Sonos - Pairing with outdoor speakers and balance

To cover our patio and pool areas I have been running two Sonos Amps and some speakers. I want to give everyone some options and opinions on the set up.

I did just upgrade my soon to be outdated amp to the newest version. The top speakers I have were from a promo Crutchfield ran some years ago that were free with an Amp purchase. They are these

Honestly not great speakers. They are very bright and treble heavy. So I have mixed them with these

Now these are great speakers and for the money, amazing. I have compared them to the similar in style Bose versions and they match up. Let me be clear, do not buy the smaller woofer units. They do not have the same sound and the pair I did have went bad. I am curious about the new "Premium" versions. If anyone knows about them, let me know!

The issue is that when the above speakers are put to one amp, the white speakers are much louder. So if you look in the middle of the amps you will see this volume control (Only on the white speakers)

This allowed me to set the volume a bit lower and bring better balance.

So now I have a rocking set up on the patio and the pool area! 6 speakers with 2 amps and volume control by each pair of speakers. I am also adding (See previous post) the Move to the back of the pool for Alexa and more sound!

Sonos Connect (And the little amp that could)

Recently I upgraded my main system to the Sonos 5.1 where before I had a receiver and it was connected to the Sonos system with a Connect. In addition the Amps I had for the pool, garage and patio are going end of life in May so time to do the Trade up for the discount and upgrade. However the Connect I had was not end of life but I needed an amplifier that would work with the Connect. I decided to put the Connect on the speaker on the garage and off to research an amp. But hey I didn't want to spend a ton of money, it is just the garage.

I landed on THIS amp bought from Amazon. Now it says on the description it is 100 X 100. There are a couple of things that effect this number. First is the voltage/amps of the power supply. It does not come with the power supply so I wasn't quite sure what connector it had till it arrived. What worked perfectly was an old Lenovo laptop power cord (The small connector not the larger one) That puts out 3 amps at 20 volts so perfect!. The second thing that effects this is the Ohms load. I had it at 4 ohms (Each channel has two 8 ohm speakers) 4 Ohms produces a bit more power. The honest power output is probably around the 60 watts per channel

Before I hooked up the Connect and new amp I had the original Sonos Amp rated at 50 X 50 which is my comparison point. Honestly this little amp (By little I mean like two decks of cards little) is amazing. I have two Polk speakers and two old higher end book shelf speakers. The sound was a bit bright (But hey the largest woofer in this set up is 5") Bit of boost from the connect and away we go! In fact the amp is set at half volume and the Connect at a high level is less than half so lots of power left!

With all of this said, I do believe the onboard amp of the Sonos is a bit higher quality (Just is warmer than my little amp) but for the price difference and in the garage what the heck.

I would highly recommend this combo!

My Review of the Sonos Move

The Sonos Move is not that new. However recently I had to upgrade to keep my system functional for the long term. With that I did get a trade in credit of 30% for their recycle program. There is enough press about that so I will leave that alone.

It arrived in typical timely Sonos fashion. The unboxing is a very solid process with everything easy to open and the speaker itself in a cloth bag. Very nice. Firs two things I noticed is the weight of the speaker. It is not something I would travel with (Now the type of travel I do is more airplane so take that into consideration) It does not compete with the Bose travel speakers. The second thing is the bottom of the speaker is rubber and very nice. It provides a solid foundation and ultimately must help the sound quality.

When connecting to the Sonos system it was easy and I did have to do a software update (Just a couple of minutes) My Alexa app found the new device however I did have to activate the feature inside the Sonos app. (This was my first Alexa powered Sonos device) The second Alexa Sonos speaker activated automatically.

For my first trial I took it out to the garage (I am rewiring a Sonos Amp and those speakers are currently down but that is what I am working on) I did not do the Truplay since it is moving in the garage. The sound is very good. Bass and mids are solid, the upper end was a bit muted (But again it was a garage and not an ideal listening situation) One thing I would have thought is with the concrete I would think it would sound hot on the highs. This is a large garage with tall ceilings and oversized 3 car bays. It filled the space very well and at less than 2/3's volume. I listened for a couple hours and had 90% battery left.

The charging stand (Ring, whatever you might call it) is easy to put it on/in. Has a light on front showing charge status along with the exact percent of battery in the app.

I did use Alexa a couple times and responded well from the other side of the room.

When it warms up my plan is to use this by the pool. The pool runs parallel to the house and I have 2 Sonos Amp powered speakers by the house (TIC's that sound amazing) that Amp is getting upgraded to the latest Amp this weekend so we will see but it already sounded amazing. The pool is powered by Alexa (Pump, radio, lights and so much more) so I have had a battery powered Amazon Echo device that has been discontinued that I was using just for Alexa. Now I will use the Move as the Alexa and a speaker in phase with the Amp speakers but on the back side of the pool (Farthest from pool) so we will see but I am guessing the amazing sound I had will be even better! I could run speakers back there (But the landscaping is not real good for that) and besides I would still have to have an Alexa and as far as I am aware there is not a outdoor Alexa device. Other thing I may consider since I have a couple more devices I can trade, is to purchase another Move and have the back in stereo!

In conclusion, it is a heavy but quality (As you would expect from Sonos) device. I would say the $399 price tag feels a bit high but with trade in discount it is less than $300 so that is about right.

Most people don't know how hard it is to make money?

Recently I have been with a lot of people inside of companies that take for granted the revenue produced by the products/services the company produces. I have heard comments like "I don't care about the money" or "that is a lot of work"

Well, yea, making money is a lot of work! If it was easy then every one would start their own company and work 2 hours a week and be living on a private island. Looking at the high failure rates of new companies, it must be hard!

Let me break this down a bit. Lets say you have a small company that sells something for $1000. And for this example you make 30% so you earn $300 off the sale. And lets say you do it 10 times. So you make $3,000! Sounds like a great deal? Well, the above is Gross Margin. Lets really break down some of the other things that you must take into consideration
Marketing
Business expenses (License and such)
Ordering expense
Cost of money
Your time.
Sending a bill
Overhead (Building, computers and more)

Then break this down even further. Of the 10 you ordered, one came in broken. So you have your time to pick it up, get it sent back to the manufacturer (Assuming that is not you) then getting a new one, maybe loaning them a unit during this time and now you have a used one you have to sell (More cost), lets not take into consideration your time, shipping and more. Most likely you have now eaten into the profit of at least three deals.

It is easy to overlook all the costs associated with delivering even the most simple solution. All of this multiplies at every turn.

Many try an make up with volume and this just multiplies your overhead many times.

Just remember how hard it is to make a margin and respect those who focus on this every day.

The Feedback Loop

For years I looked forward to the annual review. I had worked hard and it was time to hear about the great things I had accomplished and the rewards that came with it. Yet every year I was left empty. Why is that? I would sit through my review hearing great things and then receive the average rating. So first though was "Maybe I am average" Time for the self awareness to take an inventory. Did we hit the goals put forth yes and in many times exceeded (But lets be clear, not always). Job duties, check. OK so lets take a look at the feedback and see where it is that I can improve for this coming year. After the third read and evaluation of the sit down, this is where I am struggling. There wasn't any feedback on what actions, levels of performance is needed to exceed expectations.

I carry this forward with every review I write and ones I review today. Are you providing the feedback necessary for your team to exceed or are you saying good job, thanks for being average and keep running around the circle in hopes of exceeding some expectation that isn't clear.

I do truly believe that providing feedback is one of the most important things a leader can do. Don't be afraid of giving direct feedback just don't forget to have some balance of positive and negative.

Give feedback and go lead.

Winter stirr crazy is a thing!

It is cold and icy with a mix of fog, snow and who knows what else. I don't believe that is the problem, it is the short days and the trapped feeling you have being inside all the time. I know this stir crazy feeling is real for me for sure!

I still get that 1/2 hour or more of exercise in per day but definitely is not the same as being outside. Heck, I think our dog is having the same issues. She is breaking all the rules and is constantly wanting out and in and out....

One thing that is beneficial is that I am more productive (Well from a work perspective) getting the paperwork things I dread done early since what else can you be doing after hours!

The other thing that tends to happen is the inside work that no one wants to do. I am off to clean the grout in the tile...

You have to slow down to speed up?

I know, doesn't makes sense. Let me see if I can give some examples. I was watching the big game this last weekend (Chiefs got behind big early to comeback for the win) and the more the Chiefs got behind the more simple pass plays were dropped, runners tripping over their own feet and so on. You could feel the desperation. A dropped kick off return that turns into the other teams points. There was no doubt that every team member wanted to make a difference still it was getting worse.

I have worked with sales people who were having the same issue. Had seen great success yet could not repeat that success. The harder they tried, the worse it got.

There have been times when I was helping my boys and whatever they were trying to do, the more frustrated they got, the worse the results.

Some examples where if you go back to basics; make the simple catch, worry about the yards after later. Follow the sales steps, get the first appointment and work from there and just get the basics first and try scale later.

All these point to something simple. Sometimes you have to slow down to speed up.