Speaker placement ideas needed

[David~G]

Hello,

Well here goes my first post here...

I'm looking for some advice on placement of ceiling speakers in a house I'm currently building. They will be mainly for the purpose of providing a bit of background music in the dining room, and maybe also the great room (see floor plan below). The dining room will be the most commonly used room of the two, and I may just place speakers there only. It might be nice to also have a set of speakers in the great room as well, but not if it compromises dining room listening. My concern is that having a separate set of speakers in each room playing the same content at similar volume levels would not sound very good (i.e., mess up stereo separation, etc.)

Is my concern real? If so, is there some way of minimizing that problem through clever speaker placement, etc.?

I was thinking of having separate volume control levels for each room (which would seem to solve any such problems) but for various reasons I'm not 100% sure that I want to do that.

Speakers will be Polk RC-80i, which I've used before and am happy with. Also, these rooms probably won't be all that great acoustically. With wood flooring and not being full of soft furnishings they may be noticeably reverberant, but I'll probably just live with that.

BTW, a bit about me: I`m a mechanical engineer with a lengthy professional background in acoustics - although mostly in the area of noise control. I like to think that I use my equipment to listen to music rather than use music to listen to my equipment (although I probably do the latter every so often).

Thanks!
~David.

Edit: I had meant to put this post in General Audio Discussions, but oh well...

 

[awillia6]

Nah, I got 'em all over the house (13 pairs I think, in-ceiling, in-wall, and outdoor mounts) with separate volume controls for each room (and deck/porch). You hear almost ONLY the stereo speakers in whatever room you occupy. Of course, I'm currently running everything single source with only on/off/volume variance. And of course someone in an "OFF" room can easily hear the music (or whatever) playing in the adjoining "ON" room. My next project is to feed multiple selectable sources into a switch matrix and make source/room selections and volume levels controllable over my Wifi/wired network by handheld, portable device (phone, dedicated gizmo, etc.). Different sources playing at different volume levels in adjoining rooms could get interesting. But for same source audio, the whole thing's a bit of a snooze.

 

[David~G]

Thanks for that. I was leaning towards one volume control for both sets of speakers, but think I'll figure out a way of setting up each room as a separate zone. I was going to use my receiver (Marantz AV7701) for control of different zones through an iOS app (maybe something like iRule), but the receiver only has 3 zones and I'll probably have 6 or more throughout the house - so not sure how I'm going to do that. Plus, I'd like to have both a physical/wall volume control as well as app (iPhone/iPad) control for all of the zones. How do you manage volume control in all of those zones?

 

[awillia6]

There're a ton of gizmos on the market to do whole house or room-by-room audio. Suggest you start at the top, then work your way down. Try Crestron, Control4, Niles/Speakercraft, Russound, Sonos, etc. Look at how the various system are architected and designed and see what functionality they provide. After a bit of study, you should get a feel for how the various gear available meshes with control software (its own or third-party) to yield a system of specific capability. Then, figure out what level of functionality (and future-proofing) you want, select the way to get there, and hop on board. Good luck.

A major divide is between centralized and distributed systems: think mainframe/terminals vs. networked PCs. For a centralized system (economy, efficiency) that acts more like a distributed one (flexibility, expansion), look for a multi-zone amp (12-16 stereo zones are typical) that can handle multiple simultaneous sources (from 2 to the number of zones is typical) with the I/O matrix (which source(s) play in which zone(s) at what volume) dynamically controlled by networked apps.

 

[kfalls]

For non-critical background listening in the dining room I'd purchase an Amazon Echo. They don't sound bad especially at lower (background) levels and are more convenient and less hassle than setting up a Zone for your receiver. Music is easily accessible via "Alexa" and if you purchase an Amazon Show, you can also see videos, text, make calls and ask questions. Of course for rooms for more critical listening a receiver Zone would be preferred.