First Polk Audio In-Ceiling purchase

mdmangus

I am hoping some of you can give some advice. I currently have a Sony 5.1 Dream System, don't remember the model, but it is 3 or 4 years old. It still works well and we enjoy it.

We have been living in our new home 2 years and during construction we had a 7.1 pre-wire done for our living room.

There was some good deals on Amazon for polk speakers and I took advantage of it. It has all arrived, but probably won't get around to installing until next weekend.

I purchased the following:
RC80i - 4 total speakers
RC60i - 4 total speakers
CS1 center speaker
PSW505 subwoofer
Onkyo TX-SR705 7.1 Receiver

I've read many reviews online where people have just used the in-ceiling speakers above as surround or many for their whole 5.1 or 7.1 setup. What are your thoughts? I'm assuming with me coming from a sony all in one box solution that this will probably blow that away and I will be happy...

From above you will notice I will have a pair left over if I don't use one of them as the center. I plan to put the extra pair in our master bedroom as zone 2 setup. Though, SR705 receiver seems to lack in zone 2 by only allowing analog sources so my main goal is the living room. I'm looking for a great movie experience, game consoles, and general music listening with CD's or whatever. I'm not looking to be the loudest on the block or to impress any neighbors. Just a great home theater experience with movies like Jurassic Park, Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, etc.

Will the in-ceiling RC60i or RC80i do well as a center piece and resell the CS1? I would like to use all the pre-wire spots in the ceiling, but I wasn't sure and to get the best deal I had to buy them in this combination. Maybe I should have just bought RC80i, but i mixed them both up since I bought a subwoofer.

I am thinking:
Front L/R speakers: RC80i
Surround: RC60i
Back Surround: RC60i
Center: RC80i

1 RC80i speaker and CS1 speaker left over to resell.

or

Front L/R Speakers: RC80i
Surround: RC60i
Back Surround; RC60i
Center: CS1

Master Bedroom: RC80i

I am assuming the PSW505 will give HT setup all the bass it needs.

I appreciate any feedback you can give.

Thank you.:)

wallstreet

Are all speakers going into the ceiling or will some of them go into the front wall? I have a similar in ceiling setup in my bedroom 5.1 setup. I've got 4 in-ceilings but I use a traditional center channel to lock down the dialog to the TV. You'll want to do some research on speaker enclosures to ensure you get the best possible sound from your inwalls. This could be as simple as adding pink fiberglass behind your inwalls to a custom built enlosure designed specifically for your speakers. Good luck and don't worry, your system will rock.

mdmangus

All the prewire was done on the ceiling. My wife would like to just put all of them up in the ceiling and I kind of want to utilize all of the pre-wire myself as well.

With saying that I do have the option to use a Polk CS1 center speaker since I purchased it to get my Polk purchase to $500 to get the $199 of the PSW505 from amazon.com

I would have to build a shelf to place that CS1 and would probably sit about 6 or 7 feet probably if measuring from the ground. The media center is not center to the other in-ceiling speaker placements. We have a in-wall media center that is 2 1/2 feet deep. I would have to build a shelf to nicely fit in that area and put the CS1 on it. The other option we might just take the tv out to the outer wall since I have a home run face plate there too and find some tall book shelves or AV rack shelves that will hopefully fit nicely. All of this really doesn't matter other than I have the option of placing a CS1.

My thoughts were:

Front and Right Speaker: RC80i
Center: RC80i
Surround: RC60i
Back Surround: RC60i
Subwoofer: PSW505

I will look into the enclosers or pink fiberglass.

Our living room is 20' x 15'8" and 10' to the ceiling. There are no angles in our living room ceiling.

I have uploaded a jpg of our living room. After 2 years I'm trying to see if I can make some of it a reality. lol:D

Will the in-ceiling do well as a center piece or do I need to just work the CS1 into the configuration?

Thanks for your response. You give me hope and a feeling that my 7.1 in-ceiling prewire was a good move.

hockeyboy

If you don't want to build a shelf find something over here:

http://www.standsandmounts.com

dorokusai

I like option #2.

mdmangus

I probably spent 3x as long on the first speaker installation than it took me to put all the other 5 in-ceiling speakers.;) I was careful and a complete novice in this area, but luckily I had a pre-wire done for our house. I used a stud finder, but in the end I decided to just go into the attic across the rafters to find out where all pre-wire speaker drops were. I cleared away all the blown in insulation so it wouldn't fall on me when I used the drywall saw to make my circles. The templates were accurate and was not much trouble. I purchased some R-15 fiberglass insulation and went back into the rafters to neatly put them over the speaker and readjusted the blown in insulation. I put banana plugs on the speaker cables and in they went into the Onkyo TX-SR705 and into the 7.1 wall plate.

Anyways, I got all 6 speakers in the ceiling and built a nice shelf in our media center to put the CS1 on.

The final setup:

Front: RC80i
Surround: RC60i
Back Surround: RC60i
Center: CS1
Sub: PSW505

Thanks for the advice and the end result I will quote wallstreet.

your system will rock.

It sure does and I am very happy with the time and effort into this.

Now to box up my old Sony DAV-FC9 system. It seems to have had mixed reviews, but I enjoyed the system.

I enjoy my new in-ceiling Polk speakers now and it truly rocks! My wife played a few of her music and truly loves it. I played Star Wars and several other movies and the difference is just too much to describe.:D