I am finishing my basement which will have a gym and a rec room. i have purchased 8 8” in ceiiling speakers and 4 amps. I plan to have 2 amps in a closet next to the rec room and 2 amps in the gym. I plan to have 4 speakers in the rec room and 4 speakers in the gym. The gym will have an ARC capable TV.
How should I run the wires?
Should I set all the speakers to mono?
Any other equipment is recommended?
All speakers should be individuall wired to the Amp output terminals.
Setting the Amp (not speakers) to mono is an option, try it both ways as well as trying different channels going to each speaker in stereo mode. Go with what sounds best to you.
If you decide to connect the Amps to the TV then speaker positioning will likely be very different than for music listening. You might be better served with a Beam or Arc connected to the TV giving you more optimized setups for each type of listening.
Do you want surround sound with the TV?
Stanley 4. Thanks. Yes. I should have added before, the TV does have ARC as well - the sound bar. I don’t really need surround sound. This is the TV in the gym, so we use it for watching news, instructional videos on how to lift, etc. The ceiling speakers are mostly for music
You should be good with the setup I recommended then.
You do have the option to Group the Amps with the Arc if you want TV sound all over, there will be a slight delay from the image/Arc sound to the Amps so you might prefer turning the Arc volume down when Grouping for TV use, not needed for streaming music to the Sonos.
I also have the surround sound speakers and the subwoofer.
Can/should I make the TV (with ARC soundbar, surround speakers and subwoofer) also part of the overhead system?
Sounds like what you are saying is that I’ll be better off having two separate systems in the gym; System A: (4 x 8” in ceiling speakers) + System B ARC soundbar, surround sound speakers and subwoofer). So, linking the two will be overcomplicated with minimal additional value. The gym area is probably about 600 ft2
You want them all part of the same system, having two is usually more aggravation than all in one.
Look at Grouping, that will let all your Amps play music together and you can add in the Arc if you want. With the Sub I'd thi k you might like it that way.
For sitting in front of the TV you probably don't want them grouped as the delay and loss of the surround imaging won't sound great. If you want to fill the room with TV sound then Grouping might give you what you want.
In the gym, if I have 2 Amps powering four speakers, and will also have the ARC soundbar, does it matter which of the Amps the ARC soundbar is connected to?
If you mean connected by Grouping no. Any or all can connect and play.
If you mean as Surrounds, yes. The connected Amp and speakers will play the surround channels.
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