Ceiling Speakers

randombar

Hi Lads,

First off sorry about the questions.

Just wondering if people would recommend Ceiling Speakers in the downstairs rooms?

Are they worth it or would a Hifi in each room do the trick?

What kind of price are we talking for standard ones?

Would two in a room do?

Could I just double up in rooms that have a surround sound system?

What about out door ones??

Again sorry about the million questions!!

Idleater

Generally speaking, from a hifi point of view, sound should be directed horizontally to the ears. This helps determine direction and left/right audio.
Ceiling speakers, unless motorized, project vertically so sounds are often muddled, and inaccurately positioned. This doesn't matter overly in a supermarket or shopping center, where the music volume is relatively low, but in your home where you are listening in silent environment to something specific like an album or movie, then you will notice more.

So having said all that, I put 4 in for surround duties and 2 in the kitchen as zone 2. I spent a bit on them though, because I wanted to offset the crappy audio with some decent drivers. I got B&W ccm50 or 65s, and they suffice for surround sound. I offset them with a decent set of fronts, and I am running the surrounds via dedicated 100w/channel power amps.
I'm fairly sure this is outside your budget, but that is my hifi opinion. I'm sure there are plenty of people happy with cheaper solutions that come in at less.

randombar

Good to know. So I might just cable for speakers on top of the kitchen units, and also combine the back surrounds in the living room and sitting room to the central unit, and maybe cable two in the office somewhere too?

Idleater

Don't get me wrong, there are numerous benefits to ceiling and in-wall speakers, which may certainly outweigh the loss of sound quality provided. What I mean is, decent ceiling speakers may provide better audio quality than cheap "normal" speakers, as well as the neatness factor.

Mine are certainly neat, and I don't think I'd have gotten away with wiring up the whole room for 7.1 standmounts.

What sort of budget do you have in mind. That will give me (and others) an idea of what sort of options are available to you. For instance, if you want to have multi room audio have a look at Sonos. That is wifi (or network) based so no pre-wiring is necessary, and it looks just like a little stereo system in each room.

randombar

I guess my initial budget is very low, I would be planning on installing the wiring in the best possible way initially and then adding the control box and speakers down the line. Obviously not having holes in the ceiling for speakers might keep the g/f happy.

Read a bit about sonos before, seems a bit pricey if you want to have four rooms?

I mean compared to the cost of speakers in two rooms and adding to the surround sound in the other two??

What is the best way of adding to a surround sound speaker? Do you just join two into one??

Idleater

GaryCocs wrote: »

What is the best way of adding to a surround sound speaker? Do you just join two into one??

No.

Every channel should be separate. i.e. one amplifier output connects to one speaker. There are instances where you can connect more together, but you don't want to go down this route without knowing what you are doing.


Price of systems is relative. I'd consider Sonos cheap audio, so at this stage the last person you want to be asking for advice is me

My only advice is that if you don't know exactly what you are looking for, pre-wiring is probably not the best idea as you may wire the wrong wires to the wrong locations. What you are talking about doing is going to cost money. you haven't even talked about distribution amplifiers or keypads etc. assuming that is even what you are actually looking to do (listen to the same audio in various locations at the same time).

randombar

Idleater wrote: »

No.

Every channel should be separate. i.e. one amplifier output connects to one speaker. There are instances where you can connect more together, but you don't want to go down this route without knowing what you are doing.


Price of systems is relative. I'd consider Sonos cheap audio, so at this stage the last person you want to be asking for advice is me

My only advice is that if you don't know exactly what you are looking for, pre-wiring is probably not the best idea as you may wire the wrong wires to the wrong locations. What you are talking about doing is going to cost money. you haven't even talked about distribution amplifiers or keypads etc. assuming that is even what you are actually looking to do (listen to the same audio in various locations at the same time).

So I'd need separate speakers to the surround sound ones to transmit audio?? Hmmm I'll have to have a think about that, I suppose I could just run the wiring now?

I thought distribution amps etc would be the expensive part I could do down the line (after the wedding etc. etc.) that I'd just do the stuff I can't go back on now.

Basically if I ran two speaker wires from node 0 now would it be enough to put together some kind of system down the line?

yknaa

I'm pretty keen to 'wire' our downstairs for sound. Just a pity that I struggle to wire a plug so I'm wondering if anyone can recommend someone for the job in the Dublin area. Thanks in advance.