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Speaker Placement - New Home

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Building a new home, I have begun to run speaker wire throughout the main floor. I have bought three Sonos Amps, four Polk V80s, two Polk V85s (living room, kitchen/dining), and six Polk RC80is (patio, bath, bedroom). 12 speakers total, 4 speakers per amp/zone and one Play1... The blue circles below represent where I plan to install speakers (10 speakers out of 12). My question is where to place the last two speakers. I have four red circles as possibilities, a pair for the laundry/mud to tie into the master bedroom/bath zone. Or add another pair to the kitchen/dining zone (living room is it's own zone). The covered deck will tie into the remaining zone I don't choose.

My main concern is not having enough speakers in the kitchen/dining area with just the two in-ceilings. I could throw the Play1 on the kitchen counter to add to it if needed. We will spend a lot of time in the dining/kitchen and obviously not so much in the mud/laundry, so I am leaning adding the two extra speakers there. Is four speakers in that area too much? Is two speakers not enough?

Any help would be appreciated. I plan to run speaker wire to all rooms for future speakers.

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AjTrek1Answer

Hi lazyrooster

Congratulations on the new home!

I’m going to be perfectly honest and say that if installing your speakers is a DiY project you'd probably be better served by engaging a professional installer. Be that as it may...IMHO you have the following zones that could be powered by the three (3) Sonos Amps and speakers you currently own:

Master Bedroom x 2 speakers with Sonos Amp/Bath x Play 1
Dining Room/Kitchen x 4 speakers with Sonos Amp
Covered Deck x 2 speakers with Sonos Amp

The Great Room I assume you want to use two speakers as surround over the seating area and two speakers up front (in –wall) as mains in a HT setup. That would require two (2) additional Sonos amps🤤.

The alternate arrangement solution would be to use the in-wall speakers up front and two Sonos speakers on stands (Play 1 x 2 or Sonos One x 2 or Play 5 x 2) as surrounds. That would only require the purchase of one (1) additional Sonos Amp. You would return two of the 12 speakers.

My ultimate advice as I mentioned at the beginning is to engage a professional installer. There’s a possibility you might be able to purchase a low-end AVR and utilize a Sonos Connect in conjunction with Sonos speakers to achieve whole-house selectable sound.

Did you consider Sonos Architectural Speakers 🤔which integrate quite well with the Sonos Amp and provide other unique features...see them here.

Hopefully, someone else may chime in with a different perspective. Best wishes to get everything sorted out.

Cheers!

Together Everyone Achieves More = T.E.A.M.

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AjTrek1

@lazyrooster

@melvimbe made some good suggestions. My objective was to work within the parameters you'd set and help you make the best of the equipment you'd purchased. As it turns out some of the gear (speakers) are not returnable to Amazon for refund.

Question: Is the return policy a strict no or just not for a refund...meaning you'd have to take a credit to use later on a future purchase?

There's nothing wrong with using in-ceiling speakers in every room including the Bedroom. The idea of in-ceiling speakers is that the user is typically more focused on having background music versus a stereo sound stage for traditional 2-channel listening as would be achieved using Sonos or 3rd party tower or bookshelf speakers.

In wall speakers for TV will work. However, the true center channel is replaced with a phantom effect. Some like it and some don't. The same is true if using a Sonos amp to power 3rd party speakers for TV up front or the in-wall speakers sold through Sonos. The additional downside for in-wall is that once you've cut the opening it's a PITA to rectify one's mistake; if the sound is less than pleasing.

With deference to my friend melvimbe ☺️ I still prefer the in-ceilings that may be used in the kitchen and dining area to be placed on switches x 2 horizontally. Thus allowing you to separate and quiet one area versus the other if/when desired. JMO.

As far as your friends advice is concerned it wasn't wrong...it's just that s/he didn't appear to be well versed with Sonos. Assuming you mentioned using Sonos as part of your plan.

Please keep us informed as things progress. Cheers!

Together Everyone Achieves More = T.E.A.M.

L

lazyroosterAuthor

Contributor I

Question: Is the return policy a strict no or just not for a refund...meaning you'd have to take a credit to use later on a future purchase?

A strict no, cannot return apparently.

@melvimbe Im guessing either of you could answer this. If I were to go with a playbar in the great room, I have a Polk HTS 12 subwoofer, I would need the Sonos amp to connect that correct? The playbar doesn't have that capability?

If that is the case, I may have to just go with in-walls and an amp instead of the playbar since I already have all that.

Thanks again.

melvimbe

Question: Is the return policy a strict no or just not for a refund...meaning you'd have to take a credit to use later on a future purchase?A strict no, cannot return apparently.

@melvimbe Im guessing either of you could answer this. If I were to go with a playbar in the great room, I have a Polk HTS 12 subwoofer, I would need the Sonos amp to connect that correct? The playbar doesn't have that capability?

Without getting into too much details,you can't use a non-sonos sub in the same Sonos room/zone as the playbar. And that brings other problems. You are correctly that the best way to use that sub with TV audio is using the Sonos amp.

Danny

AjTrek1

Stop! Don’t pass go! 😊

Yes you could use a Playbar in the great room. However using a Sonos Amp to power just a subwoofer would be money wasted. Besides it’s not possible since the Playbar and Sonos Amp are not designed to work together.

Your best alternative is to use the Sonos Amp with the in-walls and connect the Polk sub. Then hope/pray your wife will allow you to install floor outlets for surrounds on stands by the seating area. 😀 With that setup you would not need the in-ceiling speakers.

To use the inceilng speakers with the Sonos Amp, in-wall speakers and Polk sub you’d have go back to previous post with the diagram.

Let us know what you decide.

Together Everyone Achieves More = T.E.A.M.

AjTrek1

@melvimbe and I are on the same page for the most part. You have to decide how you want to achieve what we are suggesting.

My my approach allows you to utilize the gear you have already purchased with addition of a Sonos Amp.

melvimve’s approach requires modifying your goal with the addition of Sonos gear and returning/moth balling some of what you have already purchased

Both sound ideas. The question remains how you want to proceed.🤔

Cheers!

Together Everyone Achieves More = T.E.A.M.

L

lazyroosterAuthor

Contributor I

@AjTrek1

@melvimbe

I was able to speak with our work vendor and I am able to send back the in-wall & ceiling speakers, Sonos amp and sub woofer..... So I could simply go with a playbar in the great room, and potentially/likely add some Play1s down the road (and maybe even the Sonos sub).

I appreciate all of your help. You guys have been awesome. I now know where to go for questions in the future, I was a bit misguided before 😀

AjTrek1

Glad you made a decision you can live with. 😁

Cheers!

Together Everyone Achieves More = T.E.A.M.

buzz

Grand Maestro

For the deck yes I also plan to put a TV out there sometime. I have Cat6 running out there now for HDMI down the road.

I recommend also running some fiber to that location. Actually, you should run fiber to all of the TV locations.

Be very mindful of your HDMI cables. The standards change often and backward compatibility is not always guaranteed. With the newest TV standards, copper wire is running out of bandwidth. Make sure that any HDMI cables are rated for the bandwidth and length required for your current application and allow some flexibility for future developments.

HDMI 2.1 is the emerging standard. I don't know your construction schedule, but wait as long as possible before burying your HDMI cables and purchase the best cables that you can find at that time. Also, consider the implications of a cable failure because HDMI cables cannot be repaired.

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With respect to surround speakers in the Great Room, I'm not a fan of surround speakers placed too close to the listening area. Surrounds on stands next to the couch would not work well unless the listener is exactly centered between the speakers. A person sitting at one end of the couch will hear the nearby speaker, and not much from the other speaker.

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With respect to ceiling speaker placement in the Kitchen and Dining areas, the L/R speakers should be placed symmetrically with respect to the most occupied areas. Depending on ceiling height, if the listener is directly under a speaker, it will be a significant "hot spot" and dominate while the other channel will tend to disappear. The best placement for listening might not look as symmetric as a designer would like when viewing the plans.

As a giggle, consider the air conditioning contractor. He will specify that the thermostat be placed "here" and no one argues because everyone has learned over the years that thermostats must be placed "here" or the system does not work well. This is not the tradition with speaker placement and their placement becomes a pawn in a fight for "control" by the human parties involved. I've seen speakers thrown under the couch because someone did not want to be able to see speakers. (never mind that there were lots of "art" artifacts cluttering the room.)

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Make sure that you can adjust speaker levels individually for each pair of speakers without walking back to a central location. This little walk will become extremely annoying after the first hour of system operation. For new construction central speaker switch boxes don't offer any significant cost advantages vs individual wall mounted controls.

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