Dream Home System Planning

[nbk13nw]

Spotify work in the same way as Amazon, only better. You may want to give it a shot.

Sent from my SM-G955U using Tapatalk

 

[lovinthehd]

I use Pandora and Spotify for streaming to hear new stuff and what to buy, but mostly listen to my own collection (streamed over my network). Can't rely on internet currently with the service here.

Cutting into walls and wiring can be a big project. Hard to change your mind/rearrange the room later, too. You can mount speakers to walls with something like this easily enough.

As to what particular speakers, somewhat depends on what levels you want to listen at and at what distance...as well as the acceptable size of the speaker cabinet....and budget. Here's a link to the box version of what the in-wall you posted on was trading on in terms of model number and price point . These are pretty basic speakers but for the money not horrible. Or you could look at something much nicer like these, altho still budget friendly but a bit larger in size.

 

[slipperybidness]

somafm doesn't seem to have anything for me. I'm still exploring internet-radio.com.
In the mean time, I am having second thoughts on cutting speakers into my walls. Any good recommendations for something to mount on a wall?

I'm not the best resource for on-walls either, but there will likely be some members come around to give some advice.

There are wall-mount options that allow any normal bookshelf speaker to be mounted "on-wall"

But.....if I were looking at true on-walls I would be interested in:
https://www.htd.com/Products/Speakers/Versa-Cabinet-Speakers

or
https://emotiva.com/collections/loudspeakers/products/airmotiv-e1

or
https://www.accessories4less.com/make-a-store/category/spkonwall/speakers/on-wall-speakers/1.html

 

[nbk13nw]

somafm doesn't seem to have anything for me. I'm still exploring internet-radio.com.
In the mean time, I am having second thoughts on cutting speakers into my walls. Any good recommendations for something to mount on a wall?

Spotify works the same way as Amazon but better all around for options, interface, selection and quality.

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[joshk03]

Spotify work in the same way as Amazon, only better. You may want to give it a shot.

Sent from my SM-G955U using Tapatalk

:O I just installed it and am super impressed so far. Great UI, great quality. It seems locked on my artist search at the moment, but I am feeling confident it has a pandora-like feature hiding somewhere.

 

[BoredSysAdmin]

https://store.google.com/product/chromecast_audio plus active speakers like these:
http://noaudiophile.com/Swan_D1010-IV/

Going with in-walls requires much more expense

 

[joshk03]

That is a cool setup with the chromecast audio and active speakers. Running 3 of those might slow my wifi though. I have a feeling an ethernet version doesn't exist though.

 

[BoredSysAdmin]

That is a cool setup with the chromecast audio and active speakers. Running 3 of those might slow my wifi though. I have a feeling an ethernet version doesn't exist though.

Audio doesn't take much bandwidth. I have 3k sqft home, a single old router and 6 HD webcams running 24-7. I don't have issues with internet speed which is 200mbps down.

 

[joshk03]

Good to hear. I also found this:

So what does that mean in terms of your data plan? 320kbps rate translates to 2.40 MB per minute of audio or 115.2 MB per hour. So if you were to stream music for an entire eight hour work day, you'd burn through nearly 1 GB.

 

[joshk03]

I put some Behringer B212D active speakers in a large building years ago. They were a bit bass-y, but were very clean audio. Was the woofer-like sounds probably because they were 12"? What would you guys think of a Behringer B208D?

Edit: I ask about the B208D because I think the D1010-IV would look VERY odd on a wall with their feet, square corners, and very deep profile.

 

[joshk03]

This idea of active speakers and a Chromecast audio has really turned my plan upside down. I'm going to have to take a day to explore this new category of speakers.

 

[joshk03]

Any opinions on the Edifier R1280T?

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

$1000 per zone.

A Denon X1300 brand new for $349 + 2 in-Wall speakers for $200-$300 each (like KEF, Klipsch, Monitor Audio, RBH) for each Zone would be under $1K per zone.

The Denon X1300 has AirPlay (WiFi) so you can stream from iPhone, iPad, iPod.

If you have those Apple TV or Roku devices already, then you could connect them to the Denon 530BT ($229) for each Zone.

 

[joshk03]

Denon X1300

Idk.

 

[Foxrox]

If you’re open to Chromecast with active speakers, you should check these out too:

https://www.sonos.com/en-us/home

https://usa.denon.com/us/heos

 

[joshk03]

If you’re open to Chromecast with active speakers, you should check these out too:

https://www.sonos.com/en-us/home

https://usa.denon.com/us/heos

Thanks. I will look into them right now. Actually last night I spotted the "Google Home Max"
https://store.google.com/us/product/google_home_max?hl=en-US

I have concerns it doesn't sound as good as people say, since most people probably compare it to their phone or laptop. I really came here for the full audiophile experience though. But having Spotify inside an active speaker is super tempting... Now that I asked if a Google Home Max is audiophile quality I should probably see myself to the door...

 

[joshk03]

Wow Foxrox, you might have really found something! The Denon Heos 7 appears awesome. five dedicated Class D amplifiers, 5 speakers, ethernet, wifi, BT, ooo-la-la.

 

[Foxrox]

The cool thing about Heos is that you can easily integrate it with most newer Denon receivers to include your HT as part of your whole-house audio system. You need a separate component to do that with Sonos. The Heos stand-alone speakers are *generally* considered a bit better than Sonos, but Sonos speakers are definitely good. There are lots of people out there who love their Sonos products. By all accounts the Sonos app is the smoothest, least glitchy, and easiest to use.

BTW, none of these products we’re talking about would really be considered “audiophile quality”. As you see from other posts, audiophiles rarely even stream music from the internet. They own most of their music in the form of CDs and lossless file types. Most people can hardly hear the difference, especially with rock and pop music. You need damn good speakers $$$$ and damn good content AND damn good hearing to really enjoy the audiophile experience.

 

[joshk03]

Interesting stuff, thanks a bunch. I searched the forum and read about CD's, WAV, FLAC, MP3. Interesting stuff. I might need to buy a few CDs from my favorite artists to listen to the difference. But I'm starting to understand you must need a dedicated room packed with speakers and an equalizer to qualify for calling it "audiophile quality".
I have learned how to tune an equalizer by ear for my microphone, but it only led me down the rabbit hole of obsessing over the next tweak. haha
I do love a good set of speakers. Cheers.

 

[lovinthehd]

Let's just call it higher quality. The word audiophile gets a lot of wild definitions, look the one in the dictionary up and it pretty much says someone enthusiastic about high fidelity audio reproduction. You just being here qualifies you as an audiophile.

CDs are generally the best quality for home consumption, and replaced vinyl in that regard (I'm not going to get into the whole vinyl is better thing...let's just say the potential of cd as a medium exceeds vinyl quite a bit, but that potential isn't always achieved...and I say that as someone who still has his rather large vinyl collection and a turntable to play it on). There are now some ways to exceed that but not always readily available or economical (his res recordings via download or blu ray disc etc) let alone readily apparent audibly. I stream Pandora free (128 I believe on the apps I have) and Spotify premium (320kpbs) and with Pandora it can be evident at louder volumes, they both work rather well. If you want lossless cd quality streaming there are a few services, Tidal probably the most famous. FLAC is a way to compress a lossless file...it doesn't necessarily indicate what was encoded, it can be 320kbps, it can be cd quality (16bit/44.1khz/1411 kbps) or it can be hi-res (higher bit/khz numbers).

I wouldn't worry about your setup as long as you enjoy it, although better speakers are often the best route to better audio....and your room. The convenience of HEOS and Sonos are attractive, have heard casually a small Sonos speaker and I wouldn't expect full range performance from it, altho it sounded fine, it was a single portable speaker on the patio while we ate lunch at a friends house. I still hardwire my amps to my speakers (but enjoy wireless streaming of my own stuff or other services over my wifi network thru a variety of devices).

You do some recording?