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

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.

This is powering a whole-house sound system, so sound quality isn't exactly primary concern; however, it's driving a couple of Pyramids in the living room, and it sounds just fine. I was pleasantly surprised to find that it has an auto-sensor and auto-shut-off setting; this allows me to hook the amp up to an odroid and play music without having to either leave the amp on 24/7, fuss with manually turning it on/off, or figure out how to hook up the media server to the 12V power trigger. The amp shuts off after 15 seconds (? -- ish) of silence, and turns itself on a few seconds after it senses signal on the audio source.I had a trio of cheaper, 4-zone amps which had altogether cost me as much as this amp; two of them simply stopped working over time -- this amp is a much better value for the same money.

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.

Item poorly packaged, sold as new, not in original box. Box was too large for item, with minimal packing. Corners of amp were chipped and damaged. Paying full price for a used item is frustrating.Seems to function well. I only tested two channels so far. This rating is a reflection of the seller, not product.This should never have been sold as new. Now I am left debating if I want to go through the frustration of a return.Amp sounds good, plenty of power for my needs, it is loud though(noisy amp).