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JSE
06-24-2004, 11:11 AM
I am getting ready to have recessed lighting installed in my kitchen and breakfast room and I figured while they are fishing electrical wire I might as well have them fish some speaker wire. I want to install 2 in-ceiling speakers in my kitchen/breakfast room. One in the actual kitchen and one over the breakfast table. My question is this, I notice that while looking the Boston Acoustic website, they have standard ceiling speakers and also have ceiling speakers that produce a stereo signal. They produce both channels in one speaker. It looks like they have two tweeters in each enclosure. This sounds like a good idea since the 2 speakers will be about 12 to 15 ft apart.

Does anyone have any experience with these type of speakers? What would you recc?. A standard in-ceiling speaker or a stereo in-ceiling speaker? The two speakers will be run off of Zone 2 on my Yamaha RX-V1400.

Here is a link to the Boston speaker in question. Also, I am not tied to the Boston brand they were just one of the first places I looked and now I am intrigued.

http://www.bostonacoustics.com/ds_product.asp?ProductID=257&CategoryID=41

Thanks,

JSE

uncooked
06-24-2004, 12:28 PM
seems a bit to pricey for me. i dont know how good of sound you want though. ive seen some decent sounding ones for about 129 - 159 a pair "canadian" and these are 350 each american. the ones i listened to were made by jbl, and quest.

quest is mostly in canada though so i dont know if you could listen to them.

www.questhifi.com

CyberStoic
06-24-2004, 12:50 PM
I am getting ready to have recessed lighting installed in my kitchen and breakfast room and I figured while they are fishing electrical wire I might as well have them fish some speaker wire. I want to install 2 in-ceiling speakers in my kitchen/breakfast room. One in the actual kitchen and one over the breakfast table. My question is this, I notice that while looking the Boston Acoustic website, they have standard ceiling speakers and also have ceiling speakers that produce a stereo signal. They produce both channels in one speaker. It looks like they have two tweeters in each enclosure. This sounds like a good idea since the 2 speakers will be about 12 to 15 ft apart.

Does anyone have any experience with these type of speakers? What would you recc?. A standard in-ceiling speaker or a stereo in-ceiling speaker? The two speakers will be run off of Zone 2 on my Yamaha RX-V1400.

Here is a link to the Boston speaker in question. Also, I am not tied to the Boston brand they were just one of the first places I looked and now I am intrigued.

http://www.bostonacoustics.com/ds_product.asp?ProductID=257&CategoryID=41

Thanks,

JSE



JSE;

The single speakers that run stereo are good in small spaces (hallways, bathrooms, small bedrooms) where you don't have more than one speaker. I have found that when they are run in pairs (or more) in large rooms, you get problems with dispersion of sound and areas of cancellation, etc. In a larger room, personally, I think you get better sound with one or more pairs, well placed.

I am not sure I would place one right over the kitchen table :)

The problem is it would be a lot louder relative to the other one.

Is your ceiling angled (cathedral) or flat? That will make a difference. In placement of the ceiling speakers.

Like setting up a pair of floor standers, you might want to look at placement so that you can "toe them in", aim them, etc., towards a certain spot where you are most likely to be so that you can enjoy the stereo (i.e., towards the kitchen table). The sound will fill the room but that way there can be a sweet spot at the table.

Another way of setting them up would be to 2 pairs and have the sound disperse evenly throughout the room.

Most of the in-ceiling speakers these days have tweeters that can be aimed at the listening position, and some speakers like the klipsch and AIM, have tweeters and woofers in an enclosure that can be aimed toward the listening position.

Good luck, have fun

JSE
06-24-2004, 05:01 PM
Uncooked,

Your right $350 is a little high but I can get certain brands through a company discount. Boston is one of them along with Niles. I would get them about 45% off or so. So then, it becomes a better deal.

CyberStoic,

The room that contains the kitchen and breakfastroom is about 25 ft long and about 12ft wide. I gues you might call it a galley kitchen. The breakfast room is at one end and seperated by a bar/island that contains the cooktop. The ceiling is only 8 ft and flat.

My main concern is having full sound both in the kitchen area and the breakfast area. Granted they are close together but I don't want to be cooking in the kitchen and only here one channel or be sitting at the breakfast table and only hear one channel. Does that makes sense? I would prefer to have them on the same zone. Would placing both speakers closer together towards the center of the room help? Again, my main concern is "even" sound.

Here is a poor quality picture of the kitchen in it's current form before being ripped apart very soon. But, the basic floorplan will stay the same.



JSE

CyberStoic
06-24-2004, 07:56 PM
The room that contains the kitchen and breakfastroom is about 25 ft long and about 12ft wide. I gues you might call it a galley kitchen. The breakfast room is at one end and seperated by a bar/island that contains the cooktop. The ceiling is only 8 ft and flat.

My main concern is having full sound both in the kitchen area and the breakfast area. Granted they are close together but I don't want to be cooking in the kitchen and only here one channel or be sitting at the breakfast table and only hear one channel. Does that makes sense? I would prefer to have them on the same zone. Would placing both speakers closer together towards the center of the room help? Again, my main concern is "even" sound.

Here is a poor quality picture of the kitchen in it's current form before being ripped apart very soon. But, the basic floorplan will stay the same.


JSE



Hmmm, that changes things somewhat. You are right that if they are separated in each 1/2 of the room the sound would suffer. So that leaves several choices.....

First, you could use the twin tweeter stereo speakers you described. The next choice is how many of them you use, and where to place them. You could use two of them and place one in each 1/2 of the room essentially having two 12.5 x 12 zones. That depends greatly on the type of speaker, it's size and dispersion.

Another choice would be to place a pair (Left and Right) over the dining room table. The sound would fill the room. Still another choice might be to have a pair (left/right) in each 1/2 of the room essentially creating two zones.

In my own setting, in my upstairs, I have a pair in my living room in the ceiling. The living room is relatively small, 16 x 14, but it has a cathedral ceiling, open, adjoining stairs (all open) and open wall to kitchen and dining room so the area is really more like 30 x 16. Personally I would prefer to run more speakers in the ceiling since they become more transparent (less localizable, sound appears to come from everywhere), but access to running wire behind the walls was extremely limited due to the design of the cathedral ceiling and support walls and tearing them up for access was not an option.

In that room, I ended up using am using Pro Acoustic Super Dispersion SD48 (http://www.proacousticsusa.com/products.php?sId=46) speakers (one pair) that are in the ceiling. The ceiling is angled in towards the room and they absolutely fill the entire area with sound. These are powered from zone 2 on my onkyo receiver. Not the best solution in the world, but due to the design of these speakers, the sound appears to just come from everywhere in the room no matter where you are. My neighbour, with a similar house layout, used a single pair of AIM 8" speakers in similar positioning and they sound quite good as well, but are some what more easily localized.

The biggest concern, no matter what speakers you ultimately decide to go with, is where to put them.

Good luck

JSE
06-25-2004, 06:18 AM
Those Pro Acoustics look great. I would love to go with something like them but I am not sure if the Wife would go for such a large speaker housing in our ceiling. If we had high vaulted ceilings they would be fine but I'm guessing they would look really big on our low ceilings. Our house has some really weird internal designs. The kitchen and adjacent laundry room (mud room for you northerners) have 8ft ceilings while the rest of the house has 9ft ceilings downstairs.

I understand what you saying about going with the dual tweeter stereo signal speakers or maybe running two pairs to each part of the room. Regardless, I am going to have to run 4 lines to the kitchen/breakfast room so two pair might be a better idea. I will probably do some checking this weekend and try and listen to some options. I have a felling the wife is going to vote for th stereo option to limit the number of actual speakers in the room. If is were up to me, I would have sats mounted all around with a sub hidden under the desk. But that's not going to happen. :rolleyes:

Thanks for you help,

JSE

Woochifer
06-25-2004, 10:34 AM
You got plenty of options when it comes to in-ceiling speakers. For example, Paradigm makes some decent in-ceiling speakers, including a couple of models that use their Studio series drivers. Given your situation, I don't know if stereo imaging is something that you can expect much of.

That Boston speaker looks intriguing, but I get the impression that you'll need to run both speaker leads into one dual tweeter speaker, and you plan to install two in-ceiling speakers. With only have one set of leads coming out of that Zone 2 output from your receiver, you'll need to run these speakers in parallel and I don't think that your receiver allocates a lot of output to the Zone 2.

Interesting though that M&K also makes a speaker that they claim can reproduce a 5.1 signal out of a single enclosure. So, maybe this is a trend.

http://www.mksound.com/whatsnew.html

JSE
06-25-2004, 11:18 AM
You got plenty of options when it comes to in-ceiling speakers. For example, Paradigm makes some decent in-ceiling speakers, including a couple of models that use their Studio series drivers. Given your situation, I don't know if stereo imaging is something that you can expect much of.

That Boston speaker looks intriguing, but I get the impression that you'll need to run both speaker leads into one dual tweeter speaker, and you plan to install two in-ceiling speakers. With only have one set of leads coming out of that Zone 2 output from your receiver, you'll need to run these speakers in parallel and I don't think that your receiver allocates a lot of output to the Zone 2.

Interesting though that M&K also makes a speaker that they claim can reproduce a 5.1 signal out of a single enclosure. So, maybe this is a trend.

http://www.mksound.com/whatsnew.html


Hey Whooch,

You bring up a good point about the Zone 2 and having to run two lines into each speaker. I am not sure of the power on Zone 2 but your right in that running them parallel may also be an issue. Maybe an additional Amp? Hmmmm? The down side to going with the "Stereo" speakers is having to run four sets of wire.

I am clueless when is come to this kind of install but it there a way to run two channels to some kind of junction box that would then send out two identical signals to each speaker? Assuming I use a standard in-ceiling speaker. Something within a reasonable cost also. I don't even know if something like this exist.

JSE

Woochifer
06-25-2004, 02:39 PM
Hey Whooch,

You bring up a good point about the Zone 2 and having to run two lines into each speaker. I am not sure of the power on Zone 2 but your right in that running them parallel may also be an issue. Maybe an additional Amp? Hmmmm? The down side to going with the "Stereo" speakers is having to run four sets of wire.

I am clueless when is come to this kind of install but it there a way to run two channels to some kind of junction box that would then send out two identical signals to each speaker? Assuming I use a standard in-ceiling speaker. Something within a reasonable cost also. I don't even know if something like this exist.

JSE

And you thought this would be simple, eh? :)

I've combined channels together countless times at line level with interconnects and y-splitters, but I'm clueless about how to combine the channels using speaker outputs. Might be as simple as twisting each of the + and - leads together into single strands and then splitting them out again. But, I'm not sure if this affects the impedance or if it will stir some kind of Biblical effect! I know that biwiring is basically twisting a pair of speaker cables together at the binding post to split the signal two ways, maybe this is the same thing in reverse?

Another solution would be to attach one set of speakers to the Zone 2 output, and another to the main B speaker outputs. Of course, this means that only one part of the kitchen/dining room can hear something independent from what's playing in the living room.

I know that the power supply going to the Zone 2 output is switchable, but I have no idea how much power gets allocated, especially if you have the 7.1 main channels playing.

CyberStoic
06-25-2004, 08:33 PM
Hey Whooch,

You bring up a good point about the Zone 2 and having to run two lines into each speaker. I am not sure of the power on Zone 2 but your right in that running them parallel may also be an issue. Maybe an additional Amp? Hmmmm? The down side to going with the "Stereo" speakers is having to run four sets of wire.

I am clueless when is come to this kind of install but it there a way to run two channels to some kind of junction box that would then send out two identical signals to each speaker? Assuming I use a standard in-ceiling speaker. Something within a reasonable cost also. I don't even know if something like this exist.

JSE


JSE

in order to run more than one pair of speakers on zone 2, you will most likely need a speaker selector switch, or somthing like that. SpeakerCraft Makes one, I am familiar with the S4 that will let you connect up to four pairs. (see it at http://www.smarthome.com/972578.html )

You can see lots of others at http://inwall.com/page/i/CTGY/600

Hope that helps