Bringing an existing hi-fi into a Sonos system

Sonos has led wireless multi-room audio since 2005, and the useful development for anyone with real equipment already is that you no longer have to choose between the two. The Port and the Amp both bring existing hi-fi into the same system.

The practical result is that Pandora, Spotify, a digital library and a turntable all live in one place and can play to any speaker in the house. Sonos runs over Wi-Fi rather than Bluetooth, which is why the signal stays lossless rather than degrading on the way.

The Port is the successor to the Connect, which arrived in 2008 and did the same essential job of adding network capability to existing audio. The Port connects to a receiver or amplifier you already own and lets you stream to whatever it drives. It has line-in and line-out on both analogue and coaxial, so a turntable or CD player can join the system, provided it has its own amplification.

What the Port adds over the old Connect is AirPlay 2, which means streaming straight from an iPhone or iPad, and asking Siri to play something to speakers that predate all of this by a decade.

The Amp does the same job but supplies power, which is what decides between them. If you already have a receiver or amplifier, the Port is the cleaner addition. If you are running passive speakers that need amplification, which covers most in-ceiling and in-wall installations: the Amp is the one, delivering 125 watts per channel into 8 ohms, with a digital input so a television can join the multi-room system too.

One planning note worth knowing before you buy: if you want genuinely independent zones, each zone needs its own Amp. Without that you can group speakers together, but you cannot play different music in different rooms.