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Speaker options for large narrow kitchen

E

El_Soldado

Member
I'm looking for some ideas about speakers for a largish kitchen, it's about 3.5m by 7.5m. Half dining-area, half-kitchen. Looking for room-filling sound rather than critical listening. (Speakers will be driven from main room next door by a spare amplifier.)

https://imgur.com/a/MDxWQKQ

I'd rather a set of passive speakers rather than something like a Sonos or Muso. I've narrowed down options to:

Option A: in-ceiling. House is a bungalow so no problems accessing the attic.
Option B: large bookshelves on shelves (to be installed) left/right of fireplace.
Option C: wall-mount speakers mounted above the windows (would need sub I imagine)

Just wondering if any PFMers have solved a problem like this before?
 
Depends a bit how you'll listen, i'd probably optimise for the sofa so maybe either side of the far window with an infinite baffle sub in the roof.
 
We moved to a smaller property so I went with ceiling speakers as they don’t take away any space, in a big dining/kitchen at the old house I used to have proper small systems like SBT/Rega Brio/RS1, now I have SONOS/NAD multichannel amp in the garage and Monitor Audio 380 ceiling speakers with “hats” to reinforce the Bass a bit. They are surprisingly good, way better than I expected, did try cheap speakers mixed in but ended up going for the best MA ones all round.
 
If you want speakers at the greasy kitchen end JBL Controls are quite tolerant, i use 28s with the 18sub and a Crown XTi1002. Great little system and it runs from the main house PC using a tablet as remote.

All used from Charity shop, ebay and cash converters so about £200. Added an FM tuner later for a tenner.

Not HiFi but What Me Worry.
 
In the kitchen (about 8m x 4.5m) we installed 4 Tannoy in ceiling speakers, one in each corner, currently driven by the Yamaha RN303 I bought here from Amber Audio! Unobtrusive and fills the space with decent sound very well considering the room vaults to about 4m. Highly recommended. I feel the kitchen is a room where you just don’t want boxy speakers cluttering the place up!
 
Putting speakers in the ceiling or putting speakers in a kitchen/diner seems rather daft to me.

I just have a Sonos 3 speaker, works perfectly for background & family can have fun creating playlists.
 
My cousin’s kitchen is a similar size to yours, he has Dali Zensor 7s driven by an Arcam Alpha 9, they definitely fill the space nicely!

If you can’t accommodate floorstanders, the Zensor 3s are very good too... they’re no longer made but you should be able to find them used easily enough... they made them in white, which looks good in a kitchen!
 
My kitchen is 7.5 x 3.5, had a pair of standmounts (PMC tb2) at one end, sounded fabulous, but they were in the way and too intrusive, so looked at loads of options and went for 4 x B&W M1 mk2s on the wall with a B&K subwoofer... put the subwoofer in a kitchen cupboard - removed the base of the cabinet and going to put a fridge vent in the kick board.. sounds amazing, but you do really need a sub.

In the previous house which was a bungalow I had some ceiling speakers, which also worked well, depends which will work for you, but either work well.

This is all driven by a Yamaha AV amplifier - 7 channel stereo is perfect for music, but I have positioned the TV and speakers so it can work as an AV surround amp too... all setup with time alignment so the ideal ‘listening position’ is stood at the island. :cool:
 
Del monaco said:
I would go for a Yamaha amp with QAcoutics speakers
Lot of hard surfaces there so you’ll need something that tolerates the environment.
Click to expand...
I love Q Acoustics speakers, I have 3010s on my desk, brilliant little things... I’d probably opt for 3030s in a large kitchen. I have some old Tannoy F1s in my kitchen, they’re a bit sh!t to be honest... I might treat myself in the new year.
 
When we redid our kitchen a couple of years ago I installed Kef in ceiling speakers. The room is about 7 m X 5m and one end is the dining room so I positioned them at the dining end making sure that they were arranged asymetrically to the side and end walls. I bought them secondhand from an av installation company and they sound very good and are completely unobtrusive as they are white the same as the ceiling. Would have cost about £400 retail for the pair. They are controlled through the audio system in the cinema room next door and are also connected to the wall mounted dining end TV.
 
If seating is at one end, can you not mount little JPW sized sealed boxes on adjustable wall brackets? They'll fire down the room and not get in the way; also very cheap at circa £25 a pair (there are a few makes) s/h. You really don't need subs for this type of application. I've Diamonds in my small rectangular office and JPW Golds or TDLs on walls in my kitchen.

I like the ceiling speaker idea and think I've seen some at a hifi exhibition 20+ years ago, but not sure how they attach. Difficult to find used, I guess, and nor sure what the effect would be in the small rectangular room.
 
They're straightforward to install. They effectively clamp to the plasterboard. You need to add fire hoods which I bought direct from the manufacturers. The fact that our house is only ten years old and we had all the ceiling down and parts of the plasterboard on the walls to install six lighting circuits made it a no brained to install the speakers and all the cabling for the audio system at the same time.
 
Woodface said:
Putting speakers in the ceiling or putting speakers in a kitchen/diner seems rather daft to me.

I just have a Sonos 3 speaker, works perfectly for background & family can have fun creating playlists.
Click to expand...
I installed ceiling speakers throughout the house, all the gubbins is in the garage - SONOS and NAD multichannel amps, all the cabling is routed through the loft to the garage comms cab into a speaker socket patch panel. Reasons - sounds better that SONOS 1/3/5. No need for mains sockets (I have speakers in all rooms so you can dance and shave at the same time - slowly :)). Centrally managed/controlled. No clutter anywhere, space is at a premium in the Kitchen. Nothing to knock over/spill stuff on/bang your head on. Really unobtrusive, you can also replace downlights/spotlights with speakers which make them pretty much invisible, I went for MA, reminds me I have a couple left over I need to sell, Linn do some too Sweet Spots.

If I had a massive Kitchen/Diner again I'd likely put the full monty in but here we don't have much room.
 
I have used 6.5" KEF coaxial 2 ways in previous kitchen diners and been happy with the results. Plastic finish and metal/plastic cones seemed to cope with the steam and oil. Coaxial allows a speaker to be upright or on it's side with little detriment. Quality good enough to continue listening for a while after finishing cooking, eating or whatever.

Given your layout I would possibly consider placing them in the top corners above the door and EQ for the 3 boundaries. Sound quality could be pretty good given the lack of close reflections. Optimised for the kitchen area and table rather than sitting on the sofa which may or may not fit with how you mostly use the room. Well away from the steam and oil should help as well.
 
We have put our Beosound 2 in the kitchen as it provides good room filling sound and ease of use, plus no holes to fill in if you move...

What sources are you planning to use? I would always go for a streaming device for maximum flexibility ...
 
If you go for the high shelf option (or even on the top of cupboards) you could consider a chunky pair of centre speakers with 5" or 6" drivers such as the older Mission 77c1 or 75C which sell for very good prices. We use a pair of 77c1 on the cupboard tops and it works well, but our kitchen is about 3.5m x 4m so a bit smaller than yours.

NEAT Iotas might be a more expensive option.
 
Amber Audio said:
I installed ceiling speakers throughout the house, all the gubbins is in the garage - SONOS and NAD multichannel amps, all the cabling is routed through the loft to the garage comms cab into a speaker socket patch panel. Reasons - sounds better that SONOS 1/3/5. No need for mains sockets (I have speakers in all rooms so you can dance and shave at the same time - slowly :)). Centrally managed/controlled. No clutter anywhere, space is at a premium in the Kitchen. Nothing to knock over/spill stuff on/bang your head on. Really unobtrusive, you can also replace downlights/spotlights with speakers which make them pretty much invisible, I went for MA, reminds me I have a couple left over I need to sell, Linn do some too Sweet Spots.

If I had a massive Kitchen/Diner again I'd likely put the full monty in but here we don't have much room.
Click to expand...
I just have one good system in the listening room & then a Sonos 3 in the kitchen diner with a Beam under the telly in the lounge.

In the attic bedroom I have a little denon one box system with little speakers on stands; it is essentially used as an alarm clock.
 
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