Sonos Amp wiring question

B

bigkevj

Audiophyte
I am putting a couple of Klipsch AWR-650-SM speakers around my pool, and wiring them to a Sonos AMP (the new one). I notice the wiring coming out of the speaker is 4 conductor wire, and the Sonos AMP has 2 banana plugs. The wire distance to one speaker is about 120ft, and the other speaker is about 150ft. I plan to purchase direct burial speaker wire.

Here are my questions:
Is 12AWG wiring sufficient or should I go with 10AWG wire?
Do I need 4 conductor wire? Or can I do 2 conductor wire and wire the 2 positives from the speaker to the positive on the wire run? and then do the same for the negative wires.
 
highfigh

highfigh

Seriously, I have no life.
I am putting a couple of Klipsch AWR-650-SM speakers around my pool, and wiring them to a Sonos AMP (the new one). I notice the wiring coming out of the speaker is 4 conductor wire, and the Sonos AMP has 2 banana plugs. The wire distance to one speaker is about 120ft, and the other speaker is about 150ft. I plan to purchase direct burial speaker wire.

Here are my questions:
Is 12AWG wiring sufficient or should I go with 10AWG wire?
Do I need 4 conductor wire? Or can I do 2 conductor wire and wire the 2 positives from the speaker to the positive on the wire run? and then do the same for the negative wires.
120'-150' is a bit long for speaker wire runs that aren't using a 70V system.

You need four conductor cable because those speakers have dual voice coils, so you need to wire them according to the diagrams that come with the equipment. If you wire them by connecting the two pairs parallel, the Sonos will supposedly handle it (should be OK since the long cable run will add resistance) but if the speakers are far apart, the sound from the opposite channel will be hard to hear when you're close to one of them, so each speaker is connected to both channels so your location won't matter. This is called 'Distributed Audio' and stereo separation isn't important- getting all of the sound out there is the goal.

The speakers have Red, Black, White and Green, right? The conventional color scheme is:

Red= Right +
Black= Right -
White= Left +
Green= Left -
 
Last edited:
B

bigkevj

Audiophyte
120'-150' is a bit long for speaker wire runs that aren't using a 70V system.

You need four conductor cable because those speakers have dual voice coils, so you need to wire them according to the diagrams that come with the equipment. If you wire them by connecting the two pairs parallel, the Sonos will supposedly handle it (should be OK since the long cable run will add resistance) but if the speakers are far apart, the sound from the opposite channel will be hard to hear when you're close to one of them, so each speaker is connected to both channels so your location won't matter. This is called 'Distributed Audio' and stereo separation isn't important- getting all of the sound out there is the goal.

The speakers have Red, Black, White and Green, right? The conventional color scheme is:

Red= Right +
Black= Right -
White= Left +
Green= Left -
Yeah, I don't want/need/care about stereo. same sound out of both speakers. getting as much power to them to get the most sound is probably most important since they are outside. sounds like you are recommending the 4 conductor cable.
 
highfigh

highfigh

Seriously, I have no life.
Yeah, I don't want/need/care about stereo. same sound out of both speakers. getting as much power to them to get the most sound is probably most important since they are outside. sounds like you are recommending the 4 conductor cable.
No, you NEED 4 conductor wire if your system is running in stereo mode and don't want the sound from the music to bounce from channel to channel (listen to old Beatles songs for good examples of this). The one way around that which would give you the most power and make sending both channels to each speaker is setting the AMP to Mono. Look in the menu for Advanced settings, Audio and check the box for Mono.
 
S

ScrubbBussy

Enthusiast
150' is a long run for that amp and voltage. Wire ampacity difference between 12 & 10 is not too significant, but I would still suggest the 10 awg wire. Also, depending on how much you care (going to be there for a long time, water table etc.) I would suggest installing underground conduit and running the cable through there. I have replaced miles of direct bury or CiC primary conductors, they lasted for decades, but if you ever want to replace the wire the conduit will be nice.
If you're not too concerned, direct bury will work perfectly, for many years.
 
Speedskater

Speedskater

Audioholic General
Actually, wire ampacity is never a problem with speaker cables. What can be a problem with long runs is the end-to-end resistance of the cable.
 
highfigh

highfigh

Seriously, I have no life.
Hi all, I’m planning on setting up 4 ceiling speakers in a room and am about to run the wires and just want to double check with the community that I’m doing it right so I only have to do it once.

From the Sonos support site it says to always wire the speakers in parallel, but I’m just curious if that is the best way - on plenty of other sites online (non-Sonos specific) it says for 4 speakers from a single amp to wire them in Series-Parallel, as all my speakers are 8 Ohm, series-parallel would have 8 Ohm’s impedance, where as wiring in parallel would be 4 Ohm’s from my understanding.

Of course the amp is able to run 4 speakers in parallel, but I’d just like to know some opinions on what is the optimum way to set this up, and if there’s any benefit / harm in wiring it in series-parallel?

One other thing to note that I may be doing in the future is adding two additional speakers (8 Ohm) via an impedance-matching control, if that would influence any decisions on how to wire the initial 4 speakers.
Whether the speakers should be parallel depends on their impedance and whether they have serious impedance dips. It's also easier for Sonos to hit the higher power output numbers and that impresses people. IMO, ANY time someone wants to use a streaming device like Sonos, Denon's HEOS, Yamaha's MusicCast or something similar, a separate amplifier is best because it's more able to handle difficult loads and a good amplifier will offer more power.

By "series'parallel", are you asking about any benefits of each, or using series-parallel in order to install more speakers? Speakers with a crossover should only be wired parallel or separately on a channel, but it has been done without killing the system when the crossover is simple. Doesn't make it the right way, though.

If "might" means 'probably' WRT the third pair, wire the feed to a junction box in the area where the speakers will be located, then run the speaker wires FROM that box to the speaker locations. Leave the unused wires unconnected and don't strip their ends, to prevent them coming into contact with the other wires.IF you use them, fine and if not, also fine.
 
BMXTRIX

BMXTRIX

Audioholic Warlord
Hi all, I’m planning on setting up 4 ceiling speakers in a room and am about to run the wires and just want to double check with the community that I’m doing it right so I only have to do it once.

From the Sonos support site it says to always wire the speakers in parallel, but I’m just curious if that is the best way - on plenty of other sites online (non-Sonos specific) it says for 4 speakers from a single amp to wire them in Series-Parallel, as all my speakers are 8 Ohm, series-parallel would have 8 Ohm’s impedance, where as wiring in parallel would be 4 Ohm’s from my understanding.

Of course the amp is able to run 4 speakers in parallel, but I’d just like to know some opinions on what is the optimum way to set this up, and if there’s any benefit / harm in wiring it in series-parallel?

One other thing to note that I may be doing in the future is adding two additional speakers (8 Ohm) via an impedance-matching control, if that would influence any decisions on how to wire the initial 4 speakers.
Wire them in parallel. Your Sonos amp is not 'one channel' of amplification, but it is two separate channels. The left channel, and the right channel. So, you have two separate amplifiers, with two speakers on each channel.
 
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