Dayton Audio MA1260 Multi-Zone 12 Channel Amplifier (MA1260)

Great amplifier and works as should and having separate channels is a huge help.

Have two of these hooked up to 12 stereo zones in the house. Each zone is switchable from two inputs or a direct line in. Very flexible solution. I have 4 sonos zone players hooked up to two of these and it gives us 12 rooms of audio for a fraction of the cost. I am not an audiophile but they sound good to me!Update after 3 years:We have had these for three years now. Both units still work without any problems. FWIW, I have had these connected to a z-wave outlet for the past three years. This allows us to turn on the entire system (which is located in the attic) from the smartphone and control the music and the volume from the sonos. I have not even physically touched the units in more than two years - they just sit in the attic working fine and doing their job. Press the button, play the music, the z-wave automatically turns them off if we forget.I still have the 24 channels (12 rooms) divided into four zones, each with a Sonos "connect" (were called Z90s when I bought them). I would add more zones but the price of the connects make it a luxury I have just never been able to justify. If I were to do this today, I would probably put a set of airport express units on this (one can buy 7 express units for the price of two connects) and with iradio it offers much of the same functionality but would give you many more individually controlled zones.In any case, the Dayton units continue to work with no drama, no intervention, and no problems.Update after Five Years - okay I am upgrading to five stars:All good. No problems so far, they still work just as well as they did in 2011 when I first installed them. Admittedly, we do not run these a much as many people will, but still, five problem-free years. Props to Dayton (and Sonos, which is also problem-free after five years with regular software upgrades to keep the system and the app up to speed with the latest services). Five years of problem-free service deserves five stars.

When I moved into my house four rooms and the outside were professionally wired for audio, but they didn’t leave the amp… for the next 10 years I settled for a single zone inexpensive 100watt amp and distribution switch since it wasn’t a priority. This sounded fine at low volume, but was ineffective for the outdoor speakers.I decided to up my game so I could have some decent tunes while in the pool. So far I’m very impressed with this amp. I have wall volume controls in each room, but the ability to control the max volume for each speaker has allowed me to insure my kids can’t crank the volume inside excessively loud ( I capped these are at 35%) and pump up the max to the outside speakers (gain is at ~75%).The setup is very easy and the instructions very clear. For the price I think this is a great choice. I almost splurged on the more expensive model with the built in AirPlay, but I appreciate the physical switches on this one.The auto turn on (trigger) and turn off work great. There is almost no lag when the audio source starts feeding signal. I’m using an AirPort Express using AirPlay, and that has a mini phono (stereo headphone) to RCA feeding it.Here are my CONS in order of importance (no show stoppers):In bridge mode, it does mix the channels to mono, but you can’t control the left and right speakers independently for the bridged channel/zone. Only the left gain is used and it controls the max volume for each speaker in the pair. I didn’t have this level of control before so it isn’t a show stopper, but since the one of the exterior speaker is close to a seating area and the other isn’t (pointing to the pool) independent control would have been nice. BTW, I used bridge for to power boost and because stereo didn’t make sense with the speakers outside.The gain control for each speaker is very small and is on the rear. It can make tweaking things more inconvenient. Also, it necessitates having some sort of volume control either at the speaker or at the audio source, because you won’t be using these to control volume day-to-day.The amp has a slight hum when running. This doesn’t bother me because the amp is mounted somewhere without people regularly near, but if you were in the same room it could be annoying.This isn’t really a con, but be aware this is fairly large and fairly heavy. If you are putting it on a shelf, make sure you have room for the speaker wires and the power connections. This probably adds another 1.5 inches to its depth, and I’d recommend at least 2 inches so you’re not squishing everything.

Here is how I set up the system. I set up 6 zones downstairs that were pre-wired before the house was completed. I wired directly to the speakers, not using a volume control in each zone. I bought 12 Alexa Dots and 6 3.5mm to RCA converters. Then I attached 6 of the dots to the RCA inputs for each zone on the amp and put each of them on mute. I also placed a an Alexa dot in each zone. Then I named each dot carefully. The dot in the Kitchen is named "Kitchen Dot" and the dot in the closet for that zone is named "Kitchen Speakers" This allowed me to tell any dot, anywhere in the home, "Alexa, play music on the Kitchen Speakers" and the dot in the closet streams the music to the speakers. You can also tell Alexa to "Lower the volume on Kitchen Speakers", so I avoided having to install or purchase volume controls in each zone. I am going to buy another unit for the upstairs zones now. Alexa also has Groups, you you can group multiple Zones together and say "Alexa, play music Downstairs" and it streams to several zones. I also have a group I call "upstairs intercom" so, I can stream "Reveille" in the morning to get the kids to head downstairs for breakfast.Update: I added the second amp for the upstairs zones and everything is working as planned. I have 24 Alexa dots running the two amps and the kids love that they have control over every room in the house and what music is playing on the ceiling speakers. I made a few groups, Like "Master Bedroom" group, that plays in Master bath, office and bedroom, in Alexa to allow multiple zones to play the same music as well. Also made a "Main" group that plays on all the common area speakers. Update: Alexa now allows me to make a dot a member of more than one group, so the office is now part of "All Downstairs Speakers" group, but not part of the "Downstairs" group (which is just the common areas).