Whole house audio in two story room?

[mrshanes]

Our new home will have a two story family room with 18' high ceilings. The kitchen, nook, and family room are all open to each other along the back of the house. I would like to have them all one zone with subzone volume control for each one. I'm struggling to figure out how to do the speakers for the high ceiling in the family room. The rest of the house will have the speakers mounted in the ceiling, but I'm not sure how that will sound if the ceiling is so high. What does everyone think? Should I just forget about having speakers in that room? How did you handle your two story ceilings for audio? Looking for ideas...
Thanks,
Shane

 

[sic0048]

First, I would look carefully at any whole house system that you choose. Some of the units will allow you to team separate zones together. Each real zone can have its own keypad, but using the keypad will control all the teamed zones together. I think they can also control the individual zone functions as well. That feature will be really nice to have in your situation (being able to control some or all of the teamed zones).

It is important to have speakers in each area IMHO. If you don't it will be hard to have light background music because you'll have to turn it up loud in one area to hear it in another area. Having more speakers will allow you to have better overall volume control of the whole area.

Have you looked at in-wall speakers? Especially for the Den area where there is likely to be a TV located. You should look at installing speakers around the TV. Even if you plan on using the TVs speakers for most TV usage, the speakers will not look out of place next to the TV, and it will allow you to have surround sound if desired.

So that is my recommendation, look into in-wall speakers if it fits into the design flow. Having speakers 18' up will not be bad for general background music, but you might loose the sound stage if you are trying for a surround sound experience.

If you do end up with speakers in the ceiling, I would pay close attention to the power ratings of your whole house system. Sticking with a higher wattage per zone system (or having the ability to add separate amplification for those zones) is going to be important IMHO. Trying to fill that big of a space with a 20 watt per speaker system may result in less than adequate sound.

 

[Neurorad]

In my 2-story living room, open to the kitchen, the speakers are halfway up the wall, at about 10', and they work well there. Adjoining kitchen has in-ceilings.

One prob with the in-wall speakers is that the kids' BR doors, on the second floor, are also open to the LR - catwalk-type hallway upstairs. Maybe aimable in-walls would be best, directed slightly downward? Unfortunately, the low frequency sounds aren't very aimable, and they are the sounds that will pass through the closed kids' doors.

I always turn down the volume on the speakers after the kids go to bed.