Multiple connect:amps or multiple connects + multichannel amp

  • 20 April 2018
  • 4 replies
  • 1501 views

Here is the situation: I have a fairly large space (including living room, kitchen, dining room, tv area) which is pretty much all open plus a deck. Currently renovating and planning for audio. Number of speakers: Living room 6 , kitchen 2, dining 2, TV area 2, deck 2. I'd like on/off/volume control for different areas. I can't see playing different sources but I suppose that would be a feature.

Option 1) 1 Connect:amp per speaker pair. That's 7 x $500 = $3500
Option 2) 1 Connect for each area + multichannel amp. 3 Connects (living room, kitchen/dining/tv, and deck) plus something like the Russound D1650. That's 3 x $350 + $1000 = $2050 plus I get two extra channels or I could bridge to the outdoor speakers. The D1650 has screws for volume control on each speaker so I could fine tune before using Connect for volume control. I'd lose some of the savings in wiring and figuring out some 12V trigger workaround.

Thoughts?

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4 replies

Why not skip all the separate paraphernalia, and go for play units as suitable? Between the 1 and the 5, singly or stereo paired, and with a Sub where needed, they offer enough permutations to check every possible box.

Except outdoors, which needs passive speakers with a Connect Amp indoors.
Fair question. All speakers are in-ceiling.
I was in a similar situation 8 years ago, and ended up using a SINGLE Connect Amp and fed that to a SIMA SSW-6 speaker selector from Amazon (https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B00006JQ62/), and used that to feed in-ceiling speakers in 4 rooms and a pair of outside speakers. Also installed Russound volume controls in the wall at each location for local volume control, which also has a way to control speaker impedance so as not to overload the amp. Has been working absolutely fine for all these years. I am just not able to have different songs play in different locations, but I don't need to so I never threw more money at that.
Interesting. That's a very minimal use of Sonos. I want to use the zone select and volume control from the Sonos. Just wondering about the Connect Amp vs external amp(s).