Ceiling speakers

[Alexphd1]

Looking for a little bit of advice. 

Looking to put ceiling speakers into 4 or 5 zones. Scratching my head with kitchen (6x8m) zone. Original plan was 2x 6 inch 65 watt in a pretty central location. Now having done little research would be better to locate in opposite corners but other option would be increase to 4x speakers. Any thoughts on this? 

Next question after recent last minute visit to screwfix for speaker cable I ended up twin 24 strand 0.75mm cable but thinking 1mm twin and earth prob more robust long term or am I over thinking this. 

Edited May 26, 2019 by Alexphd1

[lizzie]

I had them in last house......we never bothered to use them after a few months. So decision made not to install in this house. FWIW we had them in the centre of the room equidistant from the corners....I didnt have hand in positioning it was done by installers. There are position guides on websites if you google.

[recoveringbuilder]

We have them, one in lounge and 1 in dining room but with the cathedral ceiling and mezzanine sitting area we can hear them wherever we sit, very easily installed along with the downlights, glad I got them 

[Onoff]

Mr Cheapseats here but I haven't stopped using the set I put into the bathroom ceiling since I put them in.

 

https://www.ebay.co.uk/p/Kitchen-Wireless-Bluetooth-Amplifier-2x-White-165mm-6-5-Inch-Ceiling-Speakers/18003051144?iid=123069555028

 

Amazed at the quality tbh as I'm pretty sure a fully tiled bathroom isn't the best place acoustics wise. I tend to listen to trance, progressive house, edm etc. Maybe that lends itself.

[Alexphd1]

We have a poor set up just now and they are never off (amp in other room and old speakers on top of kitchen units). I think the key is ease of operation but this will be investigated at a later date. 

[Nickfromwales]

For @vivienz I'm fitting 4 x speakers for the open plan kitchen / dining / living space, but only at the dining and kitchen 'two thirds'. Where the room ends as the living space a TV will reside, so I have suggested a decent Sonos Sound bar is fitted there so that entire open plan space can play from one music source. All the amps will be the Sonos as it's just so damn simple and robust, eg plug n play.

As far as the 2 speaker or 4 speaker option, that's a no-brainer. It's far better to have 4 lower volumes to flood a section of the space rather than have to turn 2 speakers up much louder IMO as you then don't have the person stood next to the speaker suffering fro  the higher volume required by others slightly further away.

As far as positioning goes, the further out to the corners the more aggressive the bass will become, and then you'll need a graphic equaliser of some sort to wind that back a bit. If your a dance music lover then thats not so problematic, but if you simply want good vocal clarity, a good dispersion for the high end ( treble ) then do as I'm doing and group the 4 speakers equidistant over the general 'listening area' and you'll not go far wrong.

The 4 speakers combined will still run off a single stereo amp, you just parallel two speaker cables which shows the amp a 4 ohm load instead of the 8 ohm load. That will squeeze a bit more performance out of the amplifier, but make sure the amp you choose is happy to see the 4 ohm load. FYI domestic speakers are typically 8 ohm, so the amplifiers are set to deal with that, generally speaking. You can get away with 4 smaller speakers with less visual impact when you group the 4 as you'll be sharing the bottom end ( bass ) between them, instead of relying on 2 much beefier speakers to fill the room with the whole musical spectrum.

In the bedrooms I've gone with 2x larger, more fuller sounding speakers, these bad boys, just so as to not clutter the rooms up any more than is necessary. In the downstairs open space I'll go with 5 1/4" most probably so am looking to see whats available with CA, as they're a damn nice speaker. Bathrooms are getting some too, so will require a marine / harsh environment unit to suit.

[ProDave]

I am an old stick in the mud.  I like my sound quality too much so not sure I would trust ceiling speakers (can you get 3 way bass reflex ceiling speakers?)  and there is something about a pair of stereo speakers need to be defined properly as left and right.  So the 3 main rooms downstairs each have a pair or "proper" hi fi speakers, floor standing ones in the living room, wall mounted in the kitchen / diner and sun room.  This is in addition to surround sound for the 2 main tv's.

 

And I would not be wanting the likes of blue tooth to be interfering with my sound quality. 

 

I think this is a case of where I don't want convenience and discrete triumnphing over quality.

 

P.S I uses 2.5mm speaker cable from CPC

[nod]

There are some really cool ceiling speakers 600 x 600 from memory 

They fit flush to the plasterboard 

and are skimmed over 

Strict instructions not to skim more than three mil 

Never thought they would work 

Absolutely perfect sound 

[dpmiller]

NXT panels?

[epsilonGreedy]

47 minutes ago, ProDave said:

I am an old stick in the mud.  I like my sound quality too much so not sure I would trust ceiling speakers .... This is in addition to surround sound for the 2 main tv's.

 

 

Would ceiling speakers be good enough for some 5.1 sound rear speakers?

[Alexphd1]

Nick. never thought of linking the tv soundbar with the ceiling speakers, this would work brillant with the area. I always dismissed sonas as I want everything hard wired but that new sonas amp looks good and if I can link that with the soundbar... win win. 

[ultramods]

I have wired all rooms in the house with speaker cable in the ceilings, in family area and snug I have put 4 speakers in each corner. I have positioned the cables based on no real expert advice or research. @Nickfromwales certainly sounds like he knows what he is talking about.

 

The resident hifi expert at my work dd recommend this 79 strand cable https://www.av4home.co.uk/products/qed-profile-79-strand-speaker-cable-complete-100-metre-drum as an "affordable" good quality speaker.

 

I'm not actually planning on having any ceiling speakers, expect for maybe in the bathrooms. I have just put in the cable for future proofing. 

 

I will be using sonos in most of the house. In the living area we will have soundbar below TV, along with subwoofer and then a pair of sonos one's wall mounted 2 metres high at opposite end from the TV. The kitchen will also have a pair on sonos one's wall mounted at 2 metres. 

 

Snug will have similar setup.

 

We also have 3 external speakers that I will connect to a Sonos AMP.

 

Sonos have recently teamed up with a third party speaker company for wall and ceiling speakers, the look nice however very expensive. https://www.sonos.com/en-ie/sonos-architectural

 

I have been using Sonos for almost 10 years now and love them.

 

Although Sonos worked wirelessly as a mesh network you can also hardwired them to a router/switch.

[Onoff]

I've always used twin and earth for my speaker cables! 

 

If we get the lounge/diner knocked through then I'm insisting the Technics/Pioneer/Wharfdale separates get set up again and made a feature!