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Hi all, I’ve researching a couple of days now (YouTube, google, here) to wrap my head around this and need some help understanding as I apparently don’t get it. 

I don’t own Sonos yet, but want to make sure it can do what I need. 

Current setup

  • Home theater (2nd floor)
    • Denon AVR-X3700H (HEOS, 2 Zones)
    • ELAC Debut 2.0 speakers (l,c,r, rear - wired)
  • Patio (1st floor)
    • 2 Polk Atrium 5 outdoor speaker (wired)

The patio speakers were not pre-wired to the home run in the home theater on the 2nd floor, but terminate close to the TV on the 1st floor.

I have 2 options: 

  1. Get a receiver for the 1st floor
  2. Run wires to the home theater

I am leaning towards 1. as I would like to expand multi room on the 1st floor and keep the two systems separate.
 

So I need something to power my outdoor speakers, again it seems that I have 2 options

  1. Get a HEOS compatible receiver
  2. Get a SONOS amp

For option 1, my understanding is I can connect the outdoor speakers (obviously) but also can use HEOS speakers to build out a multi room setup. This is NOT my preferred option as I would be stuck with Denon satellite speakers, nothing in-wall or in-ceiling. 

 For option 2, I can connect the outdoor speakers and start adding SONOS satellite speakers. I would run into the same limitations as above with the HEOS solution. 

This limits multi room to satellite speakers. 

If I want a wired setup with in-wall/in-ceiling, can I plug in a SONOS port into an AVR that then distributes sound to multiple SONOS amps? 

I have watched YouTube videos in which a SONOS connect is connected to the AVR and SONOS Amps are used for each multi-room zone. Is that the correct setup?

Thank you!


 

 

Hi @vawx75 

Welcome to the Sonos Community!

If I want a wired setup with in-wall/in-ceiling, can I plug in a SONOS port into an AVR that then distributes sound to multiple SONOS amps? 

There’s two ways that sentence can be interpreted - the Port would distribute the stream, not the AVR. You have the right idea, yes, but the Port will only work with stereo. However, each Amp also has line-in, so there’s only a need to get a Port if the AVR is not in a location where you could also site an Amp, or if you also want to use the line-out on the Port. An Amp connected via line-in will happily share that feed to other Sonos devices, just like the Port. 

For surround sound to work an Amp would have to be connected to a TV via HDMI. Surround speakers and/or a Sub could be wirelessly added, the surrounds being either in-wall/ceiling wired speakers, powered by another Amp, or a pair of stand-alone wireless speakers, like the One/One SL.

I have watched YouTube videos in which a SONOS connect is connected to the AVR and SONOS Amps are used for each multi-room zone. Is that the correct setup?

Yes - the Port is the modern Connect. For each zone of individual control wanted, you need one Amp. 2 pairs of 8 Ohm speakers can be connected to each Amp (3 pairs if they are Sonance Architectural speakers), but they connect to the same stereo +/- posts and operate together.

I hope this helps.

 

 

 

 

AMP will support virtually any 3rd party passive speaker. PORT can support most 3rd party powered speakers unless the speakers are designed to support only the 3rd party’s electronics.

SONOS powered speakers (ONE, MOVE, ROAM, FIVE, and some older speakers) can be added as needed -- as individual speakers or pairs.

SONOS SUB can be added for many SONOS speakers, but not Roam, Roam SL, Connect, Port, or Move. 

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