Thinking about wiring in speakers throughout house

Got a question....

I am wanting to put a couple recessed speakers in the ceiling of our kitchen and also run a couple over to the patio where I will be mounting speakers under the eave of the house. We've got a blu ray player in the living room that has pandora and of course you can play cds in it, I would like to be able to listen to music from the blu ray player in the kitchen (wife) and outside (me).

My immediate thought was "This is easy! Run some speaker wire through the attic and your set!" But I've figured out there's more to it.

I don't want super loud music or thumping bass and I also don't have to have the ability to control the volume from the kitchen or outside, I do want to be able to select where the music goes, ie; not in the kitchen and outside at the same time, and lastly I do not need to be able to listen to two different things at once. What do I need?

 

Well, i'm remodeling right now, and that gives me two reasons not to go wireless:
1. expense---money has to go toward more important things
2. I'm already in work mode on the house, running wires is a cinch when your in that zone, or a real hassle if your in "enjoy the fruits of your months of hard work fixing up your house" mode.

And I don't have to have a remote---good question though.

 

Don't use plain old speaker wire. Use in-wall rated wire. I wired my whole house when they were building it. I bought a 400ft spool of 14-2 wire from Lowes for about $120. I still have a lot left for future projects.

I also added low voltage boxes (orange or green) where I wanted the speakers so the dry-wallers would cut around them. I put terminal plates behind where the speakers needed to be.

Do you have a surround reciever? If not, buy one with selectable channels. For example, my surround sound system in my living room has an Onkyo reciever with A&B speaker outs for the front channels. The B speakers are outside on my screened porch. I can play only A (living room), only B (outside), or A & B (inside & out). I also ran a 50ft long RCA cable from my desktop computer in my office to the living room receiver which allows my to play my music from Itunes on my computer in the living room.

I also have a similar setup in my master bedroom, except in that case, my B speakers are in my master bathroom.

Additionally I have a reciever in my laundry room (laundry is right off the garage) that has speaker wire running to the garage and I have speakers mounted to the ceiling in the garage so I can listen to music when I'm out there.

If you go with In-wall speakers, go with something nice. I have a set of Polk Audio in-walls for my rear surrounds in the living room, they have an adjustable tweeter so I can point the direction I want the sound to go.

I thought about doing those adjustable volume knobs you mount on the wall, however carrying the remote control works just fine.

You might also think of getting a universale remote ($100+) that doesn't require line of sight which would allow you to adjust volume without being in view of the receiver. This will be my next purchase. I also plan on tying the garage stereo to my computer like I did in the living room.

 

sounds like you man need a speaker selector.

http://www.crutchfield.com/g_15240/Speaker-Selectors-Distributors.html?tp=8183

 

GREAT GREAT stuff, +1 on the way.

Here's a diagram of what I'm wanting, seeing stuff in front of me helps me out alot.


space one-living room
space two-kitchen
space three-patio

 

What type of audio stores do you have around you? Do you have any home theater stores (mom & pop)? You don't have to buy from them necessarily, they will be able to help you with what you need.

Also for cable and wire, check out monoprice.com I bought that 50 ft RCA cable from them for $6 + $6 for shipping. It's actually a really nice cable too!

I have a cheap pair of DUAL ( <<< the brand) speakers I bought from Best Buy for $25. They work great for outside, they have been outdoors for 4 years now and still work great. All of my indoor speakers are Polk Audio.

Also when running wire, make sure you cross any power wires at 90 degree angles to avoid possible interferance/noise. Do not run them parallel unless they are 12+" apart. Not sure how true this is but it seemed to be the general consensus I got from talking to installers.

For your subwoofer cable, if you're running it in wall, just use plain RG6 coax cable through the walls. You can purchase a wall plate that converts from RG6 to RCA. I also bought some of those wall plates that go on the wall behind the receiver that accomodate all of the wires (FR, FL, RR, CR, RL, C, SUB. It really keeps things clean.

 

Check out www.parts-express.com for inexpensive supplies. I picked up the gear to run my surround speakers pretty cheap.

 

Can you post up some pictures of this, Im interested now in this. Is it hard to cut into drywall and place these speakers?