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Will Sonos amp achieve this?

D
So I’ve been looking at sonos products recently and think the newer amp may be ideal for my situation.

Currently I have 4 In-ceiling speakers in my living room which is separated from dining/kitchen by French doors

ideally for parties etc id like to play music through the 4 hardwired ceiling speakers as well as two of the sonos play speakers in the dining and kitchen rooms..will this work?

one question I can’t seem to find is that is there a limit to how many sonos products I can link together with the amp? Ie. Can I have 4 total sonos play and a sound bar as well as a hardwired sub connected through the amp? Any advice would be much appreciated.
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Best answer by Airgetlam 3 June 2019, 03:13

Not sure your questions are related, so hopefully this will help.

1) You'll need to be sure that a single Sonos Amp will drive all four of those speakers. Depending on the specs, it may, or it may not.

2) A Sonos Amp is considered a "room" in the Sonos software. You can group up to 32 rooms and all should play in sync, assuming your source isn't the TV (HDMI) input. If you're playing music, they'd all be in sync.
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12 replies

Stanley_4
Userlevel 7
Badge +21
Take a flashlight to the speakers, or pop the grills and make sure the installer has them pointed the right direction, all too often they get stuck in pointing the wrong way.
buzz
These speakers will be fine. "Evil", if any, will be in the ear of the listener.
D
one final question, but I think I’ve got the answer. These are my in ceiling speakers:



These should work fine with the sonos amp correct? 8 ohm impedance?

I bit the bullet and bought two sonos play today from Costco, sound great!
buzz
When listening to music in multiple rooms one would Group the SONOS Rooms and all of the rooms will be time aligned. If you Group a video source, there might be a time align issue. If this bothers you, adjust the Lip Sync in PLAYBAR for the video.

Also keep in mind that sound travel in air is poky slow at about one foot per millisecond. Depending on the size of your rooms and if you can hear a speaker from another room, you may encounter some echo like effects. For example, if you are near one speaker and another speaker is 40 feet distant, the 40 foot speaker will seem "late" even though it is time aligned with the nearby speaker. If you then move to the 40 foot location it will seem to be on time, but the original location will be "late". Large orchestras can present a dilemma for the performers. The bass player on one side will think that the percussionist on the other side is "late" and the percussionist feels the same about the bass player, yet both are "on time" as far as the centrally located conductor is concerned.
D
Great thanks so much.

In short, I had a major reno and I didn’t expect for my music etc to be so badly carried into surrounding rooms. So I figure for approx $1000 CAD, the sonos amp and a few wireless speakers gives me that multi room audio solution I’m looking for with the opportunity for future expansion
melvimbe
Userlevel 7
Badge +21
I think it might be best to back up a bit in the explanation. Sonos has the concept of different rooms in your home. A room is made up of a single speaker, a stereo pair of speakers, or a HT setup. The speakers in a room are bonded together and will always play together in sync...as a single room. Each room can play it's own separate audio, or can also 'group' rooms together to play in sync at will. You don't need any additional devices to get groups to play in sync together.

That all works great for music sources, but because TV audio needs to be in sync with the video, grouping rooms together to play TV audio has a slight issue. The room that's playing the TV audio will do so without a buffer (effectively) to match the video, while other rooms will be slightly behind. That's fine when the rooms are not next to each other, but if you can hear both rooms at the same time, then you'll get an echo effect.

So back you your questions.

ok so I think I would be heading towards setup 2 down the road. So would the amp be able to sync up the sound bar with the wireless rears? Or would I be using the wireless rears separate from the amp and connected to the soundbar?
if you setup your living room with a sound bar and sonos speakers for rears (+ sub) that would be one Sonos room. Your amp would be a second room. You can group the 2 rooms together to play music in sync. You can also group to play TV but it will create an echo effect since the two Sonos room are both in your living room.

As well, in that scenario would it be possible to use the ceiling speakers in conjunction with wireless rears and the soundbar?


I think I answered that above, but the point is that it's really not that great of an idea to do it like this. You'll probably end up using the ceiling speakers for music only, and your soundbar for TV only..when the soundbar TV sounds great for music as well.

Sorry for all all the questions it’s just kind of hard to figure out what works with what setup.
Danny
D

Yea so the amp would be located in the living room with my TV and other components, record player etc.

ideally i I would like to add an additional sound bar to the setup and perhaps even additional play speakers for the rears of the TV’s surround.

I currently have a 5.1 vizio soundbar setup which i will likely keep for the TV’s sound and use the sonos setup strictly for music until I can afford to replace it entirely. But yea, I’d like to add a sonos sound bar to replace that portionThis might not work the way you are thinking. There are essentially 3 options.

1 - The Amp can connect directly to your TV and play the front left and right channels (phantom center channel) of your TV. You can then connect a 3rd party sub (or Sonos sub) to the amp, and use 2 sonos speakers for rear audio. You wouldn't be able to use a sonos soundbar with this setup, at least not in the same Sonos room.

2 - You could get a soundbar and connect it to the TV to play the front left-right-center channels. You could use a Sonos amp to power speakers for the rear channels (or two sonos speakers). You can't use a 3rd party sub for this, only a Sonos sub.

3 -Setup 2 sonos rooms in the living room. You'd have the amp setup with the ceiling speakers to play music. You'd then have a sonos sound bar, sub, and rear speakers setup for TV. Two separate rooms that could be group together temporarily, but not very useful to do so.

Also note, I think Bruce may have misspoke earlier. You can have 32 Sonos devices in a single system, not rooms. You can have up to 4 sonos devices that make up a room, although only certain combinations are allowed. For example, you can''t ever use 2 sonos subs in a room.


Ok ok so I think I would be heading towards setup 2 down the road. So would the amp be able to sync up the sound bar with the wireless rears? Or would I be using the wireless rears separate from the amp and connected to the soundbar?

As well, in that scenario would it be possible to use the ceiling speakers in conjunction with wireless rears and the soundbar?

Sorry for all all the questions it’s just kind of hard to figure out what works with what setup.
Airgetlam
Danny’s assertion is correct, my ‘up to 32 rooms’ was predicated on each room being a single Sonos speaker, which is why I used ‘up to’. I made the assumption that the OP wasn’t going to get close to that as an issue.
Bruce
melvimbe
Userlevel 7
Badge +21
Yea so the amp would be located in the living room with my TV and other components, record player etc.

ideally i I would like to add an additional sound bar to the setup and perhaps even additional play speakers for the rears of the TV’s surround.

I currently have a 5.1 vizio soundbar setup which i will likely keep for the TV’s sound and use the sonos setup strictly for music until I can afford to replace it entirely. But yea, I’d like to add a sonos sound bar to replace that portion

This might not work the way you are thinking. There are essentially 3 options.

1 - The Amp can connect directly to your TV and play the front left and right channels (phantom center channel) of your TV. You can then connect a 3rd party sub (or Sonos sub) to the amp, and use 2 sonos speakers for rear audio. You wouldn't be able to use a sonos soundbar with this setup, at least not in the same Sonos room.

2 - You could get a soundbar and connect it to the TV to play the front left-right-center channels. You could use a Sonos amp to power speakers for the rear channels (or two sonos speakers). You can't use a 3rd party sub for this, only a Sonos sub.

3 -Setup 2 sonos rooms in the living room. You'd have the amp setup with the ceiling speakers to play music. You'd then have a sonos sound bar, sub, and rear speakers setup for TV. Two separate rooms that could be group together temporarily, but not very useful to do so.

Also note, I think Bruce may have misspoke earlier. You can have 32 Sonos devices in a single system, not rooms. You can have up to 4 sonos devices that make up a room, although only certain combinations are allowed. For example, you can''t ever use 2 sonos subs in a room.
Danny
D
Yea so the amp would be located in the living room with my TV and other components, record player etc.

ideally i I would like to add an additional sound bar to the setup and perhaps even additional play speakers for the rears of the TV’s surround.

I currently have a 5.1 vizio soundbar setup which i will likely keep for the TV’s sound and use the sonos setup strictly for music until I can afford to replace it entirely. But yea, I’d like to add a sonos sound bar to replace that portion
melvimbe
Userlevel 7
Badge +21
Also, you mention wanting to use a soundbar in this setup. Was that in the living room or a different room? There are some limitations on what you can do when using a Sonos Amp and soundbar (playbar, playbase, beam) in the same room. If this is your intention, there's some additional things you should know.
Danny
Airgetlam
Not sure your questions are related, so hopefully this will help.

1) You'll need to be sure that a single Sonos Amp will drive all four of those speakers. Depending on the specs, it may, or it may not.

2) A Sonos Amp is considered a "room" in the Sonos software. You can group up to 32 rooms and all should play in sync, assuming your source isn't the TV (HDMI) input. If you're playing music, they'd all be in sync.
Bruce

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