Zone 2 in ceiling - single or dual voice coil speakers?

[ac2011]

Note: I posted this same question over at AVS recently, so if you are also a member over there, you may have seen it already. I got some differing answers, so thought I'd try posting it up here for Lounge-member comments. Thanks!


I have a room in my basement, approximately 27' x 13.5' x 7.5'. Current use is a play room, as my kids are young; as they grow, I envision this transitioning to more of a games room, eventually with a pool and/or air hockey table kind of thing going on.

Before we put up drywall to finish this room a couple of years ago, I quickly threw in a couple of runs of 14awg in-wall wire, running to my AVR, assuming I would eventually want to add Zone 2 audio in this room. I basically divided the length of the room in 3 and put the drops in the ceiling at about 9' and 18' (basically centered on the width).

Now I'm searching for some speakers to drop in here.

Originally, I just assumed I would have a L and R speaker off of Zone 2 - normal single voice coil speakers. But have read some stuff recently about using pairs of dual voice coil speakers - I guess this is then similar to running 4 "normal" speakers.

For the size of the room and the placement of the drops, would it be beneficial to go with the dual-voice coil pair over single voice coil pair? Option 3 (as suggested over at AVS) is to go with 4 SVC speakers, boxing around the center of the room.

Also, I originally was thinking of 8" speakers, but would 6.5" work in this space? And, is it useful to add an in-wall volume control in this room?

I use a Yamaha RX-A3040 AVR; this room would technically be Zone 3 or Zone 4, as I run a 7.1 (maybe going to 9.2) in my main room (next door), which requires the outputs which would otherwise be Zone 2 (and Zone 3 if 9-ch) to be used in the main room.

Intended usage would be mainly for music - I have a Sonos Connect hooked into my AVR that lets me run Sonos content through my system. Might eventually put a TV in this room, but not sure if I would have the sound coming from these ceiling speakers or have separate in wall's for that.

[405x5]

Dual voice coil or full range, one driver speakers for ceiling mount doesn't matter at all.....only that you like the sound. This is not going to be for serious listening so don't worry too much, just get to a place like Best Buy and pick a pair that match your install requirements, sound preference and budget.

Good you have the 14 already in the ceiling.

[ac2011]

Jul 8, 2015 8:38:50 GMT -5 405x5 said:

Dual voice coil or full range, one driver speakers for ceiling mount doesn't matter at all.....only that you like the sound. This is not going to be for serious listening so don't worry too much, just get to a place like Best Buy and pick a pair that match your install requirements, sound preference and budget.

Good you have the 14 already in the ceiling.

Thanks. Have also seen single voice coil, but with dual tweeters, which maybe is a good option.


This application definitely doesn't scream for top end speakers, but trying to narrow down the number of speakers and size to use so that I can then find a decent brand that doesn't sound like total crap. I can definitely grab some inexpensive brands, but don't know if I'll regret it.

The room is basically below our kitchen, so was also looking at grabbing a couple of ceiling baffles - found some on EBay that seem to be a decently priced alternative to DynaBox (called XTC).

[knucklehead]

Dual tweeters are usually found in bipole/dipole speakers - suitable for surround duty mostly. As for dual voice coil speakers I haven't seen that option in anything but a sub driver.

[KeithL]

For DIY speaker and driver info, check out this site....

www.zaphaudio.com/

He does lots of tests on available DIY drivers - and also published complete "projects".

Jul 8, 2015 9:08:12 GMT -5 ac2011 said:

Jul 8, 2015 8:38:50 GMT -5 405x5 said:

Dual voice coil or full range, one driver speakers for ceiling mount doesn't matter at all.....only that you like the sound. This is not going to be for serious listening so don't worry too much, just get to a place like Best Buy and pick a pair that match your install requirements, sound preference and budget.

Good you have the 14 already in the ceiling.

Thanks. Have also seen single voice coil, but with dual tweeters, which maybe is a good option.


This application definitely doesn't scream for top end speakers, but trying to narrow down the number of speakers and size to use so that I can then find a decent brand that doesn't sound like total crap. I can definitely grab some inexpensive brands, but don't know if I'll regret it.

The room is basically below our kitchen, so was also looking at grabbing a couple of ceiling baffles - found some on EBay that seem to be a decently priced alternative to DynaBox (called XTC).

[Gary Cook]

Honestly I've yet to hear a ceiling speaker installation that I would rate. The tweeter dispersion is too narrow, especially with low ceiling heights, so there are multiple dead spots in the room where there's just no audible high frequency at all. Stereo imaging simply doesn't happen, so they might as well be set to mono reproduction. Personally I'd wall mount a couple of, say, Airmotive 6's and enjoy decent all frequency stereo sound and imaging.


Cheers
Gary

[ac2011]

Jul 8, 2015 11:25:35 GMT -5 Gary Cook said:

Honestly I've yet to hear a ceiling speaker installation that I would rate. The tweeter dispersion is too narrow, especially with low ceiling heights, so there are multiple dead spots in the room where there's just no audible high frequency at all. Stereo imaging simply doesn't happen, so they might as well be set to mono reproduction. Personally I'd wall mount a couple of, say, Airmotive 6's and enjoy decent all frequency stereo sound and imaging.


Cheers
Gary

Point taken, but running the wires for on-walls in this room is a non-starter at this point.... Only 2 walls that I can easily access - 1 end and 1 side.

[KeithL]

It just occurred to me that, if you didn't care about stereo, you could use a dual voice coil speaker, and connect one coil to each amplifier channel - and so let the speaker mix the stereo into mono. (Not the way I would do it, but I could see where, in an installation with lots of speakers scattered around, you might want some speakers playing left or right, and others - perhaps in a small room or outdoors - playing mixed mono.

[ac2011]

I'm really looking to keep it simple - like I said, initially thought I could/would/should just drop a couple of 8" regular cheap-ish speakers in there and be done with it. But, then I got to researching...and here we are

Kind of wondering about maybe going with these: link


Looks like you can hook them up as either a L/R pair or each speaker as a stereo unit unto itself.

[Gary Cook]

Jul 8, 2015 11:42:09 GMT -5 ac2011 said:

Jul 8, 2015 11:25:35 GMT -5 Gary Cook said:

Honestly I've yet to hear a ceiling speaker installation that I would rate. The tweeter dispersion is too narrow, especially with low ceiling heights, so there are multiple dead spots in the room where there's just no audible high frequency at all. Stereo imaging simply doesn't happen, so they might as well be set to mono reproduction. Personally I'd wall mount a couple of, say, Airmotive 6's and enjoy decent all frequency stereo sound and imaging.

Point taken, but running the wires for on-walls in this room is a non-starter at this point.... Only 2 walls that I can easily access - 1 end and 1 side.

In that sized room a pair of, say, Airmotive 6's would sound great mounted on an end wall. With the low ceiling height I'd be seriously worried about only a pair of speakers mounted there. You'd need to look at the dispersion patterns, but my guess is you would need 6 or maybe 8 to achieve reasonable high frequency spread. As Keith suggested that possibly means some form of mono implementation.


Cheers
Gary