Sonos AMP with In-Ceiling Speakers and One SL Surrounds

  • 9 February 2021
  • 3 replies
  • 300 views
D

I am building a house in the near future (well, someone else will be doing the building!), and I am considering speaker options for our open plan living / kitchen / dining. The kitchen / dining spaces are diagonally behind the living space. 
 

I am looking at the Sonos AMP with in-ceiling speakers for their simplicity and aesthetics. The speaker set-up will be used to provide sound for the TV, play music via Airplay from iPhones, and play vinyl records on my turntable. 
 

I was thinking of getting 4 in-ceiling speakers, to position mainly over the living area. Or, two in-wall speakers and two in-ceiling speakers above / in front of the living space. This would be positioned well for stereo sound when watching TV, but also provide enough sound when listening to music in the kitchen space - I don’t really want to have two amps with separate speaker connections in this room. I may complement this with a subwoofer and the One SL speakers as surrounds behind the couch in the living space  

 

Could you provide any advice as to whether this would be a good set-up /placement / number of speakers for the space?

 

Thanks. 🙂

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3 replies

J

With apologies to those who have read this comment from me numerous times… please don’t use ceiling speakers for TV, at least not for front channels.  Just imagine sitting watching two people’s lips move on the screen in front of you, while their words appear to come from above your head.  Even if the speakers are directly above the TV I can’t imagine this feeling right.  Unless you are planning to mount the TV too high?  :grinning:

T
Userlevel 4
Badge +7

I recently moved into a new house (two weeks ago) and used 2xAMPs together with 4 in-ceiling speaks and a Sonos Sub in my main living room. 
 

The speakers I use are B&O Celestial BOC86. Those are 3-way, 8 inch speakers with pivoting mids and tweeters. The latter makes it possible to direct the sound toward your listening experience. 
 

The AMPs are located in a separate AV-room with HDMI-cables run in the walls to the tv. Controlled via app and HDMI-CEC with no issues. 
 

The two front speakers are close to the tv. Our couch is about 5 m away with the rears right behind the sofa. 
 

This set-up is by far the best home theater I have ever owned. I used to have a Playbar combined with a Sub and 2 Play:3s as surrounds. This new setup is so much better. 
 

I have absolutely no issues with sound not feeling like it’s coming from the screen as suggested above. I believe the angled tweeters and distance to the front speakers helps a lot but it really does sound like the sound is coming from the screen and everything is in perfect sync. 
 

I have no problem with the phantom center created by the two fronts either. Everything is crystal clear. Dialogue much clearer than on my Beam and Playbar. 
 

Will be posting a more detailed review when I get the chance but just to be clear: it works very well for tv and music and the Sonos AMP has a lot of power. My speakers are very demanding for in-ceilings but the AMP has all the power I need. 
 

 

T
Userlevel 4
Badge +7

With apologies to those who have read this comment from me numerous times… please don’t use ceiling speakers for TV, at least not for front channels.  Just imagine sitting watching two people’s lips move on the screen in front of you, while their words appear to come from above your head.  Even if the speakers are directly above the TV I can’t imagine this feeling right.  Unless you are planning to mount the TV too high?  :grinning:

Have a read of my post and my experience. It actually works very well with my setup. 

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