Setting up current receiver/speaker setup with sonos connect and amp

  • 16 January 2019
  • 3 replies
  • 750 views

I just purchased a two story home, the house is prewired with Ethernet and coax, but no speakers. I will probably be doing the speaker wiring myself, but that's not the concern here. I have a few questions with the hypothetical setup, or if you guys can recommend a different better way to approach this would be phenomenal.

My current setup:
I have a Yamaha RX### that has 7.2 powered channels with a powered zone 2. 5.1 of those channels are fed to my floor standing speakers and sub, 2.0 channels are fed to my outside patio speakers. I would like to keep this same setup in the living room of the new home. My same Yamaha receiver has two hdmi outputs that I use to feed my main living room TV and patio TV to play the same content. My Yamaha receiver has party mode, which allows me to play the same sound on all speakers.

My "would-like" setup:
The living room and the patio of the house will be taken care of, but that leaves the kitchen and the upstairs area. Assuming for this conversation that I would like to have 2 speakers in my master bedroom (upstairs), 2 more in a common living area (upstairs also), and 2 in the kitchen.

What would you guys do in my given situation? the main purpose of my setup is that eventually I would like to play the same sound on all speakers inside and outside the house; this leaves room to be able to play music in my master bedroom only, or just upstairs maybe? maybe I just want the kitchen and nothing else?
What about if I wanted to play a sports game on my tv with the 5.1 channels feeding that sports game signal, but play music on all other channels including patio?

Thanks much!

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3 replies


What would you guys do in my given situation? the main purpose of my setup is that eventually I would like to play the same sound on all speakers inside and outside the house; this leaves room to be able to play music in my master bedroom only, or just upstairs maybe? maybe I just want the kitchen and nothing else?
What about if I wanted to play a sports game on my tv with the 5.1 channels feeding that sports game signal, but play music on all other channels including patio?


The answer depends a lot on the capabilities of your receiver. Typically, you want to pair a Connect with your receiver. Output from the Connect goes into the receiver. That way you can have share what's playing on the Sonos network with the receiver. Not an issue really, except that some receiver do not allow the zone 2 to play all the inputs available on the receiver. So you have trouble playing the Sonos network audio on your zone 2.

Then there is the other side of this, sending audio from the receiver to the Connect so that your Sonos network can play whatever is on the receiver. Some receivers can't do this. Some have a tape-out to do this. Others can do this through their zone 2 only, meaning you would have to decide between having your zone 2 or sending receiver audio (tv) to the rest of the Sonos network.

If your receiver can't 'do it all', then using a Sonos Amp for the outside speakers and TV is probably your best option. That would freeup your zone 2 to work with a Connect.

The other rooms are really pretty wide open. Use a play:1s, Sonos Ones, or Play:5s depending on the size of the room and your preference. The beam is also a good option too if you have TVs in any of these rooms. I would not do ceiling speakers unless you absolutely want to. It's not going to be a cost savings, and rather challenging on a 2 story home.
Thanks for the input!
If it helps, my Yamaha receiver is the RX-V775, which looking at the specs it doesn't look like it has a digital audio out, only analog (RCA) audio out.

In this given case, I could get the analog audio out connected to the sonos connect and then stream whatever the receiver has to all other speakers right?
Looking at the receiver closer, yes, I think you'll be fine. It looks like there are separate outputs for Zone 2 and AV outputs. It's not 100% clear from the user manual though.