Upgrading In-ceiling Speakers for Whole Home Audio with Niles

[admin]

While many of us would love to spend the majority of our day locked in our man-caves or home theaters listening to music on our big audio rigs, the reality is that we don't. In fact, most of our time at home is spent in the kitchen, bedroom, bathroom or family room. This being the case, whole house audio should be a part of your home if it is not already. And it shouldn't be an afterthought. Many newer homes, especially in tract-housing developments, come with pre-installed systems, but many times these consist of cheap speakers with paper cones that have been installed by the alarm guy who "specializes in home audio."


Discuss "Upgrading In-ceiling Speakers for Whole Home Audio with Niles" here. Read the article.

[gtche]

Looking at the Niles website, have these speakers been replaced by the DS series?

For the side surrounds in your theater room, is there a reason you did not install the dipole/bipole speaker that the offer?

Thanks for the review. I am now seriously considering Niles for my in ceiling surrounds along with Speakercraft and Snell.

[birdonthebeach]

These speakers ARE available - the Niles website leaves a bit to be desired. As for the dipole/bipole options, we reviewed what Niles provided for us. Glad you enjoyed the review - thanks!

[tailorrmade]

This probably reviving an old thread but I am in the process of building a house and am thinking of using my Sonos system for whole house audio. My plan is to wire at least 4-5 zones back to a central location, daisy chain the ZP120s to my router and basically use Sonos in the WIRED state. Later, I could add wireless zones with the S5, etc. I would also be able to add a subwoofer to a few zones via a coax cable that will run to most of my rooms.

The reason I am doing it this way is that I already own a few Sonos ZP120s and ZP90s and I like the the way you can stream almost anything through Sonos. I AM interested in other ways of doing this though. You mentioned you are using the Niles 12 channel amp to power your system but you are using Sonos as a source??? Are you able to break up your zones and play different music/sources? How exactly are you using the system? If you are powering 6 zones with this amp and it costs around $1200, that's $200 per zone which is way cheaper than the $500 per zone Sonos solution.

As you can see, I am brand new to this. Can you explain this to me?

thanks

[tailorrmade]

This is probably reviving an old thread but I am in the process of building a house and am thinking of using my Sonos system for whole house audio. My plan is to wire at least 4-5 zones back to a central location, daisy chain the ZP120s to my router and basically use Sonos in the WIRED state. Later, I could add wireless zones with the S5, etc. I would also be able to add a subwoofer to a few zones via a coax cable that will run to most of my rooms.

The reason I am doing it this way is that I already own a few Sonos ZP120s and ZP90s and I like the the way you can stream almost anything through Sonos. I AM interested in other ways of doing this though. You mentioned you are using the Niles 12 channel amp to power your system but you are using Sonos as a source??? Are you able to break up your zones and play different music/sources? How exactly are you using the system? If you are powering 6 zones with this amp and it costs around $1200, that's $200 per zone which is way cheaper than the $500 per zone Sonos solution.

As you can see, I am brand new to this. Can you explain this to me?

thanks

[birdonthebeach]

Yes, I am using SONOS as my sources. I also have a combination of ZP120 & 90's. You can feed an independent signal to each of the 12 channels on the Niles, so the only thing that limits you is how many SONOS sources you have to output. So you could take 2 ZP90's and output to four of the Niles channels (2 stereo), etc.

Does this help?

jwc

This is probably reviving an old thread but I am in the process of building a house and am thinking of using my Sonos system for whole house audio. My plan is to wire at least 4-5 zones back to a central location, daisy chain the ZP120s to my router and basically use Sonos in the WIRED state. Later, I could add wireless zones with the S5, etc. I would also be able to add a subwoofer to a few zones via a coax cable that will run to most of my rooms.

The reason I am doing it this way is that I already own a few Sonos ZP120s and ZP90s and I like the the way you can stream almost anything through Sonos. I AM interested in other ways of doing this though. You mentioned you are using the Niles 12 channel amp to power your system but you are using Sonos as a source??? Are you able to break up your zones and play different music/sources? How exactly are you using the system? If you are powering 6 zones with this amp and it costs around $1200, that's $200 per zone which is way cheaper than the $500 per zone Sonos solution.

As you can see, I am brand new to this. Can you explain this to me?

thanks