Do not wire the Amp being used for surrounds. The Arc connects wirelessly to the Amp using the Arc’s 5GHz radio. I would keep the Amp in the same room as the Arc to minimize any connection issues.
Oh interesting - so I should have the surrounds wired to the TV location to connect to the SONOS Amp, but the AMP and ARC will do their thing wirelessly. Gotcha. Thanks!
Hi All, sorry to jump on the back of this but I'm going through similar with a new build and home Sonos set up.
I plan on having at least 2 zones. Zone 1 in the living room with an Arc, Sub, Amp + 2 x in ceiling speakers as rears.
Zone 2 in the outside Alfresco area with an Amp + 2 x Sonos outdoor speakers.
I have all my cabling running back to a rack in our garage and my question is should I have the 2 x amps in the rack in the garage at the front of the house and run the in ceiling and outdoor speaker cabling back to them? Or should I have the amps placed in or closer to their zones and run the Ethernet cabling from the rack to them?
If the amp for Zone 1 is to be placed in the living room, is it best to also run Ethernet from the Arc back to the rack as well or can it connect to the amp?
I'm new to Sonos and just trying to run all the wiring I'll need prior to plaster going on next week and don't know what is supposed to work best.
Cheers
Wingas
I suspect a mix of the two options might be appropriate. The Amp used for the surround speakers bonds to the Arc using a private 5Ghz signal, so it needs to be relatively close, enough so that the two devices can talk to each other. I’ve seen some situations, confusingly, where an ethernet cable works, and others where it doesn’t work, so I tend to suggest using the originally designed connection method. Your milage may vary, of course.
If you’ve got ethernet running to the garage, and the Sonos Amp wouldn’t be affected by heat/cool considerations (check the operating range for the Amp), then I’d probably leave the other Amp there, and then use standard (or slightly oversized) speaker cables running to the speakers.
Thanks for the reply Bruce.
I'll place the Amp for the Living Room near the Arc and am I right in saying the Sub will just connect through WiFi to the Arc as well rather than cable to the Amp?
All good re the Amp for the Alfresco. Speaker cable has been run back to the rack already and temp will be ok in there.
Cheers again
Matt
Yes, sorry I wasn’t more explicit. Both the Surrounds (in the form of the Amp, in your case) and the Sub both will connect to this “hidden” 5Ghz channel created by the Arc. It’s the way the system is designed to be used.
You might try hard wiring it, but as I said, it seems to go both ways on whether it works that way or not. I don’t see any particular reason it wouldn’t, but I didn’t write the software, either 
All I know for sure is there’s been a smattering of people who seem to have difficulty with that wiring. I’ve always assumed it was something odd in their LAN, and not an issue with Sonos, but again, not that kind of expert, either.
Glad to hear (pun intended) that your Alfresco setup is working already. Enjoy!
