HCA Tech Talk - News, Reviews and Opinions

Sonos Amp Multi Unboxed - EXCLUSIVE FIRST LOOK

• HCA Media • Episode 20

Share episode

Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.

0:00 | 13:41

Send a text

A black box that cuts rack clutter, runs cooler, and scales from a cosy master suite to a sprawling estate? We sat down with Stephen to unpack the new Sonos Amp Multi, the new pro-only multi-room amplifier designed for installers who crave clean builds, flexible zoning, and dependable power without heat headaches.

We start with access and why it matters: Amp Multi is available exclusively through authorised distributors, keeping support and training aligned with the pro channel. If you’re not approved, Stephen explains how to get vetted, signed, and listed on the dealer locator—the lifeline for inbound Sonos clients who can’t buy this unit on the consumer site. That visibility is a real business driver, especially when projects hinge on trusted, local expertise.

Then we get hands-on. Amp Multi mounts fast with a rack faceplate and runs on modern, efficient internals that draw just 5.4 watts in mute mode. The design favours airflow and serviceability, from the perforated chassis to clearly printed PIN codes you can read without a flashlight. Setup is belt-and-suspenders simple: microphone proximity pairing, QR, join button, and PIN. For inputs and outputs, you get line-in for turntables or legacy sources, a sub out for passive subs, Ethernet for stability, and support for wireless Sonos Sub with Trueplay tuning.

Power and flexibility are where it shines. You’re working with 125 watts per channel and eight speaker outputs, which you can map to four distinct rooms or combine into one large zone with many speaker pairs. That adaptability fits real installs—think a master suite with bathrooms and dressing rooms, or a commercial floor that needs even coverage. Within the 32-product Sonos home limit, this single unit helps you scale to hundreds of speakers, turning a former constraint into a practical advantage for big jobs.

We also share ISE plans: frequent 15-minute training sessions, product managers and engineers on the booth, and live demos so you can see the app-based assignment logic in action. If you’ve avoided multi-room streaming because of heat, space, or rigid zoning, this is a smart moment to revisit your spec. Amp Multi respects your time, your rack space, and your client’s needs.

If this helped you plan your next build, follow the show, share it with your team, and leave a quick review with what you’d power first using Amp Multi. Your feedback shapes future deep dives.

Pick up some Sonos today and support the podcast 🙏🏻 https://geni.us/69d0Lm

Read, Watch or Listen to more News, Reviews and Opinions - https://linkly.link/2a0s3

Support the podcast by shopping on Amazon - https://geni.us/npUEx

Start your own podcast and received $20 - https://linkly.link/2acMf

Support the show

SPEAKER_01:

So, Stephen, thanks for meeting up with me again today. Um, we're now in 2026, uh a few months after our last podcast, which we did in the room next door. And uh towards the end of that podcast, I accurately guessed what the new Sonus product was going to be, which uh ironically I I edited out but just took the voice away. But actually, today we're back in Habitech, it's uh mid-January, and we have said product in front of us. Very exciting. So tell us a little bit about this new product from uh Sonos and uh yeah, what have we got in front of us?

SPEAKER_00:

Okay, all right. So um, first of all, what I will say is um this is a brand new product for the professional channel. Um, it's only available to authorized installers. Um so if you're not authorized, get yourself authorized, apply to your your chosen distributor, sign up, easy peasy. What is it? This is AMP multi. So, yes, indeed it is a multi-room amp, but it's so much more.

SPEAKER_01:

So when you say sign up to your distributor, so in our case in the UK, that is Havitech, All Trade, and Midwitch. And then if you're not a Sonos dealer with them, just get in touch with them. Precisely say you want to get hold of Sonus products, precisely.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, exactly that. And it's a very simple process. They will vet you um and make sure that you are what you say you are, and then that then then triggers a DocuSign agreement that's sent into your inbox, just put your name in it, auto-signs it, you're then authorized. Then if you if you pass all the loops you have to go through, which are not that many, you can then go on to our dealer locator. And that's important for products like AMPulti and Era 100 Pro because we have this on our website, but we don't sell those products on our website. You can't buy Eero 100 Pro, and you won't be able to buy AMPulti on the Sonos.com website. What it does is it takes you to the dealer locator.

SPEAKER_01:

So if you're not on that dealer locator, you're not gonna get any business. You're not gonna get it.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

And and obviously, I mean, I would hate to think about how not hate to think about, I'd hate to sort of try and guess the amount of people that go to Sonos.com. Yes. Uh so if you're not on there, you're potentially missing out. And I'm assuming the similar scenario we have in this country is the same around the world.

SPEAKER_00:

Global. This is global. Um, this is a global initiative for this. It doesn't matter where you are. Um, yes, the selective distribution model is a European model. It's not quite the same in America because we're an American company, therefore, there are many, many installers that do buy from us directly in America. We don't have anybody buying from us directly in the UK or across Europe. Um, so everybody who any installer that works in Europe does have to deal with a local distributor, one of our authorized distributors.

SPEAKER_01:

Okay, so now we've got that out of the way. Tell us a bit about the sexy product we've got in front of us. And lovely to see, first of all, lovely to see it's in a monolithic black box. It is. You're really I was one of the few people that when Microsoft released the Xbox, I loved the design and not the curvy, wavy PlayStation.

SPEAKER_00:

This is right up my street. Uh so yeah, so this is AMP multi. Um, it is, as you say, it's a black box. It has got some quite clever little tricks around it. First of all, setting it up is really easy. Yes, it does have a pin number on it, but it also has a microphone in it. Get your phone out, wait for the did, ping it, it will then connect. You have got a QR code, you've got a pin number, and you've got a join button in case something goes wrong. So, but effectively, it's a very, very easy product to set up. Also, when you turn it on its face like this, what that enables you to do, it enables you to connect a faceplate over the top of it, which is an accessory that's available for it. It's two screws into the base here, and then offer it up to the rack, one-handed almost, and screw it into the rack. Really simple, really, really simple. Um, and then you can see now, hopefully, you can see now it's got multiple different ports on the back. Um, and that's where it starts to get clever.

SPEAKER_01:

So fundamentally, with this, it's what do we say, two U rack mountable? Yeah, two U.

SPEAKER_00:

So it's one and a half. Yeah. With a bracket, it takes it to two U. So you end up with a half U gap.

SPEAKER_01:

And that's good for vent ventilation. Exactly. It does also have um feet on the bottom of it.

SPEAKER_00:

So it can go in a crescenda or on a shelf. Absolutely, it can do. Um, it's got very, very modern technology in it. It only draws 5.4 watts when it's in mute mode, okay, which is really good. It's a lot less than the amp does. Um, and also it has new technology which keeps it much cooler. Much, much cooler. Um, so there's new electronics inside there, which you'll get to see at ISE, and we'll talk a lot about it in more technical terms at IRC. But it has got a lot of technology inside, which keeps it a much cooler box.

SPEAKER_01:

And that's obviously we've got the uh uh want of a better word, cheese grater. Yes, which again takes me slightly back to some Apple Macs of fast design, the pros and that.

SPEAKER_00:

I couldn't comment, but that's that is for airflow as well. Um, so so it does mean that that it's a cooler box, it's not drawing as much power as it is, it's still 125 watts per output. Okay, so it's still the beast of what an amp is, um, but but it's a much, much cooler product than an amp. So touching on amp, so fundamentally, is it four amps in one? In basic terms, yes, it'll do four rooms of of Sonos out of one box for one power socket.

SPEAKER_01:

So on the back here we have the eight outputs of speakers.

SPEAKER_00:

One room, two room, three room, four room. Yeah. But you can assign any one of these to any room. Okay. So in the app, you're not just saying I want four rooms. Maybe you want to put four pairs or twelve pairs into one room. You can do that.

SPEAKER_01:

So if you have a lot like the room we're in here, if you've got a lot of things.

SPEAKER_00:

Precisely. If you were doing a big commercial space, you could actually say, Well, I want to have you know 12 pairs of speakers in there. Use Sonos by Sonnet speakers, you can do that, but you're only going to use X many of these holes. You're still going to have some left over. Or another example would be you've got a residential installation, you've got a master suite, you've got two dressing rooms, and a couple of bathrooms. This product will do all of that with separate music in each room.

SPEAKER_01:

So it's adaptable to your scenario, not just precisely for ads. Precisely, precisely that, precisely that. So on the back we have um kettle eat type power. Yep. Uh we've got your join button, we've got your microphone, we've got your uh source in.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, so turntable, CDs, tapes, whatever you want it to be.

SPEAKER_01:

Yep. Then we've got a sub out, which is for a non-son sub. If you let's say we go back to we're doing one room with four speakers, yeah, we could put a passive sub in there.

SPEAKER_00:

Could indeed, yeah, some in wars in war sub or something like that. You absolutely could do that. Um, but of course, you can still use our sub, wireless sub, hardwired because you're installer. Um our wireless sub could also work with it.

SPEAKER_01:

Which obviously is more tuned to this because the sonos range for what it's going to be paired with.

SPEAKER_00:

And if you true play, which you can true play this, of course, and you've got a sonos sub in there, it it recognises that audio.

SPEAKER_01:

And then we've obviously got the RJ45 Ethernet connection. And then coming along here, it so so fundamentally as you said, anybody who's installed Sonos knows how to install Sonos, and it's it's pretty easy. Um so you have the pair button, the microphone, but then you've also got the pin number and the QR code. Correct. So literally we are your belt and braces.

SPEAKER_00:

If it if you don't get the if you can't connect it with the phone and you can't connect it with the join button, you then got other options. And the pin number is in white writing, so it's very, very visible. Thank you.

SPEAKER_01:

I was I can't think I don't think it was a Sonos, I don't think it was a Sonos product, but I remember doing I was doing something recently and it was black on black. And as you can see, I'm of an age now where I have to wear my glasses for reading or whatever. I still had to take the phone out of the pocket to take a picture of it, to blow it up to see black on black. So if you are a manufacturer watching this, please don't print black on black. It's really annoying, especially when you're 50. And obviously, don't forget the fact of that, you know, let's chop that in half. We're not so not too far off the use space that it's going to take us in a rack for two hands.

SPEAKER_00:

Precisely. So but then you haven't got to use the shelf.

SPEAKER_01:

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00:

You have got the face plate that will be work as the rack mode.

SPEAKER_01:

And I quite like, and and I'll be honest with you, something that stopped me from putting Sonos in some jobs is that just the sheer, if you're taking 14 zones, that's a hell of a lot of rack space. It certainly is, yes. You know, especially if you're doing a whole house like some of the people watching this will be, where you're also putting network in, you're also putting A V in, Kaleidoscape, CCTV. Precisely.

SPEAKER_00:

And I think that's a very good point because 32 is still the maximum amount of product you can have at any one Sonos home. So today you could have 32 amps. If you're using three pairs of Sonos by Sonamp speakers and do the math yourself, now you can have 32 of these in one rack. Oh, so this is 32 of these, which will run hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of pairs of speakers.

SPEAKER_01:

So Prince Charles could put this in Buckingham Palace quite easily.

SPEAKER_00:

Exactly. We we use the Jay-Z and Beyonce house, but yes, Buckingham Palace or any other mansion house that some of you will work in. Um, this all of a sudden will run that home. Um, which before you just wouldn't have gone with us. You you and rightly so you wouldn't have gone with us. Now, all of a sudden, here it is, it will do everything you want to do. And it is really clever when you see it in the app, when you're setting up in the app, it makes perfect sense. Okay. Um, I can't show it because it's not it's not lined up. Uh this is just uh but this is this is an early EBT production. Um yeah, we will have some. Well, by the time you get to Barcelona, um you'll see this in full swing at ISE. Our booth is virtually all of this at IRC with training sessions. So if you come into ISE, hall one, you'll see us as you come into hall one. Every 15 minutes training session, every 15 minutes, every 15 minutes, every 15 minutes. I would really recommend if you're there, take that 15-minute window and go to that training session where the training team will be there to take you through this in detail. So, do you have to pre-book or can you just turn up?

SPEAKER_01:

You might have to wait 15 minutes, half an hour, but then it's plenty of stuff to look around.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, we've got other things on the booth. There will be lots of people on the booth, so lots of product managers, software engineers, uh commercial guys. We've got a lot of our American colleagues joining us on the booth. So if you've got a question, come to our booth and ask that question.

SPEAKER_01:

And then so just touching on it again, so power output per channel 125 watts per per channel. And fundamentally, this has the eight outputs on the back with the with the two inputs that can do multiple zones of two-channel or one zone of precisely that.

SPEAKER_00:

That's why that's why that's why we're not calling it a four-room amp. It's amp multi because it can do multiple multiple different things. It is not just a four-room amp. It depends on how many speakers you've got in the room, it depends what you want to do with it, whether you're doing a residential install, whether you're doing a commercial install. Um, it will have different uses or different use cases depending on where you install it.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, we'll probably catch up, although I know you're a very busy person at ISE, so I have been told you might not get Stephen. But so we're we're over at ISE doing. And I apologize for that.

SPEAKER_00:

If you do want to see me at ISE and I'm not available, I'm sorry. Um just uh I'm there all week. I'm there from Tuesday right through to Friday. I don't leave till Friday lunchtime. Um so ask for me. I've everybody has me on a WhatsApp group, they can get hold of me. If I'm available, I will come and see you.

SPEAKER_01:

There's only one Stephen, unfortunately. It's not less than maybe you should speak to a certain billionaire about getting some of those robots made up.

SPEAKER_00:

Last year my colleague, Stephen, was there, but he's not coming this year, so I am the only Stephen there.

SPEAKER_01:

Excellent. So anything else you want to touch on before we wrap up? I mean, my my personal opinion is it's it's what I was expecting after our conversation back in October, but it's it because I was expecting a a form of um uh a Sonos multi-room amp look, but for me it's perfect. I mean, I've been to other um manufacturers who've come out and show me their beautiful boxes in bronze gold, and I've gone, look, I just want it in black and I want it rectangled so I can sit in a rack.

SPEAKER_00:

It's designed to go in a rack. Yes, it will go onto a crescenda. Yes, you're gonna put it on top of a uh um a work top or something, but it's designed to go in a rack. And anything else we've got coming from Sonnets this year?

SPEAKER_01:

Although you probably can't tell me. I couldn't possibly say. Well, look, I feel honoured that you've got this in front of us. Uh thank you very much. No pleasure. Um, it's uh the last interview we did, even if if you've not watched it, go back to October and have a look because uh that's got some really good information in it and it's got some really good views. Uh also, congratulations to our competition winner, John. Yes. Um, he was the winner of the Eero 100s. He was. Um, he's a very happy man. I spoke to him on message the other day. He's had a bit of a tough time. So if you're watching this, John, uh, hope you're enjoying them. And uh yeah, keep keep watching the podcast, and hopefully, this will be the first of many conversations me and Stephen will have. I hope so. Awesome. Thank you, Stephen. Cheers, mate, see in Barcelona.

SPEAKER_00:

Thank you. Take care.