When HN users recommended it
1 HN user recommended this in 2020, in one comment.
20072026
Each tall tick is one HN user's first recommendation. A short tick is the same user again. Click a tick to jump to the comment.
1 HN user recommended this in 2020, in one comment.
Each tall tick is one HN user's first recommendation. A short tick is the same user again. Click a tick to jump to the comment.
I don’t have really any remotes at all for this setup.
The amp I bought [1] has a volume dial for each channel, one speaker is wired per channel.
I walked around the house one day to normalize the perceived volumes from each speaker. I’ve never touched the volume dial since. I don’t see the point of wiring volume controls in the walls of each room. I can control the AirPlay source volume on my phone.
The A/V receiver in my living room is a 2-zone system with a Zone 2 Preout. So there’s a 25’ RCA cable ($10 - do not waste money on fancy cables) going from the receiver to the amp.
The amp has two “main” inputs which go to all channels, and then each channel can also take its own dedicated RCA input — but I don’t currently use them. Since all the speakers are on the same floor, there’s no point in driving different sources to different speakers at this point.
If my Receiver had pre-outs for each channel of Zone 1 then in theory I could drive two of the living room ceiling speakers as rear/surrounds when watching movies by just wiring up the RCA jacks.
When I AirPlay from any phone in the house to the receiver it just defaults to playing on Zone-2. There’s an app which lets me change the zone that a source plays on, but I never use it.
In theory I could play a movie on the “house” speakers but then it wouldn’t be 7.1 surround; my receiver anyway can’t do 7.1 on the Zone 1 speakers while also doing a basic Stereo downmix over Zone 2. But I have never missed this.
Basically the use case for the ceiling speakers is listening to music during breakfast or dinner. The kids love choosing songs and having little dance parties morning and afternoon. Anyone can start whatever song they want from their phone. Of course sometimes that results in the children trying to override each other, but usually all in good fun.
IMO it’s definitely worth the ~$600 for dumb speakers, dumb amp, and dumb wiring to have absolutely future proof ceiling speakers throughout the house. The same exact system could easily be pumping tunes 30 years from now.
The AirPlay receiver that drives the amp doesn’t count toward the cost because it’s the same home theater receiver you’re going to buy anyway. It’s also the only piece of the puzzle that runs software and hardware (WiFi) that will become obsolete in a relatively short time frame. It does support CEC and it is also the source selector but honestly the only source right now is the AppleTV. All that is really kind of “besides the point” you could say when it comes to the house speakers. Anything could sit in front of it, as long as you can get an analog stereo output from it. It could be a Raspberry Pi even. The only requirement is being able to AirPlay/Chromecast to whatever is providing the RCA source.
It can be a huge mood boost and a great way to start the day before rushing the kids off to school to blast some tunes while cooking pancakes, and with eight 8” woofers the sound is a lot more immersive than a single “smart” speaker could muster.
[1] - Pyle 8-Channel Home Theater... https://www.amazon.com/dp/B002UL0XIQ