Ceiling speakers vs Sound bars

psd99 · 12 Sep 2016 at 08:14

I got the opportunity to put speakers in my ceiling right now in some of my rooms such as the living room and dining room which both have TV's.

question is are ceiling speakers better than sound bars or not?

can anyone spec me a good set of ceiling speakers and all parts please?

ov_sjo · 12 Sep 2016 at 08:21

What are you trying to achieve exactly?

Minstadave · 12 Sep 2016 at 09:14

If it's for movies or TV I'd prefer a sound bar because at least the sound is coming from the right direction.

Ceiling speakers are great for music or as part of a complete surround system (as Atmos speakers or even as surrounds at a pinch) but as a sole source of TV audio they'd be pretty rubbish.

psd99 · 12 Sep 2016 at 09:44

I was thinking bluetooth so you can play music via iphone or imac etc

not just solely for the TV.

Minstadave · 12 Sep 2016 at 09:50

Personally if it was going to be used for the TV at all if go for a sound bar.

krooton · 15 Sep 2016 at 14:11

I have a set of Microlabs on either side of my TV, way better than the inbuilt speakers, and pack more base than a single soundbar could (and much cheaper than high end soundbars with woofers).

tom_nieto · 15 Sep 2016 at 14:20

Put the wiring in and decide later. In fact, put the wiring in for ceiling speakers and a sound bar and wall mounted speakers!

I went with KEF Eggs in the end and I'm really happy with the result. They were pretty decent value on eBay once the right set came up and sound decent enough. They're quite a lot bigger in the flesh than you might think though.

steinooo · 15 Sep 2016 at 14:59

I strongly advise you to cable in for the eventuality of ceiling speakers anyway, as you may never get the chance again.

In future you may want a Dolby ATMOS system, whereby Ceiling speakers are designed into that format i.e. sounds from stuff above you literally come from above you.

Psycho Sonny · 15 Sep 2016 at 20:27

psd99 said:
I got the opportunity to put speakers in my ceiling right now in some of my rooms such as the living room and dining room which both have TV's.

question is are ceiling speakers better than sound bars or not?

can anyone spec me a good set of ceiling speakers and all parts please?

ceiling speakers alone aren't good enough.

for tv use you need minimum a speaker each side of tv and one in the middle of it (centre) so that is 3 right there straight away. then you need a subwoofer for big bass so that is another 1 which is essential.

now you can add ceiling speakers as surrounds so that is at least another 2 speakers. so that is 6 speakers per room plus 2 amps. for a decent setup your talking minimum £5K easy you could easily triple that for a top setup.

it sounds to me though your the ideal customer for sonos. buy yourself a soundbar plus 2 surround speakers for each room. total cost £2k and you can add more speakers as you wish and they will all work together. best things is no wires needed so your ceiling is fine.

also IMO ceiling speakers look good but are usually crap compared to same budget non ceiling speakers so you need to go very very expensive.

with a seperates setup it's possible for a multi room setup but it's far more difficult if you don't have a clue like yourself.

psd99 · 16 Sep 2016 at 08:11

cheers guys

I still have the option for ceiling speakers in my 2nd tv room but in the first one I am going to settle for a sound bar + sub woofer setup
that will be good enough for now.