New House Audio Setup

Sounds like you have a typical 7.1 receiver. It is intended to have just 7 speakers and a sub with 5.1 in one area and two more speakers in a second area.

I'm not sure if you could, or would even want to attempt to connect 6+ speakers to just two output. I guess you could use the B side for the living room with just two speakers, and the A side with 5 speakers and a sub out on the deck and patios.

I would recommend getting a new receiver with a zone 2 output. Put that in your living room with 5.1 sound there. Then you can use the preouts to your current receiver and run all your outside speakers to that one. You could even use the B side for the dock and not run those all the time.

New receivers will have Wifi capability and it can all be controlled by the one receiver.

Someone may correct me if I'm wrong, though.

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200 ft and wireless is not going to be a winning proposition

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Agreed.

VAB, what do you think about Control4?

That's been pretty much my experience.

I am working on a plan to solve the "lighted doorbell" issue.

We have been fortunate to have an outstanding installer.

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Do you have power at the dock?

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Yes.

Thanks. I saw some articles about the sonos-iOS setup. Let me think about it and I'll be back with questions.

I have a sonos connect w/amp for my outside speakers. They are not connected into my receiver at all. Then I have a Sonos connect w/o amp that acts as a connection to my receiver to power my surround sound with music. That has the Airport Express plugged into it, which allows all sonos speakers to play the input from that device. I am also in the process of buying some stand alone sonos speakers, so I don't have to buy more connect devices. Those would also be good to buy, if you decide to go with sonos. You can move them wherever you want (with a power source) and change/add to your zones.

It is an awesome product, and from what i have heard, works much better than a lot of the wifi enabled receivers. It basically allows you the flexibility of more zones around your house.

The only thing i need to figure out for this fall is how to play the TV audio to the outside speakers. I think it would come in handy for football games, but haven't sat down to figure out exactly how the connections should work yet.

Sigma, feel free to email me at <<<@gmail.com if you have more questions. I'll try to be on the lookout for updates to this thread though.

Yeah you could do exactly what you described. You wouldn't need a bridge as the connect device or a sonos speaker acts as a bridge. Keep in mind, that these are not outdoor speakers, so they can be some place where they could get wet.

Basically, the bridge that they sell connects via Ethernet to your router. You have to have one sonos device connected in that way (ie the connect) once that is done, then all of the speakers can connect to your existing sonos network.

It depends on where your router is. If it is near the receiver, then you can use the connect. If it is in a room that you want speakers in, you can use the Play 1. And if it is in a room that you do not want speakers in, you would need a bridge.

I hope that's clear, if not, let me know.

Eta: You would need a connect w/o amp when hooking it up to an existing receiver. You need a connect with amp for speakers that have no receiver hooked up to them.

Setting up a Sonos Connect is easy. I have a Connect plugged into my receiver, the router is plugged into the Connect and the indoor and outdoor speakers are wired to the reciever. As long as I have a wifi signal, I can control the volume and music source/selection from the yard using my phone. The only drawbacks are my wifi signal only reaches half the yard and I can't change the zone selection (I could if I had Sonos wireless speakers). No need to go inside. The sound quality streaming from Spotify is better than I expected. Zero complaints in that regard.

You're right, wifi at the dock could be an issue. But there would be issues with a wireless speaker setup out there anyway. You could always run speaker wire or Ethernet to the dock underground, but I'd buy one or two of these, or something similar to boost the signal across the yard.

LINK

I've never used this brand or type, but the reviews seem mostly positive. Depending on the size or the type of antenna, it may cover most of the back yard. It sounds like you would need to do something to get any type of signal to the dock since nothing is out there now. I for one would not want to dig a 200' trench across the yard when a better wireless factor is available. I'm sure it would be nice to have Internet at the dock anyway, for music or streaming video.

As an aside, I also helped set up sonos for a friend with a similar issue. He already had wired speakers at a dock, tied into speakers in a patio area. These were all controlled by the same receiver. So we purchased a connect w/o amp, which was hooked to the receiver and powers all speakers mentioned. The only problem he runs into now is that he can lose Internet connection at his dock. So if he is playing something from him phone, the music drops out. If he is playing pandora, or a music service through the sonos app, the music keeps playing, but he loses the ability to change music, volume, etc until he moved back into range of wifi. I'll probably suggest to him to buy a new antenna at some point.

TigerRob...

Is there any way you can draw up a rudimentary diagram of how you have your system set up?