Multi-room audio on the same console as your network, cameras and doors — and the licence question every Canadian business gets wrong.
Prices indicative, in CAD, as of 26 August 2026. Ubiquiti pricing and stock change. Music subscription pricing is set by Soundtrack, not by AVNFi. Contact AVNFi for a current quote.
AVNFi does audio for both — commercial and residential. Background music for a shop, restaurant, clinic or gym; multi-room audio for a house. Same hardware family, same console, two very different sets of rules. This page covers both, and it starts with the part that costs businesses money when it is ignored.
1. Your Spotify account is not a business licence
This is the headline, so it goes first.
A personal music subscription is licensed for personal listening. The moment that music is playing where your customers can hear it, it is a public performance, and that is a separate right with a separate bill.
In Canada there are two rights in play on every track:
- The composition — the songwriting and publishing side, administered by SOCAN.
- The recording — the specific performance and master, administered by Re:Sound.
Those two organisations license businesses jointly through Entandem, their joint venture, so most Canadian businesses now deal with one invoice covering both. Entandem’s own FAQ puts it about as plainly as it can be put: “Personal subscriptions to streaming services are meant for individual use only. If you play music from a streaming service in a public or commercial setting, you’ll need public performance licenses.”
The phone behind the counter running a personal Spotify account through a pair of speakers is one of the most common compliance gaps in Canadian retail and hospitality. It is also one of the easiest to close.
The honest footnote
AVNFi installs audio systems. AVNFi is not a lawyer and does not issue music licences. What is written above is what SOCAN, Re:Sound and Entandem publish. Your exact obligation depends on your business type, your square footage, and whether you charge admission or run classes — confirm it with Entandem and with whichever music service you choose. Pretending this page settles it would undermine everything else on it.
2. Soundtrack: the licensed source, built into the amp
Soundtrack — formerly Soundtrack Your Brand — is a music service built for commercial premises, and it runs natively on Ubiquiti’s audio hardware. Soundtrack joined the UniFi software ecosystem as Ubiquiti’s music-for-business integration partner, which is why it appears as a first-class source on the PowerAmp and the PoE Audio Port rather than as a phone plugged into an aux jack.
What the subscription buys:
- A catalogue cleared for commercial use — Soundtrack publishes a figure of over 100 million tracks, licensed for playing in a business rather than in a living room.
- Public performance licensing included in Canada. Soundtrack states that public performance licences are included with the subscription in the United States and Canada, with exceptions where you charge admission, play live music, or time music to exercise classes. If any of those describe you, ask before you assume.
- Playlists built for premises, with explicit-content filtering and scheduling — so the playlist changes at 7pm without anyone touching it.
- Multi-location control from one account, which is the whole point if you run more than one site.
- Control from a UniFi Connect Display, and now-playing information on a Display Cast Pro if you want the track on a screen.
The subscription is a real recurring cost, per zone, billed by Soundtrack. AVNFi does not resell it and does not mark it up. Weigh it against what Entandem would charge you directly, plus a consumer service that is not licensed for the room anyway.
3. Spotify Connect and AirPlay — and where they belong
Both are supported natively. The PowerAmp and the PoE Audio Port each list AirPlay, Spotify Connect and Soundtrack Your Brand as supported services, and the PoE Audio Port adds Google Cast on top. No dongle, no adapter, no laptop wired into the back of a rack.
Where each one earns its place:
- At home — this is the main event. There is no public performance question in your own house. AirPlay from an iPhone or Mac, Spotify Connect from any phone in the family, and the speaker picker just works.
- In a business — private spaces. The back office, a boardroom presentation, a private treatment room, a staff area with no customers in it. Music your customers can hear is a different question, and Soundtrack is the answer to it.
- Anywhere — the television. HDMI eARC means the amp is also the thing your TV plays through, and it handles Dolby Atmos, Dolby TrueHD, Dolby Digital, Dolby Digital Plus, and stereo or multichannel PCM.
Practically: one amp can be a licensed Soundtrack zone in the dining room and an AirPlay target in the office. Choosing UniFi audio does not lock you out of the consumer services — it just stops them being the thing your compliance rests on.
4. UniFi PowerAmp — every published spec
Model UPL-Amp. A two-channel Class D amplifier with a streamer, a touchscreen volume knob and two network ports, sized to sit on a shelf rather than in a rack. Everything below is Ubiquiti’s published figure, not an estimate.
| Amplifier class | Class D |
| Channels | 2 — mono or stereo |
| Power, 8 Ω | 130 W per channel, 1 kHz, < 0.05% THD+N, EIA (CEA-490-A) |
| Power, 4 Ω | 260 W per channel, 1 kHz, < 0.09% THD+N, EIA (CEA-490-A) |
| Surround formats | Dolby Atmos, Dolby TrueHD, Dolby Digital, Dolby Digital Plus, stereo PCM, multichannel PCM |
| Audio inputs | (1) HDMI eARC; (2) RCA analog L/R |
| Audio outputs | (1) RCA subwoofer out; (2) speaker terminals with (2) banana plugs |
| Streaming services | AirPlay, Spotify Connect, Soundtrack Your Brand |
| Grouping | Up to 32 PowerAmps |
| Network | (2) GbE RJ45 |
| Wi-Fi | 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac — 5 GHz at 20/40/80 MHz, 2.4 GHz at 20/40 MHz |
| Controls | 1.43″ rotary knob with touchscreen; (1) factory reset button |
| Power input | Universal AC, 100–240 V, 2.5 A max, 50/60 Hz |
| Max power consumption | 17 W |
| Dimensions | 217 × 236.8 × 63.7 mm with knob (8.5 × 9.3 × 2.5″); 217 × 217 × 63.7 mm without |
| Weight | 2.4 kg (5.3 lb) |
| Enclosure | Polycarbonate chassis, aluminium knob — black or white |
| Mounting | Compact desktop |
| Operating temperature | −5 to 40 °C (23 to 104 °F) |
| Operating humidity | 5 to 90%, non-condensing |
| App | UniFi Play, iOS and Android, version 1.0.0 and later |
| Certifications | FCC, IC, CE — NDAA compliant |
Read the power figures properly. 130 W is into 8 Ω, which is what the UniFi speakers are. The 260 W figure needs a 4 Ω load, and wiring two 8 Ω speakers in parallel off one channel to get there is not the same thing as a 4 Ω speaker. If you want more zones, buy more amps.
5. UniFi PoE Audio Port — the cheap way to add a zone
Model UPL-Port. Not an amplifier — a streamer. It takes the same services off the network and hands them to gear that already has amplification: a powered speaker, an existing amp, a rack you are not replacing. It is the right answer when the amp is already there and the source is the problem.
| Streaming services | AirPlay, Google Cast, Spotify Connect, Soundtrack Your Brand |
| Outputs | (2) RCA analog L/R; optical; USB-C |
| Grouping | Up to 32 PowerAmps and PoE Audio Ports in a zone |
| Network | Ethernet, plus 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac/ax Wi-Fi |
| Power | PoE, or the included 12 V DC adapter — 10 W max |
| Dimensions | 109 × 109 × 40.5 mm (4.3 × 4.3 × 1.6″) |
| Weight | 250 g |
| Enclosure | Polycarbonate — black or white |
PoE is the reason this one is interesting. One cable does power and audio source, from a switch you already own — the same argument that makes PoE cameras and access points worth it. See Switches and PoE before you assume your switch has budget left.
6. The speakers
Ubiquiti sells two, and they are the same driver package in two shapes. Both are 8 Ω passive speakers — they need the amp, they are not powered.
| In-Wall | In-Ceiling | |
|---|---|---|
| Model | UACC-In-Wall-Speaker | UACC-In-Ceiling-Speaker |
| Drivers | 6.5″ woofer, 1″ tweeter (±15° pivot) | 6.5″ woofer, 1″ tweeter (±15° pivot) |
| Impedance | 8 Ω | 8 Ω |
| Max power handling | 130 W | 130 W |
| Frequency response | 47 Hz – 20 kHz ±3 dB | 47 Hz – 20 kHz ±3 dB |
| Sensitivity | 86 dB SPL (1 W @ 1 m) | 87 dB SPL (1 W @ 1 m) |
| Max SPL | 106 dB @ 1 m | 107 dB @ 1 m |
| Coverage | 90° axisymmetric | 90° axisymmetric |
| Overall size | 315 × 229 × 88 mm (12.4 × 9 × 3.5″) | ⌀238 × 103 mm (⌀9.4 × 4″) |
| Cutout / depth | 88 mm (3.5″) depth | ⌀205 × 100 mm (⌀8.1 × 4″) |
| Weight | 1.9 kg (4.2 lb) | 1.9 kg (4.2 lb) |
| Construction | Polycarbonate, metal grille | Polycarbonate, metal grille |
| Speaker wire | 8 – 16 AWG | 8 – 16 AWG |
The speaker wire is the part people forget. It has to be in-wall rated, it has to be pulled before the drywall goes back on, and it is the one thing on this page that gets dramatically more expensive if you do it after the fact. If cable is being run for network anyway, run the speaker wire in the same trip.
7. What it costs
Equipment at cost, as everywhere else on this site — Ubiquiti’s store price plus Ubiquiti’s memory surcharge where it applies, and no margin from AVNFi. See Pricing for how that works, and why the store’s own product page is not the full number.
| Item | Store price | With surcharge |
|---|---|---|
| UniFi PowerAmp (UPL-Amp) | $799 | $862 |
| UniFi PoE Audio Port (UPL-Port) | $285 | $307 |
| In-Wall Speaker, each | $255 | no surcharge shown |
| In-Ceiling Speaker, each | $215 | no surcharge shown |
| Soundtrack subscription | Monthly, per zone, billed by Soundtrack. Not resold by AVNFi. | |
A worked minimum, one stereo zone: one PowerAmp at $862 plus two in-ceiling speakers at $215 each is $1,292 in hardware — before cable, before labour, and before the music subscription. A second zone is another amp and another pair. Audio scales by the zone, not by the speaker.
UI Care coverage is available on these the same way it is on the rest of the range — see Add-Ons and Accessories.
8. The honest limits
This is background music and home audio. It is not a life-safety system and it is not a big-building paging system.
- Low impedance only. These are 8 Ω speaker outputs. Ubiquiti publishes no 70 V or 100 V constant-voltage output, which is what large distributed installs — a warehouse with thirty ceiling speakers on one run — are normally built on. For that job this is the wrong product, and AVNFi will say so.
- Not fire alarm, not emergency voice communication. That work belongs to a licensed alarm contractor. Same boundary as everywhere else on this wiki — see When UniFi Is the Wrong Answer.
- Two channels per amp. One stereo zone per PowerAmp. Thirty-two amps can be grouped, but that is thirty-two boxes and thirty-two power outlets — not one amp driving thirty-two rooms.
- −5 °C is the floor. Same Calgary problem as the door hub: an unheated garage, a detached shop or a patio in January is outside the published operating range. Keep the amp inside and run the speaker wire out.
- The amp needs mains power. Only the PoE Audio Port runs on PoE; the PowerAmp is a 100–240 V AC device and needs an outlet where it sits.
- No published room correction or DSP tuning. Ubiquiti publishes power, distortion and format support. It does not publish a room-calibration feature, so do not buy it expecting one.
- Soundtrack is a subscription, permanently. Unlike core UniFi Network, Protect and Access, this is a recurring cost that does not stop. That is the trade for the licence being included.
9. AVNFi does both
Commercial audio
Retail floors, restaurants and cafés, clinics and waiting rooms, gyms and studios, offices and showrooms. Zones designed around where people actually stand, speaker wire pulled with the network cable during the fit-out, Soundtrack configured with the schedule you want, and the whole thing sitting in the same console as your Wi-Fi, cameras and doors. If the space is being wired anyway, adding audio is a cable and an amp — not a second project. See Commercial and Industrial.
Residential audio
Kitchen, living room, primary bedroom, patio, shop. AirPlay and Spotify Connect from every phone in the house, in-ceiling speakers that disappear into the drywall, HDMI eARC so the television plays through the same amp, and a subwoofer output when the living room deserves one. No licence question, no subscription required. Best done while the walls are open — but retrofitting cable into a finished house is already what AVNFi does.
What to take away
- A personal Spotify account is not licensed for a room your customers are in. In Canada that is SOCAN and Re:Sound, licensed jointly through Entandem.
- Soundtrack is the licensed source, it runs natively on the PowerAmp and the PoE Audio Port, and it states public performance licensing is included in Canada — with exceptions worth checking.
- Spotify Connect and AirPlay are supported too, and they are exactly right at home and in private spaces.
- PowerAmp: 130 W per channel into 8 Ω, two channels, HDMI eARC, 32-amp grouping, $862 all-in.
- PoE Audio Port adds a zone to gear you already own, over one PoE cable, at $307.
- Low impedance only, −5 °C floor, no 70 V line, not life safety. Those are the boundaries.
- Pull the speaker wire while the walls are open. Everything else can be added later; that cannot, cheaply.
Related
- Switches and PoE — whether your switch has budget for the audio port
- Pricing — hardware at cost, and the memory surcharge explained
- Add-Ons and Accessories — UI Care and what else is genuinely needed
- Commercial and Industrial — UniFi in a business fit-out
- When UniFi Is the Wrong Answer — including the audio jobs this is not for
- Working With AVNFi — design only, design plus configuration, or full installation
Wiring a space in Calgary and want audio in it — shop, clinic, restaurant or house? AVNFi can design the zones and pull the cable while the walls are open. Call (587) 858-4888.