If you guys were renovating a home and had a few rooms in which you wanted to play your music, what would you do?

A friend asked for some advice for just such a thing. He's working on a couple rooms and wants audio in a third. It seems that the preference is for something embedded in the walls/ceiling, and not something sitting on a counter. It's possible that putting equipment somewhere central would be acceptable, as long as it were built into something to hide it.

Naturally, my mind jumped immediately to Sonos, but is that the best solution here? How do you work Sonos into in-ceiling speakers? What speakers would you use for the purpose? Is there another system that would work well for this?

If you want integrated you're best off going traditional for the distribution. That means in-wall and/or in-ceiling speakers from the brand of your choice, being driven by a multi-channel/multi-zone amplifier and controlled by a multi-zone controller/pre-amp. Also available in integrated solutions. Monoprice has perfectly serviceable in-wall and ceiling speakers at good prices.

You can locate the amplifier(s) and other equipment wherever you'd like, together, and then tie your sources to them - which can include multiple of the same type of product if desired.

Brands for whole-home distribution: URC, Russound, Niles, Xantech and others.

The benefits with this approach: Stealth installation with minimal or no equipment visible in any given listening room. Centralized equipment location and the ability to control individual zones from that central location or any other zone.

An alternative is the de-centralized approach where you can still use in-wall or in-ceiling speakers, but with source components and amplification in each zone. Here you can connect different Sonos or other similar devices in each zone. Sonos has the benefit of offering amplified models. You will be able to control the zones from anywhere in the home using a wireless network if you go Sonos or Squeezebox. To do centralized control/automation you might still have to tie wires back to somewhere else, depending on what amplification you're using.

This method can involve a lot more equipment and a higher price, depending on product selection. Everything is variable though, because maybe you have a source for power amplifiers at a steep discount or free for instance. Hiding such equipment in every single zone might be difficult or impossible.

There's definitely more flexibility with the centralized approach as for example, you can have audio in a hallway where you wouldn't necessarily set up a shelf with equipment.

Thanks, Bruno.

The reason I jumped to Sonos at first was because of the specific request to be able to control via smartphone. Would any of these other solutions have that sort of option, including zone control?

There is also the third alternative. Centrally located Sonos/Squeezeboxes and amps, with remote runs to the in ceiling speakers.

You'll need something with IP control or an external IP controller in the mix.

URC's product has IP control/messaging (2-way). The key is then finding software on the smartphone/tablet of choice to control it. There should be something available as I think there are expandable solutions that support the IP-based products of most vendors.

Example app: http://www.roomieremote.com/ip-compatibility/


I forgot to mention another caveat about the decentralized or rather discrete setup (which covers what Andy mentioned as well). You'll lack the ability to cleanly switch sources between zones. For instance you can dedicate specific sources to each zone, but you can't have a pile of sources that are shared between zones quite as easily.

You can of course connect one source to multiple zones, but that's not quite the same thing as when playing that source you won't be able to stop it from playing to all the zones it's hardwired to - except for shutting down the amplification to that other zone. Which may be fine if you don't need both zones to be playing different content at the same time.

If I was setting this up for a big residence, apart from any room which needs reference equipment, I would go with a multi-zone powered amplifier/controller. For the reference room(s) I'd have additional dedicated multi-channel amplification which could still be wired through the controller (they should have pre-outs). Possibly also using another processor.

When I built my house, I did this specically with the idea of a Sonos setup. So in every room I wanted audio I put two speakers (or 4 in large rooms) in the ceiling, more in particular these . The main benefit of these speakers, other than them sounding great, is that they are 8 Ohm speakers, meaning I could use 4 or them in certain zones by wiring them in parallel..

At first I thought of putting all the zones in one central room and simply run all the speaker wires from there. While this would have had certain benefits when it comes to possible future upgrades (all wires in one central location), I decided against it in the end and simply fitted a power socket and UTP socket in specific locations in the rooms themselves. Usually at a height of +/- 6 feet. These locations where all specifically chosen because they would get covered up by a closet in front of them in the end. That way I could simply place the zoneplayers in those closets on the top shelf and you'd hardly notice them.

The main reason I chose such a setup instead of centralized, is because Sonos makes it own mesh network by letting all the zones 'talk' to each other. This is important for eg. the reach of your remote. If all zoneplayers would be located on top of each other in one central location, the reach of the remote would surely be a lot worse than with my current setup, which has at least one zoneplayer in all corners of the house... Although I must be honest and say this point might have become moot now I'm using an iPad to control it all... oh well...

That's my favorite thing about Sonos. It's pretty simple.


Bruno, I must have missed the part about multiple sources. I don't think that's an issue. I think he's mostly just interested in playing music in multiple rooms from a smartphone, but I'll certainly bring it up and see if he's interested in that...

I've only used ceiling speakers in one room:

http://www.ceiling-speakers.co.uk/Monitor-Audio-C265-Speaker-66.asp

We're having source (squeezebox) directly connected to speakers via amp in each room. Only problem I have now is finding an amp that'll fade between 4 speakers like F/R fading in a car.

I think I've settled on the Sonos. It's going to be the best thing for the user in this case (that is, it's the easiest to use).

I have two questions:

- does anyone have a recommendation for in-ceiling speakers that I can get without going through a specialty supplier? I think the speakers that have been mentioned in this thread so far look fantastic, but it seems they're kind of difficult to obtain. I'm looking more for something I can get through Amazon that's going to have a decent range and play music well. Oh, and I'm hoping for something omni-directional. Everything I've seen seems to have directional tweeters...

- iTunes: this is something that's been dogging me. Is it necessary that to play your iTunes collection, you must have iTunes open on a computer in your home? For example, I can't just play the music from any given iPhone on the Sonos? I see that Sonos suggests plugging an Airport Express into the line in on a player and using Airplay, but is this really the only solution?

Speakers: Monoprice for non-name-brand stuff.

iTunes: You don't need iTunes (open or otherwise) to play any NON-DRM iTunes-bought music that exists on a hard drive. The drive must be available to the network via a computer or NAS of course.

iPhone: You can't pull music from an iPhone to play on another device natively unless it's via AirPlay.

If you intend to play music that exists only on an iPhone (not from a networked computer/hard drive or NAS), the Sonos is redundant of course.

Sorry to bring this thread back from the dead, but I have a question:

Can I wire these speakers in parallel so I can just run one set of wires back to the source? If so, how many can I run that way?

Depends on whether the amp will handle the load. Those are 8-ohm speakers, so they will present a 4-ohm load to the amp if you run two sets in parallel. Impedance calculator here:
http://www.bcae1.com/spkrmlti.htm

You can, of course, melt either your amp or your speaker's voice coils (don't remember which) if you do this trick on an amp that's not designed to handle it.

If you run a second set of wires back to the amp but connect them to the same terminals as the first speaker, then you're still presenting a parallel connection.

So if you do have extra terminals, run a second wire. Otherwise run them in series and live with the lower SPL.

Most amps are good into a 4 ohm load, so you should be ok with 2 speakers parallel on one output.

You could connect 2 sets of two in series, then parallel those two sets, and be back to your original 8 ohms.

Once again, my apologies for resurrecting this thread, but I had another question

Am I correct to assume that this would be okay to drive a pair of these?

Can't see why not.

Sweet.

Man, Sonos stuff gets really expensive, really quick.

Agreed. But you get what you pay for: a sweet, hassle-free system. Good choice on the speakers. I see they are 8 Ohms as well, so if you wanted, you could bridge 4 of those on one Connect:Amp.

I think the Sonos system looks fantastic, and I agree that it's worth the cost, especially the standalone speaker products (I think the Connect:Amp is a little pricey at $500).

The main problem I have with Sonos is it seems to force you to change your behavior to work with their systems, rather than let you tailor their systems to your behaviors. For example, about half of the audio listening I do is podcasts. From what I've been reading, the Sonos system is pretty awful at podcasts, and there's no great way to simply play the audio from my favorite podcast app on Android (Doggcatcher) through the Sonos system from anywhere in the house. I'd have to connect to a bluetooth receiver attached to the audio in jack on a Connect and be near it. That makes it a tough purchase for me, but I'll still recommend it for others, depending on their needs.

Make sure you don't get close to 65k tracks either. That's the limit with Sonos. Real-world should be a bit less depending on the size or your metadata. I'm not there yet, but there are a lot of people in the Squeezebox forums that passed that point a long time ago.

At $500 it better be one hell of an amp.

How would the wiring of this work? Do I daisy-chain the speakers, or run separate lines back to the terminals of the Connect? The latter would be nice, because then I could put these in the two rooms that would have the speakers. Is that doable?

I believe I already provided a link for that in the first few posts of this very tread. Let me check.

Edit: Ah, yes. here it is. You'll want to run separate lines from the speakers to the back of the Connect-Amp. Never Daisy chain them, it'll sound awful and you'll probably damage your amp in doing so.

And to answer your other question: yes, that controller will probably work fine. Though I don't know how the amp of the Connect:Amp will like it if you use that controller while it is playing, effectively lowering the impedance on the amp from 8 ohms to 4 ohms.