Ceiling speakers/high end music?

[Owen Milligan]

Is it totally pointless to try and design a whole-house system that can jam in multiple zones, using ceiling speakers? I see that most audiophiles have floor standing speakers, but I would like to fill the entire house and not just a dedicated listening area. One zone would include the TV area (with surround), and the other areas are adjoining. Thanks for the advice!

 

[TLS Guy]

Is it totally pointless to try and design a whole-house system that can jam in multiple zones, using ceiling speakers? I see that most audiophiles have floor standing speakers, but I would like to fill the entire house and not just a dedicated listening area. One zone would include the TV area (with surround), and the other areas are adjoining. Thanks for the advice!

In my view it is totally pointless.

Getting good sound from ceiling speakers is an absolute impossibility. Ceiling speakers are for background music.

I think most people actually soon tire of music everywhere. Quiet media free zones are important for everyone's sanity, including guests.

Usually a couple of good media areas are enough. That allows for at least two good viewing and listening areas. For most couples and families that is enough.

Quality over quantity really is the preferred approach.

I think your plan is destined for delivering extreme irritation and little pleasure.

Well designed AV spaces add enormously to the quality of family life in my view, and you can never devote too much time and trouble to getting them right.

 

[Owen Milligan]

Thanks for the un-wanted dose of reality. I knew that was the answer, but have had a hard time getting that truth out of the installers. As a father of 4 active children from 14-6 yrs old, my time to sit and enjoy hi-fidelity is limited. I can defiantly see that happening in the future though. Right now my enjoyment is limited to turning on some Galactic, or Trombone Shorty and jamming while we do our chores or move about the house. It has a fairly open floor plan and now my questioning will turn towards power needs, and recommended speakers... Is "background music" a dirty term on an audiophile forum?!

 

[BMXTRIX]

Distributed audio doesn't mean bad audio, but your dining room isn't a audiophiles dream. You also would be completely incorrect in assuming you can't get quality audio throughout your home. You just can't get a perfect audiophile room in every corner of your home.

Proper wire gauge, and proper amplification, with good quality analog cables delivers 90%+ of the quality you get from a $20,000 system out to your rooms throughout your home. If you want 'good' or better audio in those rooms, then those rooms would need the same care and attention for audio that your primary listening room would get.

That's feasible, but not realistic.

The fallback position becomes a question of how you intend to use the audio, and what your real expectations for quality are, or need to be.

A bunch of kids in the home... Do you want audio throughout for parties? Background music for events in your home? Christmas music everywhere? Non-critical listening? Well built speakers that can survive a few teenage parties with the audio cranked up?

Getting decent or even good audio out of ceiling speakers isn't impossible, but it depends on what your definition of 'good' is, and what rooms they go into.

My most used speakers in my home which has about 20+ zones of audio, are:
1. Main family room speakers (floor standing 3.1 audio setup)
2. Kitchen speakers - playing the same as the family room, usually the TV
3. Speakers in my garage/speakers out back
4. Theater surround setup, for movies on the big screen.
5. Bedroom speakers for local televisions (several rooms)

Now, my kids are still a bit younger, but I expect the speakers in the dining room and living room and other rooms may get used occasionally for parties, but that's about it. That's okay, they were relatively inexpensive speakers.

I personally love just throwing on my Pandora mix through my Apple Airport and listening to music as I'm working on cleaning up the house. It's background music, but I turn it up a bit and it certainly is like driving with your car stereo up. It's not perfect, but it is fun, and it does fill the space very nicely. It achieves a goal.

When I sit down in my family room and watch a movie, the speakers in there have their purpose, but the rest of the speakers also have their purpose.

They aren't 'jammed in'. They are designed to be part of a quality setup. If all you want to invest in is 'jammed in', then those zones will take more of a hit in quality.

My setup thread:
http://forums.audioholics.com/forums/threads/so-here-we-go-24-a-v-zones-w-10-sources.83272/

 

[lsiberian]

Why not simply use bookshelves in each room?

 

[Owen Milligan]

How much difference can there be in bookshelves and ceiling mounts? I am primarily considering aesthetics, but do not want to compromise performance. Yes, I want cake, and I want to eat it too.

P.S. BMXTRIX, I have an 87 GT Pro Freestyle Team Model..

 

[mtrycrafts]

... Is "background music" a dirty term on an audiophile forum?!

Welcome.
No, it is not. Just remember, background music is usually at a low level so you can still talk to others without strain. In that case, you also reduce the low levels to being inaudible in a soundtrack in a dynamic recording.

 

[Owen Milligan]

Good info- I guess that helps me describe my needs.. 10% background music, 20% talk radio and sports, 70% air guitar and sliding around in my white socks. Not included in those numbers would be the secondary use for the zones 2 and 3 of the system would be TV, gaming and movie watching (in that priority order). The system needs to look nice on or off.. I have an old family home that is a farm-house style. I am trying to minimize the "new age digital pieces". Or at least blend them with the surroundings..

 

[Latent]

That is an awesome setup BMXTRIX has! What is going to work in your house Owen may depend on if you want to DIY it or get a professional in and what options your house has as far as floor/ceiling access and also what kind of sources you want to use. You can go all out like BMXTRIX has with custom installer gear and amps but as you can see there are lots of cabling and setup steps involved! Things are changing a bit recently with regard to multi zone options. There are now so many home automation and wireless multi room options on the market it is just a bit crazy.

The old way it was done was with home automation control boxes and amps all in a nice easy to access out of the way room or basement but this does mean lots of long cable runs.

You can also now go into any local electronics store and buy ready to run out of the box speaker systems from things like sonos (but there are many other brands now). They are not really audiophile quality and really just stream internet or locally stored music and you do pay a premium for your plastic speakers. Don't have to run many cables which is great though. But may not get your TV sports audio around the house easily but some systems may support this as well.

For only a few room setups a modern high end AVR can do the job and with the smart phone control app that comes with it you are pretty much set and just have to run speaker wire from behind your TV entertainment unit to the speakers in a couple of rooms. But you often need external power amps if you are running too many speakers in the TV room.

I Like the look of systems like Yamaha MusicCast as it bridges AVR and the sonos type worlds together and has some audiophile friendly options. Denon has a Heos system to look into maybe. These systems are simple for DIY and you don't have to get into all the complexity of a full home automation audio distribution system. You get some nice simple smart phone apps to control the system here as well.

As to speakers in ceiling speakers might seem a good idea but they do sort of remind you of the in ceiling sound systems they use in retail stores. They are kind of hidden but are they really aesthetically pleasing? There are lots of in-wall speaker options to look into instead which bring the sound down to a more normal height so you don't think your browsing bestbuy. I like the idea of being able to see the speakers you just spend all that time installing and getting right. 2.1 smaller satellite speakers with a matching sub in the corner and mounted up on the wall a bit or on an existing bookshelf etc may sound better than in-ceiling.

you can also wall mount things like the yamaha WX-030 network speaker:

Or there is a pair of NX-N500 monitor speakers that I think would be a nice looking solution that can be placed in many locations.

 

[Owen Milligan]

So... If cabling is as important as it seems- how can any wireless system compare? I have no trouble in the attic, or fishing in the walls. But the lure of wireless ease almost seems like it would be too easy to be true.

Does anyone have experience with the type of technology used in the JL Audio Jlink?

 

[fmw]

How much difference can there be in bookshelves and ceiling mounts? I am primarily considering aesthetics, but do not want to compromise performance. Yes, I want cake, and I want to eat it too.

P.S. BMXTRIX, I have an 87 GT Pro Freestyle Team Model..

Life is full of compromises.

 

[Latent]

So... If cabling is as important as it seems- how can any wireless system compare? I have no trouble in the attic, or fishing in the walls. But the lure of wireless ease almost seems like it would be too easy to be true.

Does anyone have experience with the type of technology used in the JL Audio Jlink?

Yeah wireless multiroom audio was very limited until recently. OK for single rooms but send a source to more than one room and the latency issues cause hick ups and out of sync audio that sounds horrible and very frustrating. It used to be the only reliable way was to have all your sources and amps together and all acting as one unified system so audio delay between zone was just not an issue. Or for a few zones only use a single multi zone AVR. But the network and wireless options are getting almost as good now once all the teathing firmware issues are sorted.

But they are still not perfect because wifi is such a unreliable thing with range, interference and congestion issues to ruin your audio nervana. But there is a solution to this which is to run cat5/6 networking wire to most of the key units so they are connected at higher more reliable speed. There is no such thing as all wireless remember as each device needs a power cable anyway and a few ethernet cables pulled through the walls is easier than running all the cabels otherwise required. A few edge devices may still use wifi though if required.

As to the wireless audio sender you mention I have not used them myself. But many people use them as a way to get audio to a sub easily. Then you can move the sub as required and not try and hide a long ugly rca signal cable. They add a small delay to the signal which has to be adjusted for in your AVR and use 2.4ghz which is a bit of a congested over used frequency range which some people may have issues with interference. Just think of them as a wireless signal cable. On their own they won't do multiroom audio but they may solve an issue where a cable can't be installed easily.

Also here is a recent thread where there is some more info mainly about MusicCast
http://forums.audioholics.com/forums/threads/seeking-system-ideas-for-multi-zone-audio-1-video-zone-older-home.97509/