Long time lurker, first time poster.
My wife and I are getting our kitchen/living room space renovated and opened up and I had my contractor run speaker wires in the attic above for future connections. The "problem" I have is that they gave me two additional runs I was not expecting and I'm having trouble figuring out how to divide the speakers into zones.
A diagram of the room is shown. The space is about 25 ft wide (horizontal here) and 22.5 ft long (vertical) with 8 ft ceilings. The top is open to a hallway and the top left is open to an entryway and stairs down to the "ground floor" (T raised ranch style). The TV is going back in the bottom left and the kitchen area lighting, island, and dining table are shown.
Front speakers will be Polk Monitor 30 bookshelves for now and in-ceiling speakers will be Monoprice Caliber 6.5" (PID 4103). Rear on-walls on the bottom right TBD, but something lower profile. Subwoofers will be a pair of RSL Speedwoofer 10e's. Geometry and furniture locations are set.
Originally, I had planned to have two zones: one makeshift 5/7.2 zone for the TV with the two in-ceilings as surrounds and the on-walls as eventual rears, and one kitchen zone with the four top most in-ceilings for background music etc. while cooking and doing dishes or puzzles at the island. This will require an additional amp/avr as the current avr is an onkyo TX-NR575.
My question is what to do with the additional two in-ceiling speakers. I could try to integrate them into the TV zone, keep them as a separate third zone over the dining table, group them with the kitchen zone, or not even connect them at all.
