Home Audio set up, where to start ?

BIONIC MAN

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After some advice, :thumbsdow

Have a 4 bed home that’s being taken back to the studs, ceilings down etc. Need advice on where to start with the following setup.

  • Home Audio System, not got a clue where to start and what I need.

  • Front room looking to have a 5.1.2 Atmos setup, therefore could I also use the 2 ceiling speakers for the home audio?

  • Sky Q will be fitted with 2 extra Mini boxes, therefore do I need to think about TV & Audio setup around the house.

  • What Cat Cable should I run for the Internet.


Will be using Van Damme speaker cable as used before, Also will run WF100 cable for Sky and TV Aerials.



Any help & advice would be great as have a lot wish to do at the house.


:D
 
Cable: I'd put CAT6 in if I were doing my house now. Cost over 5e is relatively small compared to what it was considering the smaller quantity for a house.

Home audio: What are you looking to do? So many options from RaspberryPi and Chromecast at the cheaper end to Sonos and BluSound higher up with plenty of others as well.
Ease of setup, multiroom, services you might use all have implications. Can you locate amps in each 4oom or do you need active speakers? Do they need to be ceiling mounted for all rooms? Do you want speakers in bathrooms?
Do you want voice.control? Etc.

Don't see why you couldn't connect a second AMP to the Atmos speakers for the home audio but why not just use the (likely) better fronts using the AMPs stereo mode?
 
Cable: I'd put CAT6 in if I were doing my house now. Cost over 5e is relatively small compared to what it was considering the smaller quantity for a house.

Home audio: What are you looking to do? So many options from RaspberryPi and Chromecast at the cheaper end to Sonos and BluSound higher up with plenty of others as well.
Ease of setup, multiroom, services you might use all have implications. Can you locate amps in each 4oom or do you need active speakers? Do they need to be ceiling mounted for all rooms? Do you want speakers in bathrooms?
Do you want voice.control? Etc.

Don't see why you couldn't connect a second AMP to the Atmos speakers for the home audio but why not just use the (likely) better fronts using the AMPs stereo mode?

Hi There,

Thinking maybe multi room system, which one need guidance on, don't want to add amps to each rooms. Ceiling mounted would look better and easier to place.

Looking Kitchen / Dinning Room
Living Room
Bedrooms
Bathroom

would not need voice control

any advice on what to look at would be great, also how to setup etc.

:smashin:
 
The thing with ceiling speakers is that they are good for Atmos, and maybe some background music, but for sitting and listening, your front pair of speakers will be better positioned, and are likely to be better speakers, as Kamakazie rightly says.

CAT 6 also a good shout. Put duplicate runs in, even if not used, as much quicker and cheaper to replace like this than any other way if you have a future issue.

Think now what you might want in future, and put cable in, speaker, CAT 6, whatever, as again much cheaper than channeling out and redecorating in future.
 
Thing is I don't wont all wall mounted speakers, I can get away with the Home Cinema setup

Misses would kill me if had wall mounted speakers all over the house.
 
Thinking some more on this, and to when we had some work done a year or so back.

Sky Q uses (whether by requirement I have no clue) a thinner cable than "old" Sky used. Run this to where you want your main Sky Q box, and run a spare too. I'm assuming all will be nicely hidden like that, which you wouldn't get from a Sky installer. I'd also run CAT 6 to where the Sky minis are going to be, as that way you can have them hard wired. They work wirelessly, but hard wired is more robust and reliable.

And go for floor standers at the front, your missus might just like the look. Mine only did when she saw them in the shop, after being dead against them before. I've even heard her comment about how some little speakers have "sounded crap!" since then. There is hope there, but maybe think about in walls as a compromise for your centre and surrounds.

Also, if you can see my setup in the picture, none of the Sky box, av receiver, Blu-ray player, amps, turntable etc. are visible. They are all in a cupboard in the kitchen, but only about 6' from the tv. Again, you might get some brownie points if you can hide all that stuff, which you can then offset against having some nice speakers on show.

I control all mine from a Harmony, works a treat.
 
You can get active ceiling speakers which can be wired into the lighting circuits but you'd need something with them to do multiroom like a Chromecast Audio.

Looks like Sonos would require their AMPs with passive speakers.

You could do some long runs of speaker cable from the attic and keeps some AMPs up there with CCAs or the RaspberryPi connected.

Otherwise I think you'll be looking at a proper home installation and you'd be better asking in the home automation section.

I don't think any of the main Sonos type solutions offer active ceiling speakers with the wireless tech integrated.

I don't think anyone is suggesting wall mounted speakers everywhere but just to use the cinema fronts for music rather than the Atmos in ceilings.
 

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