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Ceiling Speakers Recommendations


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Hi All

 

We are wanting to have some in ceiling speakers in a couple of our rooms ( kitchen/diner & snug room)

 

I would prefer wired speakers (1st fixing now) but i have never installed speakers before. Do you wire the speakers individually back to an amp and then connect to the amp via bluetooth on your phone? Also can these be linked to play whatever alexa does?

 

Apologies for the daft questions, could anyone recommend any speakers/ setups that I could look at?

 

Many Thanks

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1 hour ago, crispy_wafer said:

I've got a couple of these as they seemed to fit what I wanted to do.  Still in the box as I've got bigger battles to fight at the moment.

 

Pro Series Ceiling Speakers - Lithe Audio LTD

Just looked into this and even gave Lithe a call (very helpful)

 

The bluetooth versions of these look absolutely perfect for me! Thanks @crispy_wafer

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38 minutes ago, jayc89 said:

I plan to go with Sonas Amp and Sonance Speakers.

 

I have some Sonos stuff.  The amp gets very hot, so I suspect uses a fair bit of juice.  Startup from power on is painfully slow.  They also lose signal every now and then and don't always group properly, even though they all have CAT5 wiring.  I don't rate it and was really annoyed when they wrote to suggest they were retiring some models.  Bet they will be wanting a subscription next.

 

I have an Arcam amp and it is still good 20 years on.

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3 minutes ago, richo106 said:

Just looked into this and even gave Lithe a call (very helpful)

 

The bluetooth versions of these look absolutely perfect for me! Thanks @crispy_wafer


ive got one of these and its been great. Its self powered so i guess an amp built in. Its big money in comparison to others though and im debating just going for a few smaller Google speakers maybe in my new extension as they seem pretty good for minimal outlay.

But the Lithe has been rock solid for years and a good purchase.

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35 minutes ago, Mr Punter said:

 

I have some Sonos stuff.  The amp gets very hot, so I suspect uses a fair bit of juice.  Startup from power on is painfully slow.  They also lose signal every now and then and don't always group properly, even though they all have CAT5 wiring.  I don't rate it and was really annoyed when they wrote to suggest they were retiring some models.  Bet they will be wanting a subscription next.

 

I have an Arcam amp and it is still good 20 years on.

 

Thanks, that's really useful to know as I was planning a wired set up too. 

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1 hour ago, Mr Punter said:

 

I have some Sonos stuff.  The amp gets very hot, so I suspect uses a fair bit of juice.  Startup from power on is painfully slow.  They also lose signal every now and then and don't always group properly, even though they all have CAT5 wiring.  I don't rate it and was really annoyed when they wrote to suggest they were retiring some models.  Bet they will be wanting a subscription next.

 

I have an Arcam amp and it is still good 20 years on.

i have some first gen Sonos speakers which i won't upgrade. i don't like the way they dropped the support on the newer apps for them. anyway, i digress, our speakers also would drop the signal. after a quick google i found that they were still trying to use the proprietary wireless connectivity. when i switched it to wifi instead the signal no longer drops.

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I plastered a home in the lake district a few years back He had speaker in the ceiling About 500 x500

We simply plastered over them A coat of gyp bond and 3 mil maximum skim 

Excellent sound and totally invisible 

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  • 4 months later...

I’ve just fitted the last speaker which was a Focal 300 ICW8. The Focal mounting system is much better than the Bowers & Wilkins system. Far easier to install and secure the speaker especially if you are using a speaker hood (which you should be doing) On the speaker hoods. I used the Firetopper Pro hoods in two different sizes. The bigger hood is red and the dye transfers to your hands then onto your white painted ceiling. The smaller hood is white and not dyed. 

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10 hours ago, Pocster said:

Raspberry pi , picore player , any speakers you want . Cheaper than all other options and dead reliable. If not tech savvy then forget it 


It’s not that hard to do. I built a RPi based DAC to compare against a dear Chord DAC I borrowed. Nae difference. 

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27 minutes ago, Kelvin said:


It’s not that hard to do. I built a RPi based DAC to compare against a dear Chord DAC I borrowed. Nae difference. 

No it’s not difficult. But that depends on your knowledge and understanding of these things .

People think sometimes you can write a step by step guide that you just follow . But you can’t ; as there are plenty of unknowns and what ifs .

Router config , firewall , ip address setup etc. etc. 
There are video guides online . But again if there’s any variation in what you have to the video and you’re simply copying the steps ; then it might require a fuller understanding.

Edited by Pocster
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10 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

What a cop out.

Idle (expletive deleted)er

Take my new robot vac . Couldn’t get it to connect to my WiFi. No idea of the issue - no error message except fail

Googling …

only apparently connects to 2.4gz not 5 . Mines both with band steering . So I disable 5ghz - still doesn’t work . How would you explain how to do that to someone without a lot of detail ?

Google more . Apparently for reasons unknown doesn’t like a router address of 192.168.8.1 - exactly what I have . So I change that ; which naturally breaks everything else . Explaining how to do that would be very difficult if the person you are explaining it to is just following your commands .

That thought gets it working ! - shame everything else is bust though due to router IP change …

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11 hours ago, Pocster said:

Take my new robot vac . Couldn’t get it to connect to my WiFi. No idea of the issue - no error message except fail

Googling …

only apparently connects to 2.4gz not 5 . Mines both with band steering . So I disable 5ghz - still doesn’t work . How would you explain how to do that to someone without a lot of detail ?

Google more . Apparently for reasons unknown doesn’t like a router address of 192.168.8.1 - exactly what I have . So I change that ; which naturally breaks everything else . Explaining how to do that would be very difficult if the person you are explaining it to is just following your commands .

That thought gets it working ! - shame everything else is bust though due to router IP change …

Depending on your hardware, couldn't you just create a separate wireless network and vpc just for the fussy lil robot? I know it's trivial on my ubiquiti gear for example.

Edited by oliwoodings
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45 minutes ago, oliwoodings said:

Depending on your hardware, couldn't you just create a separate wireless network and vpc just for the fussy lil robot? I know it's trivial on my ubiquiti gear for example.

Yeah - a pita .

changed all IP’s instead .Messed up lots of things - but almost back to 100% now …

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1 hour ago, Pocster said:

Yeah - a pita .

changed all IP’s instead .Messed up lots of things - but almost back to 100% now …

Fair. I intentionally put some devices in their own vpc of shame if I don't trust them (i.e. chinesium shite).

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