Best setup for outdoor stereo system

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+1 to SONOS. The boost helps a bunch. After several years of adding a little at a time we now have SONOS everywhere. It is not cheap but, you can't beat it for ease, convenience, accessibility to LOTS of music choices all integrated into an app that can be used on any device anywhere in your home network. And it sounds great!
 
Google Chromecast Audio... most people don't know that they now support multi-room grouping. So if you have more than one Chromecast audio you can stream the audio to all the Chromecasts in the "group". I have a set of Rock speakers and house speakers mounted under the eaves, you can play them independently or as a group. All for $50, the Chromecast were on sale for $25 each. I love the idea of SONOS but they are WAAAYYY overpriced. I just wanted the SONOS connect and it's $350, so I would have spent $700 for the same functionally as the Chromecast. I'm using Plex as my home media server and it works great with the Chromecast for my home music library, all controlled from any smartphone or computer.

I also recently purchased a pair of Definitive Technology AW 6500 Outdoor Speakers and I'm blown away by the sound for an outdoor speaker. I highly recommend them!
 
I don't have any iPhones anymore, but it looks like this app "AllCast" should allow you to play music from your iTunes music library. I prefer using a home media server (like PLEX) to stream using Chromecast audio. It's really just a local "Cloud" server, with my music library.

AllCast — Cast photos, music, and video to your Chromecast on the App Store


Description

AllCast casts your iPhone's local photos, music, and videos to your TV. You can also stream them from popular cloud providers such as Dropbox, Instagram, Google+, and Google Drive.

Stream photos and videos from cloud providers to your big screen.

AllCast lets you cast to:
* Chromecast
* Apple TV
* Amazon Fire TV
* Xbox 360, Xbox One
* Roku
* Samsung, Sony and Panasonic Smart TVs
* Chrome
* Sonos
* WDTV
* Other DLNA Renderers

No setup necessary. It just works like magic.


AllCast Premium: Upgrade to remove ads and receive all of AllCast's premium features.

AllCast Premium includes:
* No advertisements
* No splash screens
* No limits on video lengths

To purchase AllCast Premium just tap AllCast Premium from the home screen and tap Purchase AllCast Premium.
 
I have the Bose version of Sonos. It's called Bose Sound Touch. I have 2 of the SA-4 amps connected to 4 of the Bose 251 outdoor speakers. The amps connect wirelessly to your wifi network and you just need AC power to the amps and speaker wire to the speakers wherever you mount them. They sound great paired together and the app for the phone to control them is good. That being said, my mother has Sonos at her house with a few different zones, one being the pool, and Sonos is great also. I only chose Bose because my brother in law works there and I got everything at his discount which is almost 50% off, so the choice was easy. I'm adding another pair of the Free Space 51 speakers to a couple mulch beds around the pool powered by their new SA-5 Sound Touch amp next spring when our pool goes in. The Sound Touch app lets you play internet radio, Pandora, IHeartRadio, iTunes library, SiriusXM, and some others, but I primarily use SiriusXM, my iTunes library, and IHeartRadio. I'd recommend either Sonos or Bose Sound Touch to anyone.
 
duckvader said:
Here is my setup. It's a Raspberry Pi with a Hifiberry DAC running Volumio the amp and speakers are a set from parts-express.com. The amp and raspberry pi are contained in a sprinkler box mounted to the same pole my pool light switch is on. With Volumio you can use a locally attached USB drive or I have it connected to my NAS via Wifi where all my music is at.

View attachment 48589

Speakers and Amp

Sprinkler Box
Click to expand...

duckvader - I have no idea what this is. How does it work? I am not sure what a Rasperry Pi is... I looked up a little online, but still a bit confused. It may beyond my "pay grade" to understand how your set up works. Can you dumb it down for a simpleton like me?:confused:
 
I want to play music from my phone to one or two speakers that have yet to be purchased. Let me see if I understand some of these solution people have mentioned to see if I understand correctly.

Option 1: get Google chromecast Audio and plug it into a receiver, which has speakers wired into same receiver.
Option 2: SONOS. Can I just get one SONOS Speaker and connect wirelessly from my phone to that? I know SONOS speakers are very good, so I may not need more than 1.
 
bigkevj said:
I want to play music from my phone to one or two speakers that have yet to be purchased. Let me see if I understand some of these solution people have mentioned to see if I understand correctly.

Option 1: get Google chromecast Audio and plug it into a receiver, which has speakers wired into same receiver.
Option 2: SONOS. Can I just get one SONOS Speaker and connect wirelessly from my phone to that? I know SONOS speakers are very good, so I may not need more than 1.
Click to expand...

Simplicity from your phone... Get a couple of UE Boom wireless bluetooth speakers. If you want to connect multiple speakers to your bluetooth signal, download the app from UE. Won't be able to connect to multiple speakers without the app. Placed strategically around the yard, they sound real nice. The smaller UE speakers are $99 and the larger ones are $199
 
bigkevj said:
I want to play music from my phone to one or two speakers that have yet to be purchased. Let me see if I understand some of these solution people have mentioned to see if I understand correctly.

Option 1: get Google chromecast Audio and plug it into a receiver, which has speakers wired into same receiver.
Option 2: SONOS. Can I just get one SONOS Speaker and connect wirelessly from my phone to that? I know SONOS speakers are very good, so I may not need more than 1.
Click to expand...

Yes, you can get one Sonos speaker. I would also get a boost. Or there is another thing going for 50 bucks but the boost for 100 is better. We mostly have one Sonos in each room/area and it is good.
 

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Florida Ron said:
Yes, definitely get a Boost if you are going to use SONOS. Using your router to route the SONOS traffic is a nightmare. SONOS is much more reliable when it creates it own mesh network.
Click to expand...

Sonos will also create it's own mesh network by using one of those older much cheaper bridges you can find on Ebay for like 30 bucks. I think that's what pooldv is referring to.
 
bigkevj said:
I want to play music from my phone to one or two speakers that have yet to be purchased. Let me see if I understand some of these solution people have mentioned to see if I understand correctly.

Option 1: get Google chromecast Audio and plug it into a receiver, which has speakers wired into same receiver.
Option 2: SONOS. Can I just get one SONOS Speaker and connect wirelessly from my phone to that? I know SONOS speakers are very good, so I may not need more than 1.
Click to expand...

There are some other factors that play into this decision. Where do you want to put your speaker(s)? Is there power there? Do you want to leave the speaker(s) outside all the time or bring them in and out every time you use them?

Once you answer those questions, then you can start to narrow in on a solution. If you go with Sonos, you have a couple options. If you have power and are not going to be leaving the speaker exposed to the elements, you can get a Sonos speaker which needs AC power, but not weatherproof. If you don't have power but you can run speaker wire to where you want to mount/leave an outdoor speaker, then you can use a Sonos connect amp to run two outdoor speakers. The amp connects to power and then wirelessly to your network. This is the setup I use, albeit with the Bose equivalent. My amps are in my basement, and I have speaker wires running out to the outdoor speakers. Everything is controlled over wifi from your phone and this is the setup I would recommend.
 
I kept it a little vague because I am open to options. If I went with Sonos, I would not leave them out as I dont believe there is an outdoor Sonos speaker...and they would be subject to the elements. If I were to mount outdoor speakers, there is not power where I would probably mount them....but I could get speaker wire to them.

If I did the Sonos connect amp, could I start with 1 speaker then add another down the road? Or do you need two speakers right off the bat? And does that supply power to the speakers? You said "if I dont have power but can run speaker wire to where I want to mount the outdoor speaker".
 
Please allow me to muddy the water a little more. I seem to have a mix of some of the stuff you guys have already posted. Now this is an extremely simple and fairly cheap option (at least for me it was). I inherited 2 of the Bose Free Space 51 outdoor speakers with the house I bought a couple of years ago. These things are old (~10 years or so) but they were already wired into the house and they work perfectly (plus new ones start at around $500/pair) so I decided to use them. I ordered what appears to be the same amplifier that duckvader used in his system with the raspberrypi. A Dayton Audio DTA-120 Class T Digital Mini Amplifier. This little amp ran me around $60 at the time, but sounds almost as good as the old Harman Kardon receiver that I hooked up on them just to have some music out there our first Summer in the home. It also is extremely loud. I have to limit the volume in the house at the amp or the kids will have our neighbors upset. Finally, I plugged in a $35 Chromecast Audio to the amp which is the only source I use for music out there. So for basically less than $100 I now can stream Pandora, Spotify, local radio stations through iHeart Radio, and even my teen-age daughters crappy music collection through Plex/Kodi apps. I did have to add an old wifi router bridge in our screen room which overlooks the pool, so that our phones had adequate access to the network. My house blocks wifi signals pretty bad.
 
orijonl said:
Please allow me to muddy the water a little more. I seem to have a mix of some of the stuff you guys have already posted. Now this is an extremely simple and fairly cheap option (at least for me it was). I inherited 2 of the Bose Free Space 51 outdoor speakers with the house I bought a couple of years ago. These things are old (~10 years or so) but they were already wired into the house and they work perfectly (plus new ones start at around $500/pair) so I decided to use them. I ordered what appears to be the same amplifier that duckvader used in his system with the raspberrypi. A Dayton Audio DTA-120 Class T Digital Mini Amplifier. This little amp ran me around $60 at the time, but sounds almost as good as the old Harman Kardon receiver that I hooked up on them just to have some music out there our first Summer in the home. It also is extremely loud. I have to limit the volume in the house at the amp or the kids will have our neighbors upset. Finally, I plugged in a $35 Chromecast Audio to the amp which is the only source I use for music out there. So for basically less than $100 I now can stream Pandora, Spotify, local radio stations through iHeart Radio, and even my teen-age daughters crappy music collection through Plex/Kodi apps. I did have to add an old wifi router bridge in our screen room which overlooks the pool, so that our phones had adequate access to the network. My house blocks wifi signals pretty bad.
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Seems like a great solution for anyone that inherits a pair of $500 outdoor speakers.
 
bigkevj said:
I kept it a little vague because I am open to options. If I went with Sonos, I would not leave them out as I dont believe there is an outdoor Sonos speaker...and they would be subject to the elements. If I were to mount outdoor speakers, there is not power where I would probably mount them....but I could get speaker wire to them.

If I did the Sonos connect amp, could I start with 1 speaker then add another down the road? Or do you need two speakers right off the bat? And does that supply power to the speakers? You said "if I dont have power but can run speaker wire to where I want to mount the outdoor speaker".
Click to expand...

You could start with just one speaker but I wouldn't recommend it. One amp powers two speakers so your only extra cost is the outdoor speaker which are usually sold in pairs. It's also meant for stereo sound.

Most any outdoor speaker will only need speaker wire to it, so the amp does "power" it, but they're not active speakers so no AC power necessary.
 
And now for something completely different ;)

A fairly inexpensive but awesome sounding solution I'm currently using is the Big Blue Party speaker by Brookstone's...now avail for about half hat I paid ;) https://www.amazon.com/Blue-Party-Indoor-Outdoor-Bluetooth-Speaker/dp/B00H5SFQ54/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1482527534&sr=8-1-spons&keywords=big+blue+party+speaker&psc=1

Pros - it is truly waterproof. I leave it out all year sitting in the terrace, completely uncovered. I bring it under the deck roof in winter. Its run very well and has awesome sound for a single with great bass. If I had anything louder my neighbors would kill me ;)

-- has own subwoofer and puts out 72 watts...very balanced sound...like it better than Boise and my kid who trained as audio ENG and programmer loves the sound too so its not just my low expectations ;)

- its is very portable, so you can take it camping to other remot parties, or just up the hill by the fire pit

-- its lithium battery stays powered ith out recharge a good spell for remote use

CONS - Its self contained, so unlike sonos etc. is not part of a whole house option

-- lithium batteries don't love direct sun...not a problem in my case but might be or others

I bought the thing before hubby upgraded his crazy antique circa 70s house sound system complete with manga pans that are as tall as I am. Now he's added a Yamaha Bluetooth receiver and on rare party occasions I do wish I could chain indoor and outdoor together so if you're unfettered by a Luddites stereo quirks you may want a more integrated solution.

But ive found the big blues twin features of power and portability a boon for things like blasting it in the shop while puttering or entertaining in the poolhouse/barn in winter etc.
 
We currently have a blockrocker we bought on eBay. It's not waterproof but it rolls around with a handle and wheels built in like luggage. It is so loud and my husband also uses it as a portable amp when he wants to plug in his guitar. The battery literally lasts for days. We are switching over to play-fi though for whole house audio. It's like Sonos but cheaper and the different brands that offer play-fi all work together. They have stand alone speakers, sound bars and also receivers you plug into your current system. We are currently planning the outdoor areas as we finish up our AG pool build and yard makeover. We are goung to use the Phorus PR5 play-fi reciever plugged into a older Yamaha receiver A/B wired to either 8 outdoor marine speakers or 4 outdoor house speakers. A up by the house and B by the pool and future fire pit.
 
I have a Multi Zone hardwired outdoor system with a couple powered subs on the patio.

I use multiple Airport Express units (8) controlled by my home automation system Indigo running on OS X.

All pool function on the Jandy RS8 system are able to be controlled with Indigo via this Plugin.

System works great and has a very High WAF. :p

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