Sonos Amp question

I have a friend that is buying an existing home and doing some retrofit before they move in. The previous owner looks like he either prewired for some distributed audio or started a project that he didnt finish. There are 3 rooms with Dayton Audio volume knobs on the wall, but no speakers. I went into the attic and confirmed that some wiring was run (complete mess), but no speakers are present. He wants to use whats there, but not put a bunch of money into finishing this out. He asked for my help.

The living room has 4 in ceiling surround speakers and plates for the front channels and sub. He wants to run a receiver in the living room and put in-wall speakers in the front channels. Thats pretty straight forward. He also wants to drive the audio speakers in the other rooms I mentioned earlier. From everything Ive read he has two choices; 1) run 7:1 on the AVR and run a separate amp to drive a speaker distribution hub for the other rooms, or 2) go down to 5:1 in the living room and drive the speaker distribution hub with zone 2 from the AVR. He asked for my help on the AVR and I found a good deal on Denon 1913s at the moment so thats what I have specced in the plan, but nothing has been bought yet.


That leads me to the option 1. They arent audiophiles, they arent tech savvy, they arent planning on having wild parties with the volume knobs cranked to 11. I was thinking of using a Sonos Amp to drive the speaker distribution hub for the 4 rooms if he insists on keeping the 7:1 in the living room. Ive never used the Sonos amp so I was curious if that would have enough juice to drive the 4 rooms of audio (through a distribution hub and the impedance matching knobs). They have Android phones and want the ability to play some arabic music, I assume Sonos is the better route to find something streaming from the net wtih all of its choice of sources. The owner is comfortable with Pandora (he uses it in his stores he owns for background music). Thoughts?

Thanks Jeff, I dont think the 1913 has a zone 2 pre-amp output, so Ill have to bump up the AVR cost. The simplicity of the Sonos system plus its numerous internet sources were drivers on that option. I know the Denon AVRs have Pandora and Sirius/XM, I guess Ill draw up a third option with a pricier 7:1 AVR with zone two pre-out and a cheap separate amp.

Did a little more research and found an Onkyo that did 7:1 and had separate powered zone 2. It will stream music from android devices over wifi to boot. We are going to see if the Pandora in the AVR along with the android streaming will be enough and look at adding a Sonos player to the AVR as a source down the road if they need it.

Anyone have any tips on drilling through the plate on exterior walls right at the eave? There isnt much room to work with since the roof pitch is almost sitting on the plate and Im trying to avoid having to come in from below and having to cut drywall for access. I know there are flexible drill shafts out there but I figured a 1 inch hole bit plus the shaft would probably be too tight as well.