ceiling speakers

[Jupiter01]

Thanks @Lucid. I agree and appreciate your definition of zones.
In my case, I will have 10 labelled wires returned to the amp as per your suggestion. I will assume that the zones are then defined/configured at the amp level as I will want to be able to strem music to just the living room or just the kitchen or select multiple zones concurrently, etc.

Thanks for all your help.

 

[Lucid]

The AV receiver takes care of 7 of the in-ceiling speaker wires (see earlier post for the detail). How many other speakers are you planning to use, and where will they be located? As I said before, three is an unusual number of speakers unless we are talking about single point stereo speakers.

 

[Jupiter01]

Here's what I have planned:
Zone 1 - living room will have 4 speakers
Zone 2 - kitchen will have 2 speakers
Zone 3 - lounge will have 2 speakers
Zone 4 - hallway will have 2 speakers

All of these will be in the ceilings.I have purchased the stranded cable you previously recommended.

 

[Lucid]

Apologies to you, I have your thread mixed up with another here also installing in-ceiling speakers. By the look of it you're not installing a home cinema surround system. It doesn't change the wiring, though thwre is a point of clarification needed for the 4 speakwr zone. What does change is what's required at the head-end in terms of amplification to control and supply the signals.

 

[Jupiter01]

No probs. To be clear on my situation, I have understood that I will have 10 sets of speaker cables terminating at the point where I will situate the amp. Correct?

 

[Lucid]

10 only if the speakers in the living room have 4/8 Ohm impedance switching. If not then you'll have 12 speaker wires coming back to the hub point where the amps will be located.

Have you budgeted for what this'll cost to do?

 

[Jupiter01]

ummm...why 12? and should I be leaving any additional cables now? I am currently planning the 10 based on what I have set out.
I can't afford any speakers right now but needs to place the cables before we plaster. I can worry about costs and speaker types later. It's important that I get the cabling right now. Hope that makes sense.

I would be looking to spend around £500-700 for my speakers at a later date. Realistic?

 

[Lucid]

ummm...why 12?

Ignore me.... clearly I can't count today. lol 10 speakers - 10 wires.

and should I be leaving any additional cables now? I am currently planning the 10 based on what I have set out.

That depends on how much work is being done in the house. When I'm spec'ing and installing in-ceiling speakers I try to use a 4-core speaker cable to each speaker. The logic is that if there are plasterers, joiners and builders on-site after the speaker cables have been run and they damage a cable then there's a better chance that at least two conductors will survive survive so that the whole cable doesn't have to be re-run.

The other main reason to run additional cable is for areas where you might want speakers in the future.

I would be looking to spend around £500-700 for my speakers at a later date. Realistic?

To be honest, not really.

It sounds like all of your speakers are on the ground floor. So unless you live in a bungalow then you're going to need fire hoods on each speaker where there's a living space above. Fire hoods are there to reinstate the fire retardant properties of your plasterboard ceiling after you cut big holes in it to put lumps of plastic in there. This is important because (God forbid) if there's ever a fire in your home then you want anyone upstairs to get out alive. If the fire spreads far quicker because there's holes in the ceiling then that might not happen. There's also your house insurance to consider. If your house falls down because you knock down a load-bearing internal wall then your insurance becomes invalid. IOW, you did something to the house that contributed to the problem. It's the same with the spread of fire.

Fire hoods are around £50-£60 each. That's on top of the price of the speakers.

 

[motorbiking]

With that budget, I'd look at wall mounted dipole speakers.

 

[Jupiter01]

I would much prefer ceiling mounted if that made sense.

at risk of going over this again, would it be acceptable to take @Lucid suggestions of dividing the room up in thirds or fifth and then situating a single speaker in the middle of this line? I could do this instead of having two which will reduce my speaker count but im unsure what it will do to the acoustics.

I was drawn to this after noticing that a large restaurant area at Pret only had two Bose speakers in the ceiling and I am considering 4 in my living room which is 9.2m x 4.7. I would be grateful for any advice on this

 

[Sam Gangee]

would it be acceptable to take @Lucid suggestions

More than acceptable. You'd be crazy to ignore him. Lucid's been in this business for decades. One of the country's leading experts, I'd say.

 

[Jupiter01]

yes, but can I follow the advice on dividing up the room and situating one speaker as opposed to two across this line?

 

[motorbiking]

If you go to the KEF website there is a tool you can download and it shows you the different layout options and how the sound will cover.

My comment about conventional speakers comes from having listened to ceiling installs. They are quite expensive for the quality

 

[Lucid]

Yes, you can do what you plan, though I have to say that it seems to me like you're trying to do an awful lot with not enough money.

I can understand that you like the idea of in-ceiling speakers, but it looks like you're prepared to compromise and compromise to the point where (IMO) the system wouldn't be worth the effort it is going to take to install it. Yes, you can put in a single speaker to serve a 9m x 4m room but you'll end up with it blasting out whoever is sitting closest just so someone further away gets a listenable volume. That isn't a sensible option, so for that reason worrying about 1/3rd and 1/5th is the least of your problems.

If you do put in one speaker in a room then you'll need to have something in the electronics to make the sound mono.

Where clients have been in a similar situation to yours I have switched them across to Sonos network speakers. They aren't in-ceiling, but they will allow you to build a proper multiroom audio system starting with two or three rooms and then build from there as funds allow to add extra rooms. The difference with this approach is you start with a solid foundation rather than something built on a rather shaky base.

 

[Jupiter01]

hi lucid,

thanks for replying. I was contemplating 2 speakers along the 1/3 lines, instead of the 4 originally planned.