So my long-running in-ceiling stereo project is about wrapped up. For those who don't remember, here's the deal:

- A pair of 6" speakers in the ceiling of every room in the new place.
- A keypad on the wall in each room, most are single-gang with 4 buttons and text, one is 2-gang with like 7 buttons and longer text, one is color + touchscreen and does friggin everything.
- Surround speakers also in ceiling in living room, except for center channel, which is wall-mounted above flatscreen tv.
- 2 receivers: one for surround, and one for the distribution.
- A 250-gig media server which catalogs all your music and talks to the dist. receiver, so track info shows on the keypads, and the songs can be controlled by them as well.
- The dist. receiver gets xm, and the pads can control it, as well as display the channel, artist, and song.


This took me a while, but it's in and functioning. The receiver and media server are made by Russound, and are about as easy to use as can be expected from shit this complicated. I'm ripping cd's into the media server instead of transferring by hard drive, because this thing thinks in terms of albums, and this way all the info is transferred over properly. As soon as I get internet here, the media server will be pulling the album cover art from online, and I get the ability to pull up internet radio, too. And they're about to come out with an ipod dock that will let me control the ipod from the keypads.

So the shit that's supposed to make all this "worth it" are the ability to be in any room (or on either porch, pending some more wire-pulling by me when it warms up) and have your choice of either xm satellite radio, internet radio (kexp, whatever - you just bookmark them), or any music you own. All the pads work with the remote, and I set the surround receiver up as a pass-through IR feed, so I can turn it on and adjust it too without opening up the closet where all this is stored. Also, each of the 3 zones in the house can have on whatever they want. I can have Opie and Anthony on in the bathroom while I shower, and she can be playing an album or internet radio.

It was too expensive, and this place is a little too small to really need it, but she figured that we'd get more resale with it, and in the meantime it's pretty cool. Oh, and mad proppas to Chowgurt for loaning me his cordless drill, without which none of this could've been installed. I thought about posting pics, but you've all seen ceiling speakers before, and the components don't look all that cool.

Hats off, sounds like a total eargasm.

Squirggle,

Do my house next. I'll pay for your airfare to Hawaii. It mus be cold this time of year in Wisconsin, no?

Shitballs, for a place to stay in hawaii, I might just. All you gotta do is rip off all your drywall, and spring about $7 grand for the gear.

And WI is mysterously warm right now... keeps hitting 40. I drove the motorcycle yesterday for almost 15 minutes.

that is fucking awesome. congratulations on yr endeavor, Cap'n.

Thanks Cottonsocks.

Awesome! So what kind of speakers and amps did you use?

If I ever win the lottery, I'm doing a room in the Dynaudio IP-24's.

The surround amp is Old Faithful, a mid-level Onkyo I bought in college, ten years ago. 5.1, basic, simple, clean, doesn't fuck up. The distribution amp and media server are Russound, a CAM6.6 and an SMS3. For every speaker except the surround fronts and center, I went cheap/decent and got Earthquake CDM600's, which have an acceptable crossover and sound better than they should for the money, but are not anything special (I had to buy 7 pair, and money was disappearing). The fronts are Soundcraft 8's, I forget exactly which model, but they have the eyeball articulating speaker housing, aimable tweeters (the little 6'ers have this too), and were around $300 for the pair. The center channel I am proud of. It's a Canton, is german, sounds ridiculusly crisp and wonderful, and was as much as the fronts. It's all aluminum, including the drivers, and weighs like 15 pounds. I should post a pic of it... soooo german. Sub is a Pinnacle 12, 100 watts I think.

I am starting to think that for real high-quality listening, I miss having speakers in front of me, as opposed to overhead. I'm still not used to it.

Sort of 'Pimp My Drawing Room'.

quoth the wife yesterday, "Wow, we sorta accidentally created the ultimate bachelor pad."

Sounds nice.Well...yeah. You can't have it all in the ceiling, you'll get a crick in your neck.

I wanted the fronts on the wall, but the location was TRICKY. Only one wall where I could really put a tv, and that just a 42" wide section between two doorways (kitchen and closet). And nowhere to the sides for speakers mounted in-wall. hang on...

We're having a similar problem here at work. Screen takes up an entire wall. Door on one side, window on th'other. We ended up deciding to hang them from the ceiling. Focal Sib XL's (wall mounts, or can be mounted on a stand). Once you decide to hang them from the ceiling, you pretty much open your choices back up to anything that sits on a shelf.

I decided not to wallmount anything but the center, to keep everything clean looking. It's a small place.

Here's the tv / center. I haven't cleaned up all the cables yet... you can see the orange speaker wire between them. You can also see the brilliant location they picked out for the thermostat... right over a warm tv.



And the color touchpad...

holy moly that's cool.

I'm insanely jealous of the brick wall.

The regular touchpads aren't that cool. They're also cheaper, thank jebus. The one in the bathroom was a pain - they put the shower in a different spot than where I thought it was gonna be when I wired for it... so it wound up Touching the edge of the shower. I hadda put a weatherproof metal cover on it.

It's the old square vent stack for the furnace. House structure is 100 yrs old. So when they redid the place, they cleaned the brick column off and left it exposed. 'S pretty cool.

You know I'm just as proud/impresssed as I can be, brotha.

Always be havin to outdo niggas and shit......

Dude, whatever. Redlands is a PALACE. Redlands is almost a Compound.

Squirrgle has just volunteered to host ObnerCon06

sweet shit Squirrgle! i want to do that now......

You and your handiness never cease to amaze. That looks ridiculous, and I share everyone's jealousy.

Sidenote: Your wife must make serious bank. Lucky man.

Actually no. We just made some $ on the sale of the last place, and we spent it well. We paid off almost all our debt, put $20k towards this place, bought me a newer motorcycle for $3000, and then got that audio gear. She's just a serious prioritizer... music is a BIG deal. She quit her old job to work for a friend that opened a business, and doesn't make much. I get a little stipend from school, but it's peanuts.

ObnerCon6 it is! But if more than 20 people show up, we're gonna have a problem. This place is all of 830 square feet.

Nice job! Wish I had something like that in my place....