Let’s Hear It For Home Audio!
15 November 2020
As Debbie and I are finalizing on our floor plan design with the architect we’re both starting to focus on more details of the interior. I’ve already shared some aspects of our smart home plans as I’m trying to make decisions on technology, especially with the Holidays around the corner with and huge discounts on electronics. One of those I’ve already taken advantage of is home audio.
Debbie and I already had an idea what we wanted from a home audio perspective — surround sound in rooms with TVs, personal playlist capabilities, aesthetically pleasing look and Amazon Alexa voice control.
We had a 5.1 surround sound system in our game room in our San Antonio home so we were sure we wanted that again. We’ve struggles with surround sound in our homes since we lived in San Antonio due to lack of access for wiring. Our game room in San Antonio was on the second floor so with some help from our son Chris, we were able to run cable up and down the walls through the attic. But running wire in a San Antonio attic during the summer is not something I’d want to do again. That’s another reason I’m particularly excited about this project.
Besides TV surround sound, Debbie and I also like to listen to streaming music via our TVs through our Amazon Fire TV Cubes attached to them. Pandora, Amazon Prime Music, Apple Music and Spotify are just a few examples of sources we stream. With a home audio plan we can take the TVs and Fire Cubes out of the equation and get better quality sound.
As I was keeping my eyes open for Holiday electronics deals I was able to take advantage of a huge sale on Klipsch speakers. I’m pretty geeked about this find (and looking forward to more) as I was able to get some really nice speakers at a third of the MSR through Woot. Unfortunately their inventory sold out pretty quick but I was able to get all the in-ceiling speakers I needed. What I bought was:
Klipsch R-2650-CSM II In-Ceiling Speaker
This speaker employs a 6.5-inch gray polymer woofer cone and dual 1-inch soft/silk dome tweeters so that it can play both left and right stereo signals with total precision and clarity. It’ll nicely blend in with the surroundings in our home as the magnetic grills are paintable to match whatever colors Debbie picks. And it offers installation and flexibility simplicity. Once audio cable is installed around the house all I’ll need are proper holes cut in the drywall as the speakers come with self-mounting clips. Another neat aspect is they have weatherized components which allows for installation in rooms with moisture, like a bathroom or patio.
The speaker accepts two-channel input and has separate tweeters for each channel to maintain stereo effect. For the real audiophiles, it handles up to 50 watts RMS (200 watts peak) with frequency response 52–20,000 Hz (±3dB), has sensitivity to 94 dB and 8-ohm impedance
Klipsch R-2800-CSM II In-Ceiling Speaker
This speaker demonstrates that big sound doesn’t need to be a room full of speakers. It has an 8" polypropylene woofer for tight, full-sounding bass, plus two 3/4" silk dome tweeters for faithful reproduction of both left and right channels of a stereo signal. It isn’t exactly small being 11" in diameter, but its stereo input design lets music lovers fully enjoy their tunes in rooms where a conventional left and right speaker pair wouldn’t be convenient to install.
The ‘2800 comes with the magnetic grille like the 2650. It has a nearly flush finish that blends in beautifully and attaches securely with ease to virtually eliminate resonant distortion. Also like the 2650 it has weatherized components and the same technical properties.
So, I have the speakers I’ll integrate into the interior of the home. I still have to find similarly spec’d speakers designed for outdoor use on the patio to connect to the TV and play music. As we don’t have a final design of the patio — it may have a flat or cathedral ceiling — the speakers may be in-ceiling like the ones I already have or surface mount. Hopefully we’ll know soon so I can take advantage of Black Friday deals.
The next element of our home audio plan involves the amplifiers. These typically end up in the rooms where the speakers are installed. As the overall technology plan is to have a clean, uncluttered look throughout the house and centralize operational control, the solution will need to be network attached and Amazon Alexa voice controlled.
With those parameters, I’ve found a couple excellent options — the Sonos Amp and Bose SoundTouch SA-5.
The Sonos Amp can connect everything from a variety of components to wired speakers. It’ll enable you to to enjoy vinyl, CDs, stored audio files and streaming. As the plan is to connect our speakers and TVs we’ll have stereo surround sound for shows, movies, music and even video games. The Sonos Amp also gives the ability to wirelessly add a pair of Sonos One surrounds for an even more immersive home theater experience. It also has AirPlay 2 built in. That means Debbie and I can stream audio directly from our iPhones and iPads. That includes soundtracks from YouTube® videos and Netflix movies.
With 125 watts per channel, it has more than enough power to easily drive a pair of our Klipsch speakers. It also has a built-in phono preamp to drive a disc player or turntable, not only on the connected speakers, but also throughout the house, wherever we have a Sonos player. The HDMI input will do the same for our TV’s audio. We’ll be able to play the same music in multiple rooms simultaneously or different music in each room.
Like all Sonos products, the Amp works seamlessly with a host of streaming music services, including Pandora, Spotify, and TIDAL. You also have access to thousands of radio stations with TuneIn and iHeartRadio. If you subscribe to SiriusXM, you can listen to all your favorite programming on any Sonos player in your system.
You can use your smartphone or tablet to control any and all Sonos components in your system. The app will turn your mobile device into a full-fledged Sonos controller. This will come in handy for Debbie and I when entertaining on our patio. We’ll be able to create customized playlists for individual rooms or for playback over our entire system. We’ll also be able to mute or adjust the volume of each of our players. This capability will help in entertaining the grand kids!
We’ll be clustering the AMPs near our central cabinet (POE switch, NAS, router, UPS, patch panel) for network connectivity and power. Thanks to Sonos the Amp has rack mount design features specially developed to optimize airflow and heat management. There are a variety of creative solutions to accommodate this.
The Bose SoundTouch SA-5 amplifier will let us integrate our own speakers into a wireless music system as well. The SA-5 amplifier wirelessly receives audio from other Bose SoundTouch systems, letting you play the music through connected speakers and control it all from your smartphone. It delivers 100W per channel, ensuring our speakers will get all the power they need for optimal performance. The SA-5 amplifier comes with the same internet radio and music streaming services listed above built in. You’ll have a world of music conveniently available at your fingertips.
The SA-5 amplifier will use our home wifi network to communicate but it also has built-in Bluetooth. Between wifi and Bluetooth, Debbie and I will be able to stream music from our iPhones with no problems.
With three auxiliary inputs, we’ll be able to connect non-streaming audio sources, such as a CD player or home theater receiver, like the Sonos Amp. It’ll also share music to one, two, or many rooms simultaneously. Two pairs of speakers can be connected to each system in parallel as well, powering four speakers from a single SA-5 amplifier.
The SoundTouch app from Bose is the key to simple setup and control. It makes it easy to select music and operate the SA-5 amplifier using your smartphone, tablet, or even a computer. The app lets you choose from music services for an unlimited amount of online music or listen to thousands of free Internet radio stations. You can use the app to save stations and playlists as presets for instant recall with the included remote, or simply by using the control buttons on top of the speaker.
The SA-5 comes with a mount kit but like the Sonos Amp, we’ll be clustering the SA-5s near our central cabinet for network connectivity and power. There are also a variety of creative multi-unit solutions to accommodate this as we’ll have multiple SA-5s.
Either way we decide to go, the capabilities of each of these are pretty similar. From a cost perspective, the Amp and SA-5 retail for $650 and $500 respectively. So all things being equal, price may be the tie-breaker. And as I’m looking to offer audio options in a lot of spaces, I’ll be following the Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales closely. This is also just one aspect of our smart home so any money I can save on this can go toward other tech like wifi, smart switches or lighting.
Stay tuned as we make decisions on home audio and other technologies. As I mentioned earlier, Debbie and I are close to finalizing the floor plan as well. Once the dust settles on that we’ll be working through the builder evaluation process so we can get started on the actual build. As always, we love hearing your comments and suggestions so keep them coming. And if there’s anything I can do to to help you with your smart home, please don’t hesitate to ask. Until next time …