Outdoor Patio speakers...

shawn474

Just looking for a bit of advice. I am looking to install outdoor speakers for my deck. Iknow Polk makes the Atrium series, but was wondering if you all had similar set-ups and opinions on the different type of speakers out there. Also, how would I set this up to listen to those speakers without the system in my living room being on? Any thoughts, as always, are greatly appreciated. Take care.

Shawn

Ricardo

Does your receiver have a "Zone 2"? from what I see you have 5.1 in your home theater, so if the receiver is 7.1 capable and you ahvea zone 2, you should be able to connect the backyard speakers to the two free outputs.

I have the Atrium 55's and they sound as good as you would expect a Polk speaker to sound

brittmer

I am using the Bose 251 Enviromental Speakers in a large outdoor area. They have two speakers in each enclosure which are at different angles. This allows for a wider area of sound. I had a different brand of speakers a few years ago, I forget which brand, but you had to be pretty much in line with the speaker to get good sound and didn't really "fill" the area with music.

I have never tried the Polk Atrium speakers but would like to some time.

MillerLiteScott

I have an 1986 Technics amp with a seperate tuner that my brother had sitting in his basement collecting dust.

I currently have a Roku soundbridge feeding the amp music from iTunes off one of our computers.

The amp feeds into a ProSolutions 6 speaker selector which has protection. I have six pairs of speakers running off of this crude but effective set up. Four pairs are exterior speakers JBL Northridge (porch) , Mirage (above garages), Proficient (backyard) and a pair of Hometechs I picked up for $40.00 on clearence that I put in the front of the house behind some bushes. Great during leaf raking season. Each pair of speakers has its own volumn control. I run the amp at about 10 o'clock. My house can rock and there is barely a place you can't hear music. Our house is used quite a bit by both of our families for parties and I have never had a problem with the amp even after running for 10 hours. I even have two powered subwoofers(cheap ones) filling in the bottom end on the two pairs of in ceiling speakers inside the house

As far as exterior speakers I would recomend mounting them on the house, under the eves if you can bcause that will help project the sound out. My parents have speakers mounted on the deck rail facing in to the deck and they sound a little thin to me because there is nothing behind them to help project forward.

As far as running extra speakers off of you AVR you can use the B speaker selector and run it directly to the speakers or a speaker selector with protection and turn off your A speakers to listen to music outside. If you have 7.1 you can use two of those channels to do the same as above.

This is what works for me and is by no means an audiophile system but it is like my own little Dizz Knee Land.