I'm new to the forum, first time poster.
I recently remodeled my home and had it pre-wired for home theater/sound and had speakers installed in the ceilings. I am a complete idiot when it comes to A/V stuff and am not looking to become an expert at this stage in life LOL. I had Best Buy come out during construction for an estimate. They clocked me at $7K which wasn't happening. I took their proposal and bought the same recommended components through other sources for a fraction of the price. The only thing I haven't bought yet is the amps needed for the additional speaker runs.
Here's what I have speaker wise:
Run #1 (4) speakers in the living room ceiling
Run #2 (2) speakers in the kitchen/dining room ceiling
Run #3 (2) speakers in the master bedroom ceiling
Run #4 (3) speakers in the outdoor lanai ceiling
I have a Denon - AVR-X1700H (80W X 7) 7.2-Ch home theater receiver, a Polk Audio Monitor XT35 Center Channel Speaker, a Polk Audio Monitor XT12 12" 100W Class A/B Amplifier Subwoofer, a WiiM Pro AirPlay 2 Receiver/wifi multi room streamer and all of the speakers are Polk Audio RC80i 8" speakers. There is already a gang plate in the living room wall ready for input. The only thing I need are the amps for speaker runs #2-#4.
The Best Buy estimate recommended three additional Sonos 250W 2.1 ch amps for runs #2-#4 to the tune of $700 a pop. That's just not in the budget right now. I'm not even sure why I need three more amps in addition to the main Denon amp and receiver LOL. Do I really need it? I'm only piping music through the rest of the speakers in the house and outside by the pool. I really hadn't planned on hooking up the master bedroom or outdoor lanai TV's to the system but I guess I could. I have a Bose soundbar in the master which is good enough for me. I'm just not an audiophile LOL. Helpppp!!!
I don't see how you can run 4 different zones off of a receiver that only supports 2 zones and has no pre-outs. The X1700H has 7 amplifiers and supports 2 zones: Main zone and Zone 2. Typically you would connect 5 speakers (which includes a center channel speaker) to the main zone (Front L+R, Center and Surround L+R). You would then connect the Surround Back L+R to two speakers in another zone and use the setup menu in the receiver to configure your speaker setup. If you do not have a center speaker, then you can leave the center channel unused.
So the 4 living room speakers could be connected to Front L+R and Surround L+R and the center channel to the XT35 center. (Ceiling speakers are not normally recommended for 5 channel surround setups. The front L+R speakers are usually floor standing, bookshelf or on-wall speakers.) The two kitchen/dining speakers could connect to Surround Back L+R. You have now used 7 of the 7 available amps.
In order to feed music into other areas, you would need pre-out connections for the 7 channels. Pre-out connections are not amplified. They feed external amplifiers. The only pre-out on the X1700H is for a subwoofer, which connects to the Polk XT12, so you have no way to drive any other amplifiers. This is if you want to control all of the zones from the one receiver.
Since you are happy with the sound bar in the bedroom, you should probably forgo connecting the bedroom ceiling speakers. The dilemma you are faced with is connecting the outdoor speakers. I can think of a couple options.
The Denon has HEOS support for multi-room audio. This works if you are using streaming services like Spotify or Pandora, etc. You could purchase a 2-channel Denon amp with HEOS and stream from the receiver to the second amp through wired network connection or wi-fi using the HEOS app.
Other option is a second amplifier with wi-fi and then use the WiiM Pro to stream to the Denon receiver and the second amp. I suspect that Best Buy was using the Sonos amps to stream to from the WiiM Pro and running zones 2, 3 and 4 off of them. If you are happy with the sound bar in the bedroom and using Zone 2 on the receiver for the kitchen, then a single Sonos could run the outdoor speakers. You would use the Denon receiver to control the living room and kitchen, and the Sonos to run the patio. The WiimPro would see this as two zones: Living room and kitchen as a combined zone and patio as a second zone. If you want to treat the living room and kitchen separately on the WiiM, then you'll need another Sonos for the kitchen. Only issue I see is that you have 3 outdoor speakers and a stereo amplifier likes to see speakers in pairs, not an odd number.
In general, single room setups are easy to do. Multi-room setups are not.
When setting things up for 3 or 4 rooms, it really is best to pay extra for professional help. They would also set up the receiver for you, connect the Sonos amps to the WiiM and show you how to use the WiiM app to control everything.
The
Denon receiver specs are here, and the
manual here. Read over the manual to see what's involved in setting it up and whether you feel up to the task.
