[steveklein]

About a decade ago I spent about $2000 which was a lot for me at the time on Ascend Acoustics speakers for my living room which functioned as a de facto home theater. Fast forward to 2019 and I have several smart home devices and Amazon Echo devices throughout my home.

Going forward, I expect to buy a new home in the future and want to be thinking about the most elegant solution for distributed home audio. I have looked at Sonos and do think I'd be happy with them, but I can't help but think it'd be silly to not use the equipment I already have (Echo devices, and more importantly, really nice speakers)

I mean... as good as I've heard Sonos is, there is no way from a sheer sound quality standpoint that their soundbar and wireless speakers will sound as good as my Ascends, right? I was thinking of maybe going Sonos in a main open living area where WAF is key... and then relegate the Ascends to a den/theater/man cave type environment.

Thoughts? How would you approach it.

 

[smithsabom]

About a decade ago I spent about $2000 which was a lot for me at the time on Ascend Acoustics speakers for my living room which functioned as a de facto home theater. Fast forward to 2019 and I have several smart home devices and Amazon Echo devices throughout my home.

Going forward, I expect to buy a new home in the future and want to be thinking about the most elegant solution for distributed home audio. I have looked at Sonos and do think I'd be happy with them, but I can't help but think it'd be silly to not use the equipment I already have (Echo devices, and more importantly, really nice speakers)

I mean... as good as I've heard Sonos is, there is no way from a sheer sound quality standpoint that their soundbar and wireless speakers will sound as good as my Ascends, right? I was thinking of maybe going Sonos in a main open living area where WAF is key... and then relegate the Ascends to a den/theater/man cave type environment.

Thoughts? How would you approach it.

check out the Sonos AMP and the Sonos Connect. The amp will drive almost any speaker, so you get the best of both:sonos control/streaming and your existing speakers. the connect is a pre-amp device you can hook up to your existing receiver to enable sonos control and streaming.

an alternative to Sonos is Denon's HEOS. while the system is almost a 1 for 1 copy of the sonos system, Denon has incorporated the wireless control into their receivers.

there are several other ecosystems: Yamaha's is musicast. NAD has BlueOS (semi-open might be other subscribers to that system). there is an open system called play-fi where several manufacturers subscribe to - Pioneer/Onkyo/integra. Daton audio has Hi-fly.

so bottom line, evenif you stay in Sonos' ecosystem, you are not confined to using tier speakers. And if you want other options, there are many to choose from.