Question

Outdoor Options

  • 30 June 2017
  • 2 replies
  • 1090 views

I'm currently building a house. I am not yet a Sonos owner, but plan to use Sonos for my living room, kitchen and hopefully my outdoor patio. I will place a TV in the corner of my patio, 14' away from one edge and 24' away from the other. This section will also be screened in. I'm not concerned about moisture directly hitting any of my electronics, but I do live in South Louisiana, so I need to think about humidity.

I spent a little time today in a chat session with Sonos trying to figure out what I would need. When we discussed the outdoor patio, I'm not sure I can do what I want. I would like to have both TV and audio outdoors. I understand Play1s and Play5s are humidity resistant, so I could get one or two of those and it should be sufficient for audio. However, Sonos is not recommending a playbar/base for outdoor use and therefore I don't know if there is an elegant solution to sending the tv audio signal to the speakers.

With the line-in option of the Play5, is it possible to send the tv audio signal to a separate receiver and then send a wired signal to the Play5 directly? If so, what type of receiver do I need? I'm definitely not a tech savvy guy. Having never owned any Sonos products, would one Play5 be sufficient for outdoor volume? It's a patio next to a pool

Thanks in advance.

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2 replies

Sonos does not do outdoors very well via their speakers. The best solution still remains using speakers with amplification residing indoors and the amplification can be either a Sonos Connect Amp or a Sonos Connect driving a suitable amp if more than a speaker pair is needed for best coverage. Laying speaker cables of adequate thickness for the distance can also be easily accomplished if the house is being built. Locating speakers as close to the listening areas as possible is best for keeping amplifications requirements in the modest territory. And there is a wide range of weather protected speakers in the market.

For the TV, my suggestion would be to go with just the TV speakers; modern TVs can deliver decent sound once the necessary tweaking is done via the menu options on them and this may well be very adequate out of doors.
If you want just the TV audio to reach the pool as well, it will be very easy to do this from the TV+ Sonos kit kept for the indoors, via Sonos Connect Amp/Sonos Connect that is kept inside, but which front ends the external speakers.