Macworld - USA (2019-12-B)

DECEMBER 2019 MACWORLD 117

to the Amp) for low-frequency effects. If
your TV is equipped only with an optical
output and not HDMI, Sonos sells an
adapter you can use.
If you have a large home theater, you
can use both a Sonos Sub and a powered
wired sub at the same time, and/or a
second amp to power wired surrounds.
The one thing you won’t get is a true
center channel, but the Amp creates a
convincing phantom center channel by
blending the audio from the left and right
front speakers. I certainly didn’t miss
having a dedicated center channel in my
movie tests.
The Sonos Amp can also handle wired
speakers that present less than 8 ohms of
impedance, producing up to 187.5 watts

per channel while

driving a 6-ohm

load and a

whopping 250

watts with 4-ohm

speakers. The

Amp can accept

standard banana

plugs or you can

use its robust

binding posts with

bare wire

(between 10 and 18

AWG). In the latter

configuration, you

can wire two pairs

of speakers to the Amp in parallel to

deliver the same music to two stereo

pairs (with speakers in the same or in

different rooms), provided the impedance

presented to the amp doesn’t drop below

4 ohms.

The Amp’s binding posts are

ingeniously designed so that you can pull

them out of the Amp, thread bare wires

through the posts, cinch them down, and

then plug them back in. That’s much easier

than having to reach around to the back of

the amp to do everything. If you’re using

banana plugs, you won’t need the binding

posts at all because you’ll insert the

banana plugs straight into the Amp. When

driving Sonos by Sonance speakers (go.

macworld.com/snan) (in-wall, in-ceiling, and

Sonos engineered the Amp’s binding posts so that you can remove
them to thread bare wire through the holes, cinch the wires down, and
then plug them back in. You can also use banana plugs in place of the
binding posts.