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Old 08-20-2019, 05:09 PM   #1481
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thoughts on wall mounts? I'm mounting a 55" tv in our master bedroom directly across from our bed. It will be perfectly centered to the bed, and, around 6 feet from the foot of the bed to the wall (or so, I haven't measured).

So the only question I have left to consider is swivel vs tilt only. I don't see a need to have the tv come out on an arm except for when me or the wife (or both.. oo sexy!) are having a tub. It seems like a weird thing to get an arm to swivel with, due to the limited usage it'd get. Where as the tilt only would be a nice low profile. What are peoples experiences mounting in their bedroom, what would you do again or differently?

Specific amazon mount recommendation would be really appreciated too.
I got this one for a 58" TV and I really like it. It doesn't stick out too far from the wall and works great for my needs.

https://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/B00...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I bought both swivel and fixed and in the end, I liked the swivel one far better. I don't like tilt mounts because its a fixed position and it's really not useful unless you don't need to actually tilt the tv for viewing angles. Another reason to get the swivel is if you need to plug something in the back etc, it's far easier to access than a fixed tilt mount, whereas the fixed tilt mounts I got were a pain to access the back of the TV for HDMI etc. Fixed tilt for a monitor might work, but I didn't really like it for a TV.
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Old 08-20-2019, 06:11 PM   #1482
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I’m looking to mount my TV too, except in the living room. The thing that scares me is the wall has metal studs so I’m not sure if it’s even a good idea. I think using toggle bolts help.

Is there an alternative that can lift my TV up about 15 inches? I need to make room for my centre channel.
Pro tip. These are my go-tos when I don't find wood studs or studs are not in the right spot etc.

https://www.amazon.ca/TOGGLER-SNAPTO...s%2C196&sr=8-5

Typically the only time I wouldn't use them would be a very heavy TV (ie plasma) in combo with an articulated (motion) mount. I believe their pull out rating is 200+ lbs.
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Old 08-20-2019, 10:07 PM   #1483
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So, I have in-ceiling speakers in my house. I've never used them. What I want to do is set myself up so that my Amazon Echo devices can be used to play music or podcasts or audiobooks through those speakers throughout my house.

So, Calgarypuck home theatre mavens... what do I do? Where do I start? I presume I need an amp, but what should I get so that it all hooks up to the Alexa/Echo system?

For reference, here is what I currently have: a bunch of wires coming out of the ceiling in my furnace room...



I'm assuming they all go to different speakers and at a glance none appear to be clearly labeled. Open to all suggestions...
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Old 08-20-2019, 10:23 PM   #1484
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Hire a pro?
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Old 08-20-2019, 10:28 PM   #1485
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Sure, if I have to. But I'd like to get an idea of what it will look like first, in terms of equipment and how the components will work together.
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Old 08-21-2019, 07:44 AM   #1486
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In the bundle of wire, there should be speaker wires that go the various in-ceiling speakers in the home. These will need to be traced and labelled.

The appropriate wires are then plugged into a amp such as Sonos, which would be setup on a shelf or equipment rack in the basement. Typically you would install one Sonos amp per room of audio (zone). Sonos has built in services, both free and paid. You can control the audio services via the Sonos app.

You can also control Sonos with your Alexa / Google Assistant. The voice control is more basic than the app but is evolving.

This general description of what needs to be done. There are several different ways to achieve this with different budget points, goals etc.

Hope this helps.

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Old 08-21-2019, 10:29 AM   #1487
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Thanks, that definitely helps. Exactly the info I was looking for. I'm hoping that there's a way to just plug the wire into something, have the speaker in question make noise, and test it that way, because there's no chance in hell that it'll be possible to physically trace each wire to the speaker in question.

... Also it's pretty ridiculous that the Amps cost eight hundred ####ing dollars each and I'd have to buy more than one of them. They really don't have the capability to differentiate between zones?
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Old 08-21-2019, 11:12 AM   #1488
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Do you want all the rooms playing the same thing, or do you want the rooms to be individually controlled?

Individually controlled means separate amps and Echos / Google Home Minis, but it's more complex to get them all playing the same thing on a whim if you do want that. Playing the same thing in every room is less equipment, but also means, well, the same thing is always playing in every room.

My setup is the latter, and it works well for us, especially when hosting parties.
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Old 08-21-2019, 12:08 PM   #1489
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Do you want all the rooms playing the same thing, or do you want the rooms to be individually controlled?
Ideally, you'd think the technology should be able to do either of these things as the situation warrants.. It's not like it's a novel concept to send sound to different speaker groups (rear, front, center) or all of them at once.
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Individually controlled means separate amps and Echos / Google Home Minis, but it's more complex to get them all playing the same thing on a whim if you do want that.
All the Amazon devices are linked together, so the one in the living room can turn on the speakers (or the lights, or whatever) in the bedroom. It's all one big unit with different "groups" of devices organized by room. I can command it to turn on my bedside lamp, or all of my bedroom lights, regardless of where in the house I am. The only thing that's linked to one specific Echo device is Fire TV (only one echo can be connected to one Fire TV stick at a time, which is fine, because I have five Echo devices and only 2 Fire TV sticks).

You can easily bridge them so they're all playing the same music in every room through the Echo speakers themselves, but because they're pretty crappy speakers, that's not good for much. You can also tie them to bluetooth speakers, but there are two problems there - first, that only really works in my bedroom where I have an Echo Spot tied into my TV surround system, and second, bluetooth speakers aren't "always on". They shut themselves off after a while and Alexa doesn't have the ability to power them on.

Hence why I want to tie the Echo devices into the ceiling speakers through some sort of central hub that said Echo devices can control.
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Old 08-21-2019, 12:38 PM   #1490
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In the bundle of wire, there should be speaker wires that go the various in-ceiling speakers in the home. These will need to be traced and labelled.

The appropriate wires are then plugged into a amp such as Sonos, which would be setup on a shelf or equipment rack in the basement. Typically you would install one Sonos amp per room of audio (zone). Sonos has built in services, both free and paid. You can control the audio services via the Sonos app.

You can also control Sonos with your Alexa / Google Assistant. The voice control is more basic than the app but is evolving.

This general description of what needs to be done. There are several different ways to achieve this with different budget points, goals etc.

Hope this helps.
I love my sonos system. Ideally, I think this is how I’d do it, but having to purchase a powered amp for each room is going to get expensive. Just prepare yourself for sticker shock and keep an eye open for deals.
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Old 08-21-2019, 03:36 PM   #1491
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Ideally, you'd think the technology should be able to do either of these things as the situation warrants.. It's not like it's a novel concept to send sound to different speaker groups (rear, front, center) or all of them at once.

All the Amazon devices are linked together, so the one in the living room can turn on the speakers (or the lights, or whatever) in the bedroom. It's all one big unit with different "groups" of devices organized by room. I can command it to turn on my bedside lamp, or all of my bedroom lights, regardless of where in the house I am. The only thing that's linked to one specific Echo device is Fire TV (only one echo can be connected to one Fire TV stick at a time, which is fine, because I have five Echo devices and only 2 Fire TV sticks).

You can easily bridge them so they're all playing the same music in every room through the Echo speakers themselves, but because they're pretty crappy speakers, that's not good for much. You can also tie them to bluetooth speakers, but there are two problems there - first, that only really works in my bedroom where I have an Echo Spot tied into my TV surround system, and second, bluetooth speakers aren't "always on". They shut themselves off after a while and Alexa doesn't have the ability to power them on.

Hence why I want to tie the Echo devices into the ceiling speakers through some sort of central hub that said Echo devices can control.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't most Echo dot have an Aux out? I'm guessing there is some tech out there where you can probably hook up a single amp and play through different channels to each individual room (Albeit not cheap), but for a less elegant alternative, what about this:

https://www.amazon.ca/Lepy-LP-2020A-...tronics&sr=1-1

Less than $30 per amp per speaker set, then another $35 for a dot = $65 per set of ceiling speakers. If you want to get fancy, you could even get something like this as part of the management of the units for $18 each so they're all a little better organized in your utility room:

https://www.amazon.ca/Compatible-Kit...ateway&sr=8-18

Each set of speakers gets a power amp and an echo dot hooked up via aux cable, essentially so each set of speakers is another independent node sort of situation? Then name each echo dot as the room speaker. It won't be a true central hub, but a bunch of small nodes in close proximity.

Would an idea like this work?
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Old 08-21-2019, 06:24 PM   #1492
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Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't most Echo dot have an Aux out? I'm guessing there is some tech out there where you can probably hook up a single amp and play through different channels to each individual room (Albeit not cheap), but for a less elegant alternative, what about this:

https://www.amazon.ca/Lepy-LP-2020A-...tronics&sr=1-1

Less than $30 per amp per speaker set, then another $35 for a dot = $65 per set of ceiling speakers. If you want to get fancy, you could even get something like this as part of the management of the units for $18 each so they're all a little better organized in your utility room:

https://www.amazon.ca/Compatible-Kit...ateway&sr=8-18

Each set of speakers gets a power amp and an echo dot hooked up via aux cable, essentially so each set of speakers is another independent node sort of situation? Then name each echo dot as the room speaker. It won't be a true central hub, but a bunch of small nodes in close proximity.

Would an idea like this work?
This would definitely work. If you wanted to take it a little further, you could plug the amps into Amazon or Wemo plugs so you could power them off and on through the wemo or Alexa app. not as slick as the Sonos, but much cheaper for sure.
https://www.amazon.com/Amazon-Smart-...3929&s=gateway
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Old 08-22-2019, 09:57 AM   #1493
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If that works, it's brilliant... especially since the different echo devices bridge together. All for about $300. Worth a shot, if I cant make it work, I guess I can just return everything.
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Old 08-22-2019, 10:58 AM   #1494
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You can bridge multiple Echo devices together, true. But I have no idea how quick it is to bridge and unbridge them on a whim. I've never tried.

At least with Sonos Amps, playing to multiple rooms -- or just a single room -- with ease is part of the deal from the start.
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Old 08-22-2019, 11:28 AM   #1495
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I think you can create separate groups. One for each room, and another, multi-room speaker group that would play music over the echos added to that group.
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Old 08-22-2019, 12:24 PM   #1496
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You can, I already have that for lights. For example, my main floor has a dining room, living room, kitchen and two entryways. I can say "turn on the kitchen island", which activates just the two lights above the island, or "turn on the kitchen lights", which activates all the lights in the kitchen including the ceiling floods, or "turn on the main floor", which turns on everything in all of those rooms.

So if I create a group called "Ceiling Speakers", and add all 3 dots to it, it should work. Just name one dot "Main Floor Speakers", one "Den Speakers" and one "Master Bed Speakers". Should do the trick. The main thing is whether I can get the amps to hook up to the speakers correctly and push sound through them.
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Old 08-22-2019, 12:25 PM   #1497
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This would definitely work. If you wanted to take it a little further, you could plug the amps into Amazon or Wemo plugs so you could power them off and on through the wemo or Alexa app. not as slick as the Sonos, but much cheaper for sure.
https://www.amazon.com/Amazon-Smart-...3929&s=gateway
Yep, I'm sure that works too. But personally, I think it would be cleaner to mount smart power strips on the wall to power the amps and echoes as it would provide the space necessary to mount the amps and echoes on the wall. Something like this but perhaps there's something more sleek out there:

https://www.amazon.ca/Extension-Comp...gateway&sr=8-5

Do the Echo still use USB cords? It would be a huge space saver with the bar above if you could get away without needing all the wall adapters for the echo units (might be redundant if using that other echo dot mount though).

EDIT: Another way to mount everything in an organized and clean manner is to use a wall mountable wire file sorter. Each gap should be in theory wide enough to have one amp + echo dot + cables to reduce stuff being everywhere. Plus, there would be far less mounting of individual items. I am thinking something like this which I personally already use to organize switches and other components in my utility room (bonus is the wire design allows excellent air flow).

https://www.amazon.ca/EasyPAG-Mounte...98864&s=office

(No idea why this one is so expensive though, should be closer to $25-30 bucks)

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I think you can create separate groups. One for each room, and another, multi-room speaker group that would play music over the echos added to that group.
I know of the group concept in terms of setting up groups to shut down a bunch of lights in a room/a floor for instance. I only have a single echo dot for my nursery (for white noise and hands free function of some lights in that room) so I don't know anything about playing stuff simultaneously through multiple echoes, but it seems like Corsi knows quite a bit about it and it sounds like it he thinks it would work.

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Old 08-22-2019, 12:45 PM   #1498
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You can, I already have that for lights. For example, my main floor has a dining room, living room, kitchen and two entryways. I can say "turn on the kitchen island", which activates just the two lights above the island, or "turn on the kitchen lights", which activates all the lights in the kitchen including the ceiling floods, or "turn on the main floor", which turns on everything in all of those rooms.

So if I create a group called "Ceiling Speakers", and add all 3 dots to it, it should work. Just name one dot "Main Floor Speakers", one "Den Speakers" and one "Master Bed Speakers". Should do the trick. The main thing is whether I can get the amps to hook up to the speakers correctly and push sound through them.
I think music groups are different than room groups. You have to create a multi room music group if you want to play music through multiple echos.
The speakers will be powered by the amp. The amp should also have two rca connectors(left/right). You use a 3.5mm to rca cable to go from the echo to the amp.
I think it should work.

https://www.amazon.ca/AmazonBasics-3...gateway&sr=8-3
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Old 08-22-2019, 01:23 PM   #1499
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We shall see... I have all the stuff coming today so it may be a weekend project. Once the speakers are plugeed into the amps, everything else I understand.

One of my chief concerns is that I cannot figure the wires out for the life of me. They don't look like the speaker wires I'm used to... In the one bundle, there are five skinny red wires, three skinny blue wires, and three skinny beige wires. What's that about?
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Old 08-22-2019, 02:03 PM   #1500
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We shall see... I have all the stuff coming today so it may be a weekend project. Once the speakers are plugeed into the amps, everything else I understand.

One of my chief concerns is that I cannot figure the wires out for the life of me. They don't look like the speaker wires I'm used to... In the one bundle, there are five skinny red wires, three skinny blue wires, and three skinny beige wires. What's that about?
I'd venture to guess that there is a L/R pairing for each speaker/speaker set, but the numbers for each color set of wires doesn't quite make sense... Unless you have 3 L/R R/B pairs... but why 5 beige and why odd and not even amount of beige?

I guess if you pulled down a ceiling speaker to look at the colors of wires involved, it'll give a hint?
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