Home sound gurus. Help and advice needed.

One way is an AV Receiver that has different zones, there's a wide variety of options, and in all manner of price ranges.

You can get a separate Sonos Amp for each group of speakers but that would cost a ton of money. Or you could integrate the current receiver into a Sonos system with a Port.

I bought the older model amp to push outdoor patio speakers that works great with the various speaker and sound bars of their around the house.

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Why would I want to go Sono's with wired speakers?

Isn't their fame and value primarily centered on being wireless. . . and way less on quality sound for the dollar.

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Sonos is good at zoned audio with app control. If you have 6 rooms where you want to play 6 different songs and make it to where any idiot can control it, it’s among the best. If you want app/voice control of one running through the house, it is still decent.
Zone 2 audio can be somewhat cumbersome, and it allows you to avoid a universal remote or multiple remotes to control your entertainment system.

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Cliffs - want updated system with current app/technology and all of my speakers to work.

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If I had surround sound in one room and architectural/installed speakers in four other rooms, I would be happy with the ability to pay TV in one room, listen to music in all the others, and I would love to be able to play TV throughout the house.
My cable provider is streaming only (no cable boxes) and has appletv and firetv apps. Pretty much all my viewing happens there now. I do not watch physical media in this location or play any of it. If you do, that changes things.
I would use:
Basically any 7 channel receiver (or 5 if that’s all that’s installed, but most are 7+ now). I would use an AppleTV as my sole source, and I would put a single Sonos amp into a mono price 4-speaker selector.
I would use the Apple TV remote only
When I want to play the same thing on the surround sound as throughout the house, I would use the Appletv to select the source and airplay to the Sonos. When I want independent zones (music elsewhere but TV on), I would use the Sonos app to select music. I have not had a ton of success having the Sonos app be able to select an AppleTV as a source (it sees it and allows it to be selected, but it doesn’t play).

If this were sufficient, I wouldn’t go further. You could add up to a Sonos amp per speaker pair which would allow for each individual zone/room to be selected in the app. This cost racks up quickly for what many would consider a not particularly useful feature. Others really want/need individual room control.

Unfortunately, the real “trick” is that there’s not a great solution to have your original surround sound in tact and add a Sonos zone. I think using a Sonos amp for surround sound is super costly and impractical. Adding a Sonos Port (their ampless amp, if you will) to a receiver gives you your standard surround sound that you’re used to plus the ability to select your living room as a Sonos zone. The problem is that you need to turn your receiver on and to the appropriate input to have sound play. This requires a remote, a second app, or a bit more behind the scene savvy than the typical person asking the question you’re asking is going to commit to (setting up home automations checking the status of the Sonos from its web address and using that to send commands to a smart receiver to change inputs...not particularly straightforward, and you can find reviews of people who have done it with mixed results, and you wind find a step by step guide). If you currently use a programmable smart remote like a Logitech Harmony, you could tell receiver on “power off” to actually kick back on and switch to the right input. But if you’re watching TV and want to change, just from the app, music to everywhere, you’re going to have an added step. For something founded on simplicity, this may bug you enough to not do it. It may be beyond your wife’s technical capabilities. It’s not even a little hard. But it’s a step that’s going to often make you “the guy” that has to do it for everyone else in the house.


Again, Sonos isn’t the best sound quality I’ve heard. It’s not the worst. It’s probably the best solution for the application I laid out above. Each wrinkle you add changes how good it is or what may be better.


I’m happy to offer anything else that may be useful to you. But I would probably accept operating surround sound independently from the rest of the house.


I’m also no pro. Take my advice with a grain of salt.