Outdoor audio

[Dreamthief75]

So I looked for a specific thread but found none. I am trying to wire a multi-zone backyard. I want to be able to control song and volume via app or WiFi as I am pretty far away for Bluetooth. It will be 8 zones in a back yard. I’ve never done this before but would like advice on rock speakers outdoor mounted speakers, multi zone amps and pretty much if this is possible without running for 8 post audio control sections throughout the yard.

[joeinid]

Welcome to the forum, thank you for joining.

[rrwmd]

Check out the Sonance line of outdoor speakers. They have a wide range of products for outdoor. Their Mariner line of mounted speakers are outstanding. They also have a variety of rock speakers, "satellite" speakers (that look like landscape lights), in ground and above ground subwoofers, and amplifiers.

Depending on how sophisticated/expensive you want to go:

A Control4 system would be something to consider, especially if you wanted to do any video or home automation as well. Their controllers have local streaming from Tidal, Spotify, Pandor, XM, and a few others and can control both audio and video zones. Their multi-zone amps are very good. I have an all C4 system with 4 outdoor audio zones (with Sonance Mariners), 4 indoor audio zones, and 8 video zones and it is a very slick system, all operated via wifi through the C4 app.

You could use something like a Sonos Connect or Bluesound Node which would also stream locally via wifi and connect to any multi-zone amp. I had a Niles multi-zone amp in my old house which I thought was great. Dayton Audio makes a very affordable multi-zone amp which a friend of mine has in his wine store hooked up to several zones of JBL mounted speakers (with and SVS sub) and the sound is really quite good.

My A-V guy does all of this kind of stuff and has several branches here in KY. PM me if you want his contact info.

[Dreamthief75]

Thanks rrwmd. I certainly wasn't planning on going extremely elaborate. I was hoping I could track down something more like a Dayton 12 channel amp that was wifi/ app/cloud based per zone controls. I am not finding anything like that though. I guess I hadn't put a price tag on this, but I would like to keep it around the 2k range give or take a few hundred. I might drop from an 8 zone to a 6 zone as 2 of the zones are relatively close to each other and mounted high enough should be able to cover those areas nicely, will just need to increase the volume a bit more.