I've been trying to research this myself but home audio equipment has quickly become complicated.
I need some advice for a setup. It's for where I work. I'm kind of the building maintenance go-to guy so my boss asked me to look into this, and I'll be doing the work myself. I can do a little home wiring and have a basic understanding of audio system so I'm not a total handicap.
Anyway, what I need is some speakers that I can easily put into drop ceiling tiles. I'm not sure how many I need, I'm thinking 4 or 5.
The environment is a library-like and the music will be classical music played softly. The drop ceiling is about 8' tall. There are two rooms that need them, one room is 12' by 12' so 1 speaker would do fine there. The other room is 40' long but the width has three consecutive steps, 13' then 17' then 21', each of these widths taking up about equal length (~13'). There are three general work stations in this room so I was thinking 3 speakers would be fine. I may also put one in the 12' by 8' waiting area.
I'll also need an amp, but I'm not sure where to go. Or do I need an amp, is there an alternative? I'm going to take a wild guess that my boss' limit is around $250-300. I don't want to put in just some cheap crap (do I have a choice?); some audio clarity and consistency would be nice, I'm looking for bang-for-your-buck, to put it short.
What's a good place to look for equipment?
After a bit of looking around I'll show you what I've got so far, though I don't expect you to be impressed.
I've got two options, one being a proper setup, and the other option being butchering a 5.1 surround system and likely mounting the satellites on the walls with custom wiring through the ceiling.
The more professional option would be:
- 4 of these speakers totaling $74.64
- 200 ft. of this 16 gauge wire totaling $24.60 (I may switch it up with different gauges depending on distance)
- Banana plugs $8.20
- Shipping on those $16.57
- And this amp for $99.98, (free shipping).
- Grand total $224.05
All the reviews for these speakers on MonoPrice say they're great value for the cost. My only concern is the amp, this one doesn't look great, but I really can't spend
too much more. I assume I can run 4 speakers in mono off of it.
As for the option of using a 5.1 system, I'd probably grab one of
these from NewEgg, the one I choose being based on reviews from
Test Freaks (a meta site for hardware reviews I just found). That could run me $130 to $300, and like I said I'd do up my own wiring for the setup.
I appreciate any advice.
