I am having an in ground pool built in the backyard in about 2 months. I have an area on the south side of the pool that will be a landscape bed and will have outdoor speakers installed. These will be hard wired speakers being run by the Sonos Amp. The Amp will be installed in my basement with wires run out to the speakers by the pool. On the west end of the pool I will have a gazebo with a TV installed. I’d like to use the outdoor speakers for the audio from the TV as well but not sure how I’d hook the entire system up to the Amp?! Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated! Thanks
suggestions for outdoor audio
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If you have WiFi coverage or a network connection at the TV location, a straight forward scheme would use PORT to send audio to AMP. You’ll probably need some sort of adapter to convert audio from the TV to an analog signal for PORT’s Line-In. I strongly suggest running a network wire to the gazebo. As a hedge for the future, run an optical fiber too.
Another scheme popular with some A/V installers would be to use a special adaptor to send audio to AMP’s Line-In. Each installer has their own favorite scheme and each scheme has its own set of issues. These schemes can work OK if the right equipment is used and properly installed. As you have probably noticed, this is not my preferred approach.
In some cases Airplay 2 might work. For some users, Airplay 2 is the magic bullet, but I avoid it.
In all cases you will experience some lip sync issues. These will be caused by latencies inherent in the SONOS system and the distance between the outdoor speakers and the listeners.
Would an HDMI cable from TV to the Amp work since that provides audio and video? That would still send the audio out to the outdoor speakers via the hardwired speaker wire correct?
Yes, HDMI-ARC sends audio to AMP and this audio is available to the connected speakers.
Note that buzz specified HDMI-ARC an not plain HDMI.
I definitely would recommend using HDMI-ARC rather than RCA cables if at all possible. Not sure about the distances between gazebo and the amp, but you should be able to get 30-40 ft with a good cable. I have a couple TVs setup this way.
Also, you might want to mount speakers in the gazebo as well as on the other side of the pool, using a second amp. Don’t really know what your layout looks like, but you really want audio coming from the direction of the TV as well as for the pool area.
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