Sonos - CONNECT:AMP 110W Class D Amplifier - White/Gray

A few years ago we had speakers installed in the ceiling of most of the rooms in our home as well as outside in the sitting area. Long story short we stopped dealing with the installation company and never finished the project. We went into BestBuy to see what our options were and they recommended Sonos. The configuration they proposed seemed pricey and I just didn't understand why. After it was explained to us that we could the installation in pieces we went ahead with what we called the first installation. Oh my!!!! Why did we wait so long. It is so cool. My first surprise was all the freebies you get from Sonos such as access to many many radio stations. They are nicely grouped by genre. I was also able to play all the music I had purchased in MP3 format over the years as well. The second surprise was being able to run it from almost any smart device. There was no problem running it from multiple devices. I has the technician install Sonos on my laptop and told him I would install it on my other devices. I was able to install it on my Samsung Galaxy 3 phone, the new Samsung Galaxy 4 phone, my Nook tablet and the Samsung Tablet 3.0. We got two controllers and figured out on our own that you could group and quickly ungroup controllers. We opted to have two rooms on one controller and another controller control another room for a total of 3 rooms able to produce sound. This is so we could do indpendent listening but if you were having a party you could group all the controllers and they would play the same music without having to try and individually set each controller. We plan too add more but we can do that in a time frame that works for us. My only negative comment is that it seems from time to time a device can lose it's connection to the controllers. Sometimes you just need to reboot such as a phone and other times you have to just reconnect it which is literally pusing two buttons on the front of the controller. Not sure why it does this but it doesn't bother me. I like things that are easy, straight forward and make my life better.

The Sonos Connect Amp did stream from my windows network and spotify etcetera just fine. But the Amplifier is highly lacking in performance and features in my experience. A) it struggled to drive my (refurbished) Marantz HD440 speakers which used to sound glorious when connected to my old Kenwood amp. at full output the volume out of the speakers wasnt even close to what they can put out, and it sounded blah, flat. B) When it came time to adjust the tonality of the amplifier i found that all it had was a Bass slider and a Treble slider under the "Equalizer" settings interface. That aint gonna cut it! each speaker has a different response and will need some tweaking for optimal response. -- Sonos offers an app to adjust tone response for all its products which have speakers, and their justification for not having it in the connect Amp is "it doesnt have speakers". so Sonos is aware that amplifier/speaker combos need tonal adjustment, but not aware that users will be connecting speakers to their Connect Amp? So the flat response of the amplifier, seemingly punchless output and lack of equalizer made this product not fit the bill of being a high end amp. maybe if it were just a power amp fed with a pre-amp. definitely not worth the $ so the Connect Amp has been returned it and will be looking to get just a sonos connect, and an amplifier with multi band equalizer and look at other products.

So, if you have a SONOS SOUND BAR or SOUND BAR and SUB, you CAN achieve 5.1 Surround with non-SONOS speakers using the AMP. https://sonos.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/2248/~/setting-up-connect%3Aamp-as-surround-rears I did not want to use SONOS PLAY:X speakers because of the unsightly power cords and stands, so I went for Yamaha in-ceiling speakers connected with an AMP. The bad news, which I found out after installing the ceiling speakers, is the AMP doesn't have the same antennae as the PLAY:X speakers, so it does not know its connected speakers are surround speakers. This is stupid! And it's the big reason for the lower star rating. One must physically connect the AMP to the SOUND BAR with a CAT 5/6 cable AND connect one SONOS component to a wireless router. My AMP sits in a closet I wired the rear speakers to, so I had to run CAT 6 up the wall, thru the attic, and down the front wall to the SOUND BAR. Then, I had to buy a SONOS BOOST in order to connect to the router which is on the other side of the house. Then I had to set the system up in BOOST mode and change the IP of the AMP to point to the SOUND BAR. BUT, now that it's complete, OMG! The sound is incredible. I ran the Trueplay Tuning with the APP, made some adjustments to the bass, and BOOM. It knocks your socks off. My home theater sounds as good as or better than any commercial theater. And I like that I can set up the App to have separate sound settings for television/movies and music. Metallica never sounded so good in my house!!! Fix the AMP SONOS to not require CAT 5/6 connection, and this thing is a 5 Star product!

The Sonos Amp has been an excellent solution to power my outdoor wired Niles rock speakers. I had been using an old 18 year old Onkyo receiver to power the speakers but it finally gave out. The audio source was my TV output utilizing Dishnet for Sirius and Apple TV for iTunes. I looked at replacing the receiver, but to get decent power for two pairs of speakers I would have to go with a surround sound model which I did not need. The other issue was that whenever we had guests (kids) who wanted to watch TV while others were out by the pool we had to turn the music off. Sonos provided the solution. I can now listen to a much greater variety of music from different sources (Sirius play lists per channel are not as long as you would think) without using the TV as an audio source, stream the music on a separate wifi signal in the house using the Sonos Bridge, control the volume (although I had already installed an outside volume control), and select different music from a variety of sources and devices. The sound quality is very good; better than my 18 year old Onkyo! The main drawback is price. I would love to add more components (play bar for the TV with the subwoofer and a Connect to hook up to my home theater in the basement) but I would have to spend an additional $1,750.00 and that doesn't even include the play bar mount for the wall which costs another $40.00!! That's on top of the $550.00 I already spent! The grand total would be $2,340.00 and I would be getting music in the family room, basement, and outside. For the family room to be able to do true surround sound for home theater, I would still have to spend more for rear speakers... Anyways, great system which I highly recommend...but be prepared to spend some $$$.

So, I think the principal behind this device is fantastic... it ties into the Sonos ecosystem allowing for easy control over your home network of music for single and multiroom audio applications. At 500 bucks, the price is excessive. The only benefit to the Sonos ecosystem is that it can be controlled and automated in smart home automation applications. For example, it can tie into a Harmony Hub function that can be activated through the Samsung Smartthings Hub, when you walk into a room, a motion sensor can determine your presence and then activate music playing with other automations. The benefit to this and the Sonos Ecosystem ends there. Most other manufacturers are using DTS PlayFi for multiroom and single room wifi media controlled applications. You can get a DTS PlayFi device (the Klipsch Gate for example) for 70 bucks and use your existing amp to power your speakers and have the same capability as this 500 amp. There is also the Klipsch Gate Amp which goes for the half the price as this and does exactly the same thing.

Limited connections for input. You have to plug/unplug different devises unless all you want is internet fed content. The power level just makes it on the Amp for my Martin & Logan speakers outside (they are awesome). Any less power and it would be insufficient. A friend plugged in his iPhone and the volume was minimal...could not figure why since volume was on max for both. We just disconnected it. Internet range is mediocre at best. I also bought 2 Play 3 speakers, I really like them. The Sonos Boost Bridge is much, much weaker than reported. I also bought a Connect unit and needed the Boost Bridge. Without the Boost Bridge I would not have a network that works at all despite my new very high end Night Hawk router. The Geek Squad just squeezed out the connection with Boost and I am really surprised that the network isn't more robust or as robust as it seems to be reported on line. I have a large house and good thing I only was covering downstairs or it would never have worked. Just make sure all the devices are not too far away or the signal will be dropped. I do like it and enjoy the Sonos system. I wanted the sound bar to integrate TV audio but was told when you group with other speakers you lose individual speaker volume control, so I returned the sound bar and kept my Bose 135.

I purchased a new receiver and speakers that has dual zones for my house last year. I wanted to use the second zone in my backyard but after a year of trying to figure out how to make it work, I gave up. I considered buying new speakers for my backyard, but my AV guy recommended this Sonos receiver to use with the speakers I have and it works great! It was tricky setting it up—he could not figure out how to get it to play the Playlists from my iPhone and we spent over an hour on the phone with Sonos before we figured out we just needed to select Allow iTunes Music On This Device in the Sonos app (tip if anyone else has this problem!). I have it inside a media cabinet and don’t have any issues with heat (another question I had). Now I can have music in my backyard immediately without going through all the steps I had to do with my dual zone receiver. I am very happy with this purchase!

I currently have 3 connect amps, 1 connect, the bridge and a Play 3. Every component is top notch. I don't know why i waited so long to get Sonos. Previously i was "trying" to play sound using the receivers different zones but that was not working out for me at all. Plus i have more zones than the receiver could handle. With Sonos, i can now play the same music from each zone, or group them to whatever combination of zones i want to create. Doing that is so simple with the app, even my not-so-tech-savy wife enjoys turning the music onto her favorite choice. You can play different music on any zone you would like, even from a different source. One thing to mention is that in order to listen to music from speakers that are connected through the reciever in my entertainment center (using the Sonos "Connect"), i have to turn my receiver on to that specific input. I use a Harmony Remote and have that labeled as "Listen to Sonos". Overall awesome product and i'm definitely going to add more Sonos gadgets to the entertainment center in my basement.