ceiling speakers

[motorbiking]

Given the advice you are getting, have you thought of laying Cat6 cable at the same time? You may want to hard wire some network appliances in the future too - a roll of cat 6 wont cost a fortune.

Also KEF do a "6" ceiling speaker package for about £400 that is 4 satellite speakers and 2 port speakers to a sub. The wiring appears to be conventional stereo pairs, so it may be simple to choose where you cannot justify larger speakers.

See: http://www.richersounds.com/product/installation-speakers/kef/ci50r-soundlight/kef-ci50-soundlight

Also (and I know you've politely said no thanks to wall mounted).. but these 3-way wall mounts work remarkably well for something they are not designed for.

They cost me ~ £100 (retailed about 3-500 in their day) on ebay - they are KEF Q2DS - designed for home cinema effects/surround - but each speaker has 2 6.5" speakers and a 5.25" bass speaker - they throw remarkably well and sound almost as good as a conventional floor speaker in the range. You do have to consider that a lot of a speakers sound depth comes from the box, something installation speakers really struggle with.

 

[Sam Gangee]

have you thought of laying Cat6 cable at the same time? - a roll of cat 6 wont cost a fortune

Ha ha. A 300m drum will cost well over £100. That's money taken from an already too-tight budget. So, whilst I agree with you about such "futureproofing", he simply can't afford it if he goes for the proposed ceiling speaker system.
My advice would be: save up another £1000 and do the job properly, including the CAT6 cable.

 

[Lucid]

Flood-wiring a house during the building phase with lots of cable without a decent (costed) idea of what might actually be hung off the ends only really works where the price of the eventual hardware isn't an issue at all. IOW the benefit is saving the cost, the time and the disruption of building work at some later date when it would ruin the existing finishes. In this instance the emphasis is very much on budget first. My view then is that it is essential to have a very clear and fully costed plan of what the whole hardware package will cost and then work back from there. Expectations of sound quality also play a part. If a person's expecting rise no higher than sound equivalent to a £50 iPod dock then £100 for a pair of in-ceiling speakers plus 2x£50 for the fire hoods would be an appropriate level. If trying to emulate the sound quality of a decent small Hi-Fi, say the sort of thing one might spend £300-£400 on, then £250 for in-ceiling speakers plus 2x £50 for fire hoods is more along the right lines. The head-end hardware to drive each room independently of the others and do the "multiroom control thing" is a minimum of £400 per room. That's before adding any network storage. The sorts of systems that use power over Ethernet cable and in-wall keypads for control such as Systemline aren't anywhere near as flexible, nor the same sound quality and yet they cost more in total.

 

[motorbiking]

have you thought of laying Cat6 cable at the same time? - a roll of cat 6 wont cost a fortune

Ha ha. A 300m drum will cost well over £100. That's money taken from an already too-tight budget. So, whilst I agree with you about such "futureproofing", he simply can't afford it if he goes for the proposed ceiling speaker system.
My advice would be: save up another £1000 and do the job properly, including the CAT6 cable.

Yes - I meant given the advice from Lucid, i.e. to go for something else, which may require network. I reckon even 2k wont sound great.. one of the conference rooms in my Office has 5" and 8" ceiling speakers (they look like KEF) a motor down centre, plumbed to a reasonable amp and it sounds "OK". I doubt that install had much change from £3k

At this point in the project - I understand the OP is laying cable for first fix?