Outdoor Audio

Most outdoor audio is a pair of speakers bolted to the back of the house, aimed at the yard. It works for about fifteen feet. Past that the music thins out, so somebody turns it up — and now it is too loud on the patio, still weak at the fire pit, and perfectly audible to the neighbors.

A landscape audio system solves the problem the other way around: more speakers, each one quieter.

How these systems are built

We install Sonance Landscape Series. The architecture is the same on every job:

• Satellite speakers. Small units on stakes, set roughly 8 to 10 feet apart through planting beds and along walkways. They are shaped and finished to disappear among landscape lighting fixtures and foliage.
• One in-ground subwoofer, partially buried so the surrounding soil couples with the enclosure and carries the low frequencies. Bass is directionless, so a single subwoofer covers a large area.
• A single amplifier, indoors, driving the whole run.

Residential systems are usually four satellites and a subwoofer, or eight and a subwoofer, sized to the square footage you actually use rather than the size of the lot.

Why more speakers means less noise

Because each speaker only has to cover the ground immediately around it, none of them has to be loud. You get even coverage at conversation volume — music that is present everywhere you walk and does not carry three houses down. That is the opposite of how a pair of high-output patio speakers behaves.

It stays outside

Landscape Series hardware is IP66 rated — fully dust-tight and protected against heavy jets of water — with sealed enclosures, UV-stable housings and rubber driver surrounds. Nothing comes in for the winter.

Where the equipment comes from

Sonance sells only through authorized dealers, and states plainly that product bought from unauthorized sellers — Amazon, eBay, marketplace listings — is not covered by its factory warranty.

We are not a Sonance dealer. We buy through one. What goes in your yard is genuine Sonance with the manufacturer’s warranty intact. If you are comparing quotes, it is a fair question to ask the other bidder where their speakers come from.

What the installation involves

Direct-burial speaker cable, trenched along the beds and back to the amplifier, plus a power source at that end. It is low-voltage work — the same trenching, wire routing, and control-box mounting that an irrigation or landscape lighting installation calls for.

If you are already having irrigation or lighting installed or reworked, that is the moment to run audio cable. The trench is open. Doing it afterward means opening it again.

What we would need to know

• The area you want covered — and where people actually sit
• Whether irrigation or landscape lighting is already in the ground, and roughly where those lines run
• Where power is available for the amplifier
• How you want to play music: phone, streaming service, or an existing home audio system

Talk to us

Tell us the space you want to fill with sound and we will tell you what it would take — how many speakers, where they would go, and what it would cost. If a smaller system would do the job, we will say so.

Send us a message and we will get back to you, or call 847.516.6473.