specs and will get that info to you later- As for the features the as you put it " hypothetical" receiver would have that the Sonos Amp does not let's start with hdmi ports. The Sonos amp @ $700 has only 1 and it does not even come with the hdmi cable for that one. It's not a lot to ask for the ability to have multiple hdmi ports. Next would be an optical port which the current iteration of the Sonos Amp does not have. And I think having the ability to have more than 2 pair of speaker wire posts in a  2 channel system that pushes 125W per channel ( which for most speakers is much more than enough) is not asking a lot for something deemed to be an amplifier.   

@melvimbe that was a really great and detailed answer so thank you for that.  I did know that you could run a second pair of speakers in parallel on the same binding post for the Amp but I planned on a(s you suggested) adding 2 OneSL's for that purpose.

I'm very interested in your statement that the Sonos Amp's HDMI is actually an Output.   What would happen if I plugged it into one of my existing AV receiver's hdmi inputs?  Would my Sonos amp in effect become the most expensive Sonos connect?  If so that's not a bad option for me since I would simply just add the Sonos sub to my amp.

NOTE: Could you verify and/or correct some information I received in this forum from a different user?

They stated that the Sonos sub could NOT be added to the Sonos Amp's infrastructure while it was my understanding that the Sonos Amp WAS capable of being integrated with it and that it is actually the Sonos Connect which can't support the Sonos sub. 

The capability to use the Sonos sub is the very reason I purchased the Amp and not the Connect.   Thoughts?

I’ll take exception to Danny’s statement of the HDMI port on any Sonos device being an output. They’re all inputs, of the ARC/eARC variety. Which means they’re looking for data on a specific set of pins coming from an ARC/eARC source, which is not a standard HDMI output. To my knowledge, there are very few regular HDMI switches that might handle ARC, and one (maybe two, I’m unfamiliar with the second one), the HDFury Arcana, that handles eARC. To be specific, separates the incoming HDMI audio stream, and outputs it back out via either ARC or eARC ‘pins’ on the HDMI cable. Most common HDMI switches instead pull the stream off and put it on an optical output, but there are, I think, some that can put it on an ARC channel via HDMI. I’ve never personally tested these devices, I do use an HDFury Arcana to generate an eARC signal to go to my Vizio TV.

As to your second query, I think you’ve gotten some, but not all the correct information.

When used to power the front speakers in a home theater setup, connected via ARC or optical to the Sonos ARC adapter, the subwoofer port on the Sonos Amp remains active. It’s only when in use to power the rear “surround” speakers that the subwoofer output is turned off. 

@Airgetlam answered your question about subs assuming you want to use a non-Sonos sub. It seems you actually asked about using a Sonos sub with the Amp. This does work. I have a Sonos sub bonded with an Amp in my living room. 

Regarding a Sonos receiver, I wouldn’t hold your breath waiting for this to happen. Awhile back I read an article in which a Sonos employee, it may have been the previous CEO, claimed receivers are obsolete. The Sonos attitude is let everyone plug devices into the TV hdmi ports and bring audio out of the tv to a Sonos sound bar or Amp. This avoids the complexity of an av receiver. Speaking for myself, I love not having an extra remote in the living room. 

@dan8558 @Airgetlam thank you! And everyone else also. Yes I'm not looking to use the Sonos Amp with a non- Sonos subwoofer, I purchased bothe the Sonos Amp along with the Sonos Sub.  

Great answers all I'm just still a bit in the dark about whether or not the Sonos Amp will allow me to do input/output via hdmi if plugged into the non-arc hdmi input port of my receiver.  If anyone knows please do tell and if not when I get around to actually doing the install I'll try it out anyways and let everyone know the results back here on this forum. 

I literally just got the Amp and Sub 4 or 5 days ago since they had to be ordered directly from Sonos due to them both being out of stock locally so I'll let you know- we just had a blizzard here in the northeast and due to Sonos's quirky logic they decided NOT to include an hdmi cable with their$700 Amp so I need to wait for the roads to clear so I can purchase one hence the delay in setup.  I'll report back and thanks for everyone's assistance! 🙂

The Amp needs to be plugged into the HDMI-ARC port of your tv. No other connection is supported. All your devices (Apple TV, Roku, etc.) plug directly into a regular HDMI port of the TV. Choose the appropriate input with your tv remote and the sound will be sent to the Amp. If you want to play music, no input switching has to be done. Just use the Sonos app to start music in this zone.

Before I answer this, just want to say that HDMI-ARC and how it works is kind of complex.  It can get confusing on terminolgy and such.  To that end I don’t disagree with Bruce on this really, we just have different ways of saying what the elephant looks like.

So to answer your question, in a round about way, I say that Amp (and other Sonos product) has an HDMI output, not because of the direction audio flows, but because it connects with other devices as if if were an HDMI output.  With a normal HDMI connection, your Source (streamer, blue ray player, cable box) sends data to your Sink (TV usually).  The Amp acts like a source. If you connect it to your TV input you will actually see video, a Sonos screensaver image, without any sound.  What is different is that the Amp uses the ARC(audio return channel) feature of HDMI, means audio data also flows in the opposite direction of the other traffic...from Sink to Source.  This is how the Amp receives audio data from your TV.

Back to your question, what happens if you connect the Amp to a receiver HDMI input?  Effectively nothing.  The receiver would give the Sonos screensaver with no sound.  The Amp doesn’t take streaming audio and send it over the HDMI output.  In theory, it could, but it’s not a feature Sonos currently supports, nor do I know the hardware could handle this.  I can’t see Sonos adding that feature if they could either way. (I hope that at somepoint, Sonos shows currently playing info or something on that HDMI connection, but have no idea if that’s in the works).

I think you got this answered already.  You can use the Sonos sub with the Amp, but you cannot ise it with the Port (which used to be called Connect in earlier versions)

I agree with Danny ;)

Awesome! Thanks for the clarification!!👍👍