Give
Emotiva's in-ceiling speakers a gander. Not the be-all, end-all in sound quality, but pretty darn good overall, and very good considering the low price. The 8" model won't be hitting any super-deep 20Hz type stuff, but you wouldn't expect that anyway, right?
The 8" model will run pretty nicely in "large" full-range for music though, which I'm guessing is more the purpose for these speakers.
For the volume control, it's going to depend on how you're connecting your in-ceiling system. The Emotiva speakers are just regular, passive speakers. You just connect them to any regular audio amplifier. If you want a simple setup where you just plug a standard stereo analogue (red/white plugs) source into an amp with volume control, then Emotiva's own
mini-X a-100 is a great choice. It'll provide 80 Watts to a pair of the Emotiva in-ceiling speakers and it's as simple as can be with a single stereo analogue input on the back and a pair of speaker binding post outputs. You can also daisy chain 3 mini-X a-100 amps together thanks to the stereo analogue output as well.
If you want to be able to switch sources, use digital sources, or run one source to both your surround sound setup and your 3 pairs of "full-range" in-ceiling speakers, then what I would suggest would be to use a regular A/V receiver that offers a 2nd zone analogue output (hint: almost all modern A/V receivers do
). In this setup, you would simply plug all of your sources into the A/V receiver. Naturally, this will work perfectly for your surround sound setup. Then, to get the 3 "full-range" in-ceiling pairs going, just use the 2nd zone analogue outputs from the receiver and plug some standard red/white stereo cables into an outboard amp. Again, the Emotiva mini-X a-100 seems like the perfect choice for this. And, again, you can daisy chain three of them together to power all 6 speakers. If you just want to control everything from the receiver, make sure that it offers volume control for zone 2 (some zone 2 outputs on some receivers are "fixed" outputs, meaning that you need a separate volume control - like the mini-X a-100 offers - but some have zone 2 volume control - some even come with a 2nd "mini" remote for controlling zone 2 independently). So if you are using your receivers own built-in zone 2 volume control, all you need is 6 channels of amplification for your 3 pairs of "full-range" in-ceiling speakers. Three mini-X a-100 is still a great option just in terms of the $600 price. But if you want a single amp, just for convenience, you might look at something like the
$700 Outlaw Audio 7075 . The Emotiva in-ceiling speakers are a 4 ohm rated speaker, so you want to make sure you're getting an amp that is at least rated for a 4 ohm load. Not all are, but Emotiva's own amps are, of course, and so are Outlaw Audio's - good amps from either company.
If you want considerably more Watts for a low price, then consider a pro amp, such as the
Behringer A500 . It's not a pretty-looking on the outside, but it's got loads of power and costs the same as the mini-X a-100. So if you're after louder output levels, you can't do much better
