Utter novice & help is greatly appreciated!
Newly renovated house. Looking for best option for 3 zone multi room set up.
1 & 2 Large open plan kitchen 25m2 and dining area/sunroom 35m2 - each of which will have a pair of wired in-ceiling speakers (Polk RC80i)
3. Lounge 25m2 - wired for wall mounted speakers but none selected as yet. Also contains TV with Sky Q box cabled back to central location where all physical boxes will be (will be using magic eye for remote)
Would like a Sonos amp that enables me to play music in the different zones (definitely need to split lounge from others, splitting zones 1&2 would be nice but not essential) and also to be able to play the TV through the lounge speakers without having to mess about too much. If this is complex then may invest in a sound bar - again recommendations welcomed.
Was told I needed to buy a Sonos amp for each zone - just to play same music stream (typically Apple Music or Spotify) and be able to turn it on and off - is this right? Seems strange if there isn’t something with multiple outputs I can control simply from an app? Remember my dad had a basic amp in 1980 that managed ?
Again thanks for any tips/advice on best amp to go for and any additional components I may need.
Advice for multi room design please
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Was told I needed to buy a Sonos amp for each zone - just to play same music stream (typically Apple Music or Spotify) and be able to turn it on and off - is this right?
One amp will control one zone. That means the same stream at the same volume level. You can group multiple zones together to play the same stream at different volumes, or you can un-group them and play different streams at different volumes.
That said, you can have more than one pair of speakers powered by a single amp. You can do that my attaching more than one wire at the speaker ports (see https://support.sonos.com/s/article/265?language=en_US for more details), or you can use an external speaker switch, with or without volume controls. The latter can allow you to manually turn off speakers and have separate volume controls in your different pairs of speakers. That will save you money to go that route, but it's not ideal.
Seems strange if there isn’t something with multiple outputs I can control simply from an app? Remember my dad had a basic amp in 1980 that managed ?
Sonos doesn't sell a single unit that can handle multiple zones on it's own. They are designed to have multiple units to work together in a multiple room system that fits your specific needs. They don't sell an all in one receiver/amp like traditional companies would sell.
As far as TV audio, you can connect a TV to each Sonos Amp and it will play in that zone with audio and video in sync. If you group the TV zone with another zone, then it will be slightly delayed (needed for multiroom buffering). Bonding speakers in the same zone to create a 5.1 surround system is dfferent and doesn't sound like what you're looking for.
Thanks very much Danny. All makes sense. Interesting point re buffering delay & TV. Most kind. Cheers.
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