New setup

[golfinbill]

All,

I am building a home and working with new construction. I am by no means a junkie..still watch TV on my 10 year old 32" JVC with no other AV equipment. I know..sad. Although we are not really into the whole home theator experience, I do have 2 rooms I would like to set up and also run whole house audio for back ground only. This is what I have come up with so far:

1. Family room - about 18X15. Mostly watch sports and occasional movie. No gaming. Just purchased panasonic 50" 1080 plasma. Want basic 5.1 SS setup. Looking at Onkyo SR606 and Samsung BDP1500 as these are in the price range. All speakers, except sub, must be in-wall according to the wifey. Need suggestions here please along with any comments about Rec and Blu ray.

2. Upstairs gameroom - same size. Thinking about duplicating whatever I do downstairs. This is for kids..mostly sports, movies, gaming. Again, need in-wall speaker suggestions here along with the other AV equip as well.

3. Whole house audio - wanted to use the family room equip to run this. Need suggestions on in-wall and ceiling speakers. Again, mostlly just for back ground music..dont want to spend a furtune here.

Thanks for any feed back guys..most of you intimidate me.

 

[zumbo]

Welcome.

I need a complete budget. Sending us on a wild goose chase to find prices for the two units you listed is not helping. How do we know what price you found them for?

Total budget will be the best thing to list, as most members are very aware of how to separate the value of each component.

 

[golfinbill]

Sorry..new to this.

Looks like the Onkyo can be had for about 350 and the Samsung Blu Ray I found yesterday at a local retailer going out of biz for 215. Can I get a decent in-wall speaker set up and sub for about 750?. I would like to keep both rooms at about 1500.00 for the rec, blu ray, and speakers.

In terms of speakers for house, is there decent quality for abround 100-125 per pair. Thinking I will need about 9 pair, including about 3 pair for porches and pool area. Would like to keep this at about 1500 as well.

thanks.

 

[zumbo]

Total budget=

Total budget looks to be for (2) 5.1 in-wall systems?(sub don't have to be iw)

Total budget includes (2) receivers?

Total budget includes (2) BR players?

Total budget includes (3) additional pair of speakers for whole house audio ran off of main system?

 

[golfinbill]

Family room - 1500.00 (receiver, blu ray, in wall speakers and sub)

Game room - 1500.00 (receiver, blu ray, in wall speakers and sub)

Remaining speakers for rest of house. This includes 3 outdoor pair and 6 indoor pair - 1500.00.

Total for everything - 4500.00.

 

[zumbo]

Good job! Now be patient. You should get many replies with that post. Well done.

I will start looking.

I am not up on whole hose audio, so I will let others hit on that. With that many speakers, you may need some type of speaker switcher with impedance matching. A separate multi-room amp will blow your budget

Speaker selector with impedance matching. This will take half of you whole house speaker budget.
http://www.nilesaudio.com/product.php?prodID=MSA-10A&recordID=Speaker Selector with Autoformer Impedance Matching System&categoryID=Speaker Selectors&catcdID=7&prdcdID=FG00285

 

[zumbo]

The word around here seems to put the Panasonic BR players at the top of the low-mid priced players.

The 35 can be found around $250.

I don't think you will find a more feature-packed receiver for the money other than the one you listed.

That leaves $900 for a 5.1 speaker system. I can't give an honest opinion of a IW system at that price-point.

 

[Midcow2]

Some Ideas to ponder!

Golfinbill welcome to the Audioholics forum. Thanks for providing us your specs ( With Zumbo's prodding )

It almost sounds like you want three separate receivers or two and the second having two zones one for inside and one for the patio. Typically to get two independent zones you go to a mid to high range receiver.

Here are some pretty good patio speakers I Have used for only $109.99 per pair. From Outdoor Speaker Depot - HFW Ii 6.5" Outdoor patio Speakers.

http://search.store.yahoo.net/cgi-bin/nsearch?.autodone=http://store.yahoo.com/yhst-5323690727015/nsearch.html&catalog=yhst-5323690727015&query=SN-10037&search button.x=49&search button.y=10

They also have in-wall speakers, but I don't have any experience with them.
However, it looks like they have several clearly defined levels of quality.
===

Some really good in-wall speakers are SpeakerCraft. You might consider a more expensive pair for the fronts such as the Speakercraft MT6 one at $329 per pair. http://www.surroundsolutions.com/cgi-bin/surroundsolutions.cgi/0722.html?prod=SpeakerCraft MT6 One. I have not had actual experience with these in-wall speakers.

I have some Definitive Technology speakers in the ceiling for surronds and they are very good, but again pretty pricey. http://www.definitivetech.com/loudspeakers/inwall_/inwall_.html

This looks like a reasonable place to buy decent in-wall speakers: http://www.inwallstore.com/category_s/2.htm But again I have not experience with this company.

As far as receivers, you might want to consider two or three of the Yamaha RXV-363 receivers for $199 each. They are very good receivers that meet you requirements very well. http://www.onecall.com/ProductDetails.aspx?id=90956

Subwoofers. The Brands I like best are SVS and Hsu but they start around $400. A good inexpensive subwoofer is the Dayton SuB-129 HT at $139.90 each http://www.partsexpress.com/pe/showdetl.cfm?Partnumber=300-635
You can always easily upgrade to a better sub woofer later.

I would buy cable from Monoprice. They have very good cables and speaker wire at very reasonable prices. http://www.monoprice.com/home/index.asp

Good Luck - Sounds like an interesting project.


MidCow2


P.S.- Your speakers are the most important and especially if they are in-ceiling or in-wall because once installed you tend not to ever want to upgrade. Spend 2/3rds of your budget on speakers. Later on you can easily upgrade the receivers and subs!

 

[zumbo]

The idea of the speakers being semi-permanent is why I am afraid to post at this price-point. I do remember several members mentioning Phoenix Gold for IW in the past, and Amazon has them for 65% off.

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_e?url=search-alias=electronics&field-keywords=phoenix+gold+in+wall+speakers&x=8&y=18

 

[golfinbill]

Midcow2..thanks..all very helpful.

Will the Yamaha 363 paired with the Panasonic 35 be fine? I am reading other post about coordinating the BR player and receiver in terms of HDMI, decoding, incoding, etc...Are these two compatible?

If I use this receiver, do you know if I can not only run the Theator room from it but at the same time be able to listen to music in my office..ie..setting up a 2nd zone?

Finally, I will meet with the electrician latter this week to discuss and define all electrical runs. Can someone give me ideas on what to run..HDMI, cat 5/6. Everyone is telling me to run speaker wire all over the place..cheap to do now and even if I do not plan of putting speakers in those areas for now, at least run the wire. I am OK with that. In terms of the other cabling, what will I need to have run to get set up with DISH, BR player, and receiver.

 

[zumbo]

You have to step-up to the 663 to get decoding for the new audio formats.

There are many ways around this, but it is just easier from every aspect to get a receiver with decoding.

 

[talmazor]

No sure where's you're located but Sound Advice, a Tweeter company, is closing all it's locations nationwide. The deals they're giving on their equipment are stellar and only getting better as the liquidation sale goes on. I would check their web site, tweeter.com, for locations and see if you can pick up some of the equipment there. It will definitely make your budget go a lot further.

As for your in wall/ceiling speakers. I have Sonance Symphony speakers in my house and have been very happy with them.

As for wiring, there may be a better way to do it, but this is what I did:

Every location that has a screen, TV etc., got 4 RG6 coax and 4 CAT5. All runs were homerun from the main AV closet to the locations.

Every room got a drop for a volume control with 2 CAT5 cables and then speaker cable. The speaker cable basically went from my AV closet to each volume control, but was not cut or terminated just looped, and then run into the ceiling to blank boxes, which would act as placeholder for speakers to be added later. Because I didn't know what volume control etc. I was going to use, this gave me the option of powering the speakers directly from the AV closet, which would then leave the speaker cable untouched, or would allow me to us volume controls in the rooms, in which case the speaker cable was cut and terminated at the volume control.

Because I built my house pre-HD, I would also consider where you would like to watch HD and whether the source would be local or not. If the source is in an AV closet, you need to weigh the options of running HD over coax/cat5 by using a balun or now running HDMI cable etc. from the source to the screen. I didn’t run any HDMI cable and am not having issue re-wiring.

Also, you will want to run drops for any dedicated HT setup, for your speakers and sub.

Lastly, the coax/cat5 drops I put in were because all my sources are in one location. If you're going to share sources (eg: the cable box in the game room will also be seen in the office), you will need to add a dedicated run from that source back to the other location.

I ran everything to a dedicated AV closet, which allows to “share” sources but also make changes fairly easily.

Your best bet is draw a diagram of how you plan on "sharing" equipment across the house and when in doubt put in extra wire, that's the pars that is cheap now while the walls are wide open.

Good Luck

 

[golfinbill]

I found the Speakercraft MT6 One online for 149/pair..good price?

 

[golfinbill]

Very helpful Talmazor. The more people I speak with, the more I realize there is to think about in terms of wiring and routing. My thought right now is to utilize volume controls in most rooms, but running the way you did leaves that option open when it actually comes time to make that call.