My Backyard Makeover

Can you elaborate on the Sonos blows comment? Was just looking at buying a few for around the house and had heard only good things so far…

Holy shit ! People are still allowing you to rent equipment?

Patio and fire pit are nice! The pool isn’t too shabby either.

My connectivity is good…the premise is excellent. I wanted to control my outdoor speakers from outside on my phone. I like my music loud in the summer and the sonos does not power my B&W speakers adequately despite being assured that it would. So when I play at full volume, it lasts about 3 minutes before it cuts out and I have to start over…I can play 3/4 volume all day long but I just dont feel it is as loud as I would like. I have had to reset the bridge/router multiple times as it loses connectivity to the internet for no apparent reason.

My mom has 3 sonos units in her house and she has similar problems.

It is a great system in theory, and I will be the first to admit I am tech stupid so it may be something I am doing, but I have had my gf call customer service because I lose my mind quite a bit and even they cannot figure out why it wont play full volume, so they blame my wiring and then do not have an answer when she says, it plays full volume radio stations, just not pandora or mobile device.

I think I will be going to a standard reciever next year and using sonos as a glorified remote control.

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I know…its crazy…esp after i broke the last piece…eeek!

does sonos have anything with pre-outs so that you can just buy an amp that has some balls and use that to power the B&Ws? I’m envisioning that you are currently killing those speakers with distortion.

How come the drain holes are facing up in your pictures? did you bury them like that???

+1

I was told drain holes up as an overflow into the trench. I have heard contrasting views every step of the project. What i do know is that i have zero puddles in my yard which equals success to me

No pics of babes in said backyard with cold beers in hand no care.

The sound is awesome. Just not sustainable at high volume. It does have preouts so i am planning to use it as a remote and power the speakers from a stronger amp

---------- Post added at 01:22 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:22 PM ----------

I thought i put you in charge of that!

In my yard, the town of tonawanda inspector told me to be sure the holes faced down.
I needed a permit :frowning:

What he cared most about was the non tie in at the curb.

It’s cold out now! They said they don’t wanna get cold weather indicators :frowning:

that area in between where it sounds good and where it cuts out is called distortion, that’s what kills speakers. Just be careful because if you add more power and do the same strategy you’ll blow them even quicker, maybe instantly.

I am not at all an electronics person…but the sonos amp hits a safe mode and shuts down…that causes the cut out. Not sure if it makes a difference to what you are saying because I was told to just hook up my speakers to this sonos amp and away I go with perfect music.

amps typically shut themselves down because they are overheating due to not being able to provide what you are requesting. distortion is something an amp knows nothing about, it’s what the speaker is doing when it does not have enough clean power coming from the amp. If you in turn get an insane amp it will first allow you to go louder and cleaner, but everything has a limit and if you go too far your fail point will no longer be the amp, but the speaker blowing.

cliffs: get a better amp, but be a little careful about just cranking it. trust me, you’ll know dangerous distortion when you hear it.

I understand that, but why would it only be on Pandora/Mobile device? The sonos will play am/fm at full volume for hours without cutting out. Isnt it the same amperage regardless of the source?

that’s probably a good question for sonos, but my best guess would be it’s getting a lower signal level on some sources that is needs to boost even more which is turn causes the amp to go into thermal. good speakers are harder to drive so that’s not helping either.

I hear ya…I have asked them and they just tell my I have the speakers wired wrong…I may not be up on most things electronic but I can wire speakers!

I am not looking for earth shattering sound…but 3/4 volume is just a few dbs short of what I would like

What is headroom?

3 dB = twice the power.

I was trying to keep it simple, but yeah, exactly.