Audio planning

[Cephrael]

Somebody help me plan my audio setup for my pool project. Not sure what speakers to use. I've heard good things about sonanance, and niles. I like the idea of getting an all in one package, but I don’t mind piecemealing it together myself if it’s cheaper and better quality. Will probably use an old apple airport express I have for the streaming or maybe an Alexa. Thanks.

 

[bdavis466]

I looked hard at Sonance, Niles and Nuvo but after research ended up with:

Monoprice Sycamore Outdoor 2.1 Speaker System with 8in Subwoofer and 2.5in Satellites (3 piece) - Monoprice.com

With all of the outdoor speakers available what makes our Sycamore 2.1 system stand out? Simply put, it is their great sound and ease of installation. The weather Sycamore 2.1 sy

www.monoprice.com

Can't beat the price and I bet it sounds just as good. I should be installing it in a week or two.

 

[Cephrael]

I looked hard at Sonance, Niles and Nuvo but after research ended up with:

Monoprice Sycamore Outdoor 2.1 Speaker System with 8in Subwoofer and 2.5in Satellites (3 piece) - Monoprice.com

With all of the outdoor speakers available what makes our Sycamore 2.1 system stand out? Simply put, it is their great sound and ease of installation. The weather Sycamore 2.1 sy

www.monoprice.com

Can't beat the price and I bet it sounds just as good. I should be installing it in a week or two.

Only a 1 year warranty. Sonance has a 5 year.

 

[bdavis466]

And 10x the cost?

 

[santacruzpool]

I looked at all of those options listed above and settled on a less expensive system using some simple Polk Audio Atrium speakers and a small class D amp...

 

[PoolGate]

Ha ha i feel so inadequate i just bring out a Bluetooth Bose speaker and set it on the table to stream Spotify.

 

[kimkats]

@jimim this is right up his alley!

 

[jimim]

I looked hard at Sonance, Niles and Nuvo but after research ended up with:

Monoprice Sycamore Outdoor 2.1 Speaker System with 8in Subwoofer and 2.5in Satellites (3 piece) - Monoprice.com

With all of the outdoor speakers available what makes our Sycamore 2.1 system stand out? Simply put, it is their great sound and ease of installation. The weather Sycamore 2.1 sy

www.monoprice.com

Can't beat the price and I bet it sounds just as good. I should be installing it in a week or two.

Brian you pulled the trigger on the mono price setup?! I can’t wait to hear your thoughts. Monoprice does make some good stuff for the price.

 

[jimim]

Only a 1 year warranty. Sonance has a 5 year.

Warranty really doesn’t mean that much. I have never had a pair of speakers go bad on me in the 25 plus years I have installed. Components yes. Speakers no.

 

[Cephrael]

I looked at all of those options listed above and settled on a less expensive system using some simple Polk Audio Atrium speakers and a small class D amp...

I love Polk speakers. I actually have the atriums on my deck.

 

[Cephrael]

Warranty really doesn’t mean that much. I have never had a pair of speakers go bad on me in the 25 plus years I have installed. Components yes. Speakers no.

Warranty is always important because it shows how much a company is willing to stand behind their product. And I have had to use my warranty on a Polk atrium once. Well, worth the cost.

 

[santacruzpool]

The Polk speakers are really great and work really well - originally I planned on using a little in wall type Bluetooth amp to control them, but eventually settled on the Class D amp and just stuck it on the back of our outdoor TV with some velcro.

I run the Optical Audio Output from the TV to the Amp - a TV with a Roku stick (or Roku built in) gives us access to all the music we want and when we have the TV on we get really good sound from the programs on the TV...

My next upgrade might be a Amazon Echo Input to allow voice control so I don't have to grab the remote control to change music...still thinking about that option.

 

[bdavis466]

Brian you pulled the trigger on the mono price setup?! I can’t wait to hear your thoughts. Monoprice does make some good stuff for the price.

Yeah I figured why not... I've be impressed so far. The sub is much bigger than expected and seems to be built well. Hopefully I'll have it hooked up soon

I'll have the sub plus 4 array speakers in addition to 4 ceiling flush mount polks under the patio. I'm just looking for good coverage at the lowest volume... goes keep the neighbors happy

 

[jimim]

Somebody help me plan my audio setup for my pool project. Not sure what speakers to use. I've heard good things about sonanance, and niles. I like the idea of getting an all in one package, but I don’t mind piecemealing it together myself if it’s cheaper and better quality. Will probably use an old apple airport express I have for the streaming or maybe an Alexa. Thanks.

What is the pool house like? Open closed? If this were me I would do 2 zones. A pool house zone if under cover and a around the pool zone. That way you can control the audio in both sections. If you have 1 zone for the pool it might have to be too Lou day for the people under pool house and vise versa. Speakers just in pool house might be too loud for people in pool. I would do your setup like I did mine. I have 4 inceiling speakers in my pool house on 1 zone. Then I will have an array around my pool. It’s own independent zone. And my covered patio also has 4 speakers which is its own zone. That way I can balance all my volume so if people are in pool house pool and patio. Just how I usually design out setups. I like a lot of zones for proper control.

I have posted many times about different arrays. Pretty much the dealer you deal with with be in 1 of the camps of sonance, niles, Russound, Nuvo, triad.

Triad and sonance is nice cause they have matching amps. Nuvo is nice if you team it up with a Nuvo player cause their players can power their full 8 speaker array. Nuvo players can also power 4 speakers. Sonos players can only power 2 speakers but I think they have a larger amp player out there now. I don’t know.

The monoprice setup Brian found is pretty interesting for the price. I just bought my buddy’s shop a pair of monoprice speakers. Little 50 dollar bookshelves and we still can’t get over how clear and loud they play. Will be interesting to see what Brian thinks of the array.

 

[jimim]

Warranty is always important because it shows how much a company is willing to stand behind their product. And I have had to use my warranty on a Polk atrium once. Well, worth the cost.

Then spend the money on sonance if it’s 5 years. I use proficient for all my full home audio setups. 10 year warranty. Again we have installed thousands of proficient speakers. Never had a warranty call a speaker. Speakers tend not to go unless you blow them on your own. Components yes. Have had our share of Russound units go. That’s why we dropped them. Switched to nuvo for past 12 years and have been happy. Very very few problems and when we have they even helped us with out of warranty coverage on a few things. Again comes down to the kinda dealer you deal with. If they have good relationships with thier distributors or companies they deal with direct they can usually help out.

 

[CasaBlanca]

In-ceiling speakers are always going to be a compromise, and in my opinion are nearly always inferior to quality stand alone speakers.
Stick with the Polk atriums mentioned here or go with Definitive Technology AW-6500’s. They can be mounted in the eves and are vastly better then in-ceiling speakers imho.
I have set up I Sonos system that is fantastic. Way cheaper than any professional set up, and very flexible. Love it for our pool area.

 

[jimim]

In-ceiling speakers are always going to be a compromise, and in my opinion are nearly always inferior to quality stand alone speakers.
Stick with the Polk atriums mentioned here or go with Definitive Technology AW-6500’s. They can be mounted in the eves and are vastly better then in-ceiling speakers imho.

Why would an inceiling be a compromise? It matters how that speaker is built. If it’s in a box that is built for the proper volume of that speaker then there is no difference in an inceiling and in room speaker. If the inceiling is just plopped up in a ceiling without a housing ya ok generally speaking.

The inceiling speakers I am using in my theatre for my atmos bed of audio (thAt are in boxes and purposely built like that for its use) will blow the doors off a good amount of in room speakers out there.

 

[CasaBlanca]

Why would an inceiling be a compromise? It matters how that speaker is built. If it’s in a box that is built for the proper volume of that speaker then there is no difference in an inceiling and in room speaker. If the inceiling is just plopped up in a ceiling without a housing ya ok generally speaking.

Correct. But most folks don’t bother to build an enclosure for them, and it’s difficult to build an enclosure that matches the sonic characteristics of the speaker and fits in the ceiling cavity.

So using the word “always” was a little strong, but most folks who have in ceiling speakers just cut a hole and install them... in face most have brackets to facilitate the install... without any kind of enclosure.
That’s why stand alone speakers are better for most installations imho.

 

[Cephrael]

What is the pool house like? Open closed? If this were me I would do 2 zones. A pool house zone if under cover and a around the pool zone. That way you can control the audio in both sections. If you have 1 zone for the pool it might have to be too Lou day for the people under pool house and vise versa. Speakers just in pool house might be too loud for people in pool. I would do your setup like I did mine. I have 4 inceiling speakers in my pool house on 1 zone. Then I will have an array around my pool. It’s own independent zone. And my covered patio also has 4 speakers which is its own zone. That way I can balance all my volume so if people are in pool house pool and patio. Just how I usually design out setups. I like a lot of zones for proper control.

I have posted many times about different arrays. Pretty much the dealer you deal with with be in 1 of the camps of sonance, niles, Russound, Nuvo, triad.

Triad and sonance is nice cause they have matching amps. Nuvo is nice if you team it up with a Nuvo player cause their players can power their full 8 speaker array. Nuvo players can also power 4 speakers. Sonos players can only power 2 speakers but I think they have a larger amp player out there now. I don’t know.

The monoprice setup Brian found is pretty interesting for the price. I just bought my buddy’s shop a pair of monoprice speakers. Little 50 dollar bookshelves and we still can’t get over how clear and loud they play. Will be interesting to see what Brian thinks of the array.

Pool house is more of a shed with a bathroom.

I’ve seen you mention triad in another thread, will be looking into them, and waiting for Brian’s review of the monoprice. I always do a ton of research before making a purchase and won’t be doing the audio install for at least a month or two.

 

[jimim]

The triad are triple the price of sonance I think. My dedicated theatre is triad and most of my home and I didn’t even go there for outside. I just didn’t feel like it was worth it. We love triad and working with them is wonderful but thier outdoor array is pretty pricey. They use a modified crown amp for running them so you would need a head unit to run your sources though (Apple airport, CD player, chromecast, ext) them. You would just need to find a triad dealer in your area if you wanted to go that route. Triad isn’t sold over the Internet, well it isn’t suppose to be at least.