Opportunity for in ceiling/wall speakers; Advice?

GiraffePencils

GiraffePencils

GiraffePencils

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Hey all,

So, getting a new place, and it needs a bit of work done on it, some decorating, boiler install etc.
And I was thinking there's an opportunity to install some speakers in the living room/round the house to have a good home audio solution.
Anyone have any experience with this?

I'm not a massive audiophile, just like to have some music on while bouncing about the house, and partial to a nice sit infront of a move/netflix.
From looking around people seem to suggest in wall speakers are better for Films, but in ceiling's good for whole house sound, is there a happy compromise? or a can you mix and match with different 'profiles'?

any help welcome
 
In-wall and/or in-ceiling speakers for the TV room are easy because all the speakers and the sub (yes, you'll need one of those) and the amplification is all contained in one room. That makes life easy for running cables and doing control. The cost will be significantly higher than conventional speakers though for the same level of performance.

As a rough rule of thumb, work on a 3:1 cost/performance ratio compared to conventional box loudspeakers. IOW, if you were thinking spending £100 on a conventional centre speaker, then the same sound performance will cost £300 from an in-wall by the time you've bought not only the speaker itself but also the separately-priced back box. For example, the conventional Monitor Audio Bronze centre speaker is £139. From the in-wall range, the W150-LCR isn't quite the equal but it's close-enough. This is £195. The backbox for it is a shade over £100. The performance gap shrinks as price increases. When you're looking at in-walls with an each-cost of £500 to £1000 then its closer to 2:1

Doing multi-room audio is something slightly different.

If you're doing this properly, then multi-room means being able to run each room as a stand-alone music space, or join it with adjacent rooms, or to combine all the rooms to play the same music throughout the house. Is that what you had in mind?
 
I suppose I'd thought about it like when you select different inputs on an amp,
You put on 'movie mode' and I'd have the tv room doing its surround sound thing
put it in music and Play music through the house.

Each room as it's own music space sounds perfect, I thought the best I could hope for is 'same music throughout the house, and able to mute/volume control different rooms'
 
A lot of 7.1 / 9.1 / 11.1 amps have the ability to run a second or 3rd zone in the way you've described. As a built-in feature it works okay, particularly now that there's app control of these amps/receivers.

They do run out of creature comforts though for doing more than very basic multiroom. That why Yamaha does Musicast add-ons, and Denon/Marantz has Heos. They're good solutions and include standalone devices that don't rely on the AV receiver as a hub device. These will do the room/group/whole house thing and play the music or other source (e.g. TV sound) in sync in all rooms.

All of the above uses wireless or Ethernet to link the devices. There are standalone powered speakers and standalone in-room amps to power in-ceiling speakers.

Sonos does something similar. Arguably this is the best from a user-perspective, but those after the highest bit rate streaming should look elsewhere.

An alternative to in-room amps is to have a multichannel audio power amp (not an AV receiver but proper power amp designed for running multiple speakers throughout a house) connected to long sets of speaker cables going to each room.
 
Alright,
so, I'm not opposed to running cables through the ceiling/walls,
The whole place is really getting a once over, kitchen/bathroom re-done etc.
So what is a 'shopping list' I need to be looking at here? assume I have nothing :p Is it all based on square footage of room etc?
 
You're not really at the point yet where it's worth putting together a shopping list. There are still some decisions you should make about whether you want some in-room audio connections for say a local TV in a bedroom, and whether you have space to to accommodate a rack with all the gear plus deal with cooling if you choose a centrally-based hub system.
 
Oooh, there's far more options than I thought!
Apart from the main TV room I think I could live without tvs connecting in the bedrooms.

I've got a cupboard that I'd planned as a networking cupboard and the server. What sort of heat are we talking here? Average rack server, or something more heafty?
 
Something heftier potentially.

It depends on the type of amp, its efficiency, how many channels are running together, how loud, the efficiency of the speakers and the power losses in the cables. A 12 channel Class A/B amp running at full power will consume around 1400W and kick out around 2700 BTU/hr. That's worst case scenario, but you need to plan for that. You'll also have the heat generated from the source devices.
 
Alright, well I'll see, when I say a cupboard, it's an open fronted alcove in the spare room, so I wasn't planing on sealing it in a box type thing.

So Is there anything you could point me to to help learn?
Like the consideration I need to make on number of rooms/different features? Because I clearly aren't up to date with the capabilities haha
 
I run my kitchen (6m x 10m) ceiling speakers( Monitor Audio C165s) and a Gemini II Sub off a Denon AVR-X2400H on Zone One and a Pair of Apart Mask 6 Speakers on my patio off Zone 2. The AVR lives in a double width kitchen cupboard and heat isnt an issue, but that is only 2 zones. I have actually cabled for 4 speakers in the kitchen but am running 2 currently as they provide more than enough volume, even for parties. My Mask 6's are total overkill as you can hear them 300m away if I turn them up (with very little distortion and pretty annoyed neighbours). I chose this option as I have other Denon AVRs and HEOS speakers around the house that allow a much cheaper, multi-room option than running SONOS with the majority of the benefits.

My kitchen set-up is for background music, casual listening and parties. It isn't designed for detailed listening but it is more than adequate for our needs and was far cheaper (and more musical IMHO) than apple Home Pods or similar.
 
Thanks for the Response SimonR

That's good to know, I'm a fairly small space and I'm trying to map some actual wants:

I'm wanting to play music across the living room, kitchen, hall as one.
Have the gym be a different zone.
Ideally be able to adjust the volume in each room independently.
I wouldn't mind if It was just 'music in the gym and I can mute the rest of the house' if that makes sense?

Kitchen (3m x 2m)
Living Room (5m x 3.75m)
Hall
Gym (2.7m x 2.7m)

Then I'd like to have the living room have a 'tv mode'? as in it would control the speakers in the living room independently for films/tv.
 
Its very doable but potentially very expensive also. Having some idea of budget would really help. I would also suggest dropping into AV Forums (its where I tend to spend the majority of my time) as there is a whole wealth of experience over there. I am currently working with 3 or 4 people on AVF on similar projects. Lucid over here is also very knowledgeable.

My kitchen is very much of a family / party space and I wanted a solution that met a lot of needs including integration with a TV, integration with Alexa (so we don't need remotes for audio) we just ask her to play whatever source we want, Plex, Spotify or Amazon HD Music and its there - it has very high wife acceptance factor. For parties I can either cue up a play list on Spotify, or Youtube on the TV or just let people Bluetooth or airplay into the AVR. Its a pretty flexible solution. A few people that I have worked with have also gone down this route as, bang-for-buck its very good value. You can pick up an AVRX-2400H for around £250 which for all of those features and 7 channel amplification is about as good as it gets. The downside is that Denon AVRs run pretty warm, so you will need reasonable ventilation and if you use more than one, it can get toasty.
 
I like the sound of your system! haha
Though I'm not a fan of alexa/home assistants.
The Idea that people can bluetooth to it would be good, otherwise I'd thought controlling through an app/tv(either tv output or tv as a monitor of the htpc)
I had initially thought like 2.5k? but that was without much knowledge of how to get everything I'd want, could creep up, but as renovation needs done first I'd like to get the stuff that needs installed in walls/ceiling done first, then could buy the stuff to drive it later haha
 
You can do any of the things that you describe also. I do have an ipad for selecting specific Plex tracks or for viewing it on TV and controlling with a remote. That is the beauty of modern AVRs they have every possible option on board, including a half decent DAC as well.
 
One option (the one I've gone down) is a complete system in each room, depending on usage. Ie 7.1 separates av cinema system in the living room, a 2.1 separates hifi system in the second bedroom, and a 2.1 avr system for pc in the main bedroom, all with squeezebox in each system with a Synology Nas as a music source. Works for me. And if I want another room for audio add another squeezebox and and another and another, all controlled from one Nas server
 
GiraffePencils said:
Got no response from AVForums haha
What's the advice for 'how many speakers in a room of X m^2'?
Click to expand...


I'd rather have fewer, higher quality speakers than lots of crappy ones.

I bet my system will blow sound quality of Atmos systems. Also means more.budget for better amps rather than a 23 channel avr that does 5w pmpo 99% thd , one channel driven
 
GiraffePencils said:
Hey all,

So, getting a new place, and it needs a bit of work done on it, some decorating, boiler install etc.
And I was thinking there's an opportunity to install some speakers in the living room/round the house to have a good home audio solution.
Anyone have any experience with this?

I'm not a massive audiophile, just like to have some music on while bouncing about the house, and partial to a nice sit infront of a move/netflix.
From looking around people seem to suggest in wall speakers are better for Films, but in ceiling's good for whole house sound, is there a happy compromise? or a can you mix and match with different 'profiles'?

any help welcome
Click to expand...

Budget?
 
GiraffePencils said:
Let's say 2k, but I'm more interested in getting any wires /speakers done soon I don't mind if I have stretch the budget and buy amps etc later
Click to expand...

got any pics of the space?

I have built two cinema rooms...one with in walls speakers...I’d link them but just checked and photobucket has locked my account sigh...so the pictures don’t work...

https://forums.overclockers.co.uk/threads/easyriders-cinema-room-number-two.18372699/

https://forums.overclockers.co.uk/threads/easyriders-cinema-room.17954523/
 
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