How Or What Equipment To Install Audio In Your Home — Without Needing To Open Walls For Wiring!

Home audio installations or upgrades can enhance your home with minimal disruption to your life by not using a “wired” system.

The first consideration is your home network. If you are going to install multiple speakers and/or sound/video playing devices, you will need a robust and stable Wi-Fi network in your home. For most homes, this will be a mesh router. The default gateway (router & wireless router combined) provided by your internet provider will just not be enough bandwidth to cover the typical household as well as audio upgrades.

Here are some typical mesh router options:

After ensuring you have enough Wi-Fi coverage to handle the extra load, the next question to answer is, “What features am I looking for?”.

Some Examples:

  • Do I want multiple rooms to synchronize and therefore play the same stuff from a single source?
  • Do I want outdoor/backyard coverage?
  • How many channels do I want in a single “zone”?
  • Speakers come in different types (Ex., tweeters, base, soundbars, midrange, etc….). What mix of speakers do you want?
  • Do already have some equipment and therefore want your new stuff to be compatible so you can mix and match equipment?

It is always easier to work with a single system/brand, especially if you are trying to synchronize a single source through multiple rooms or locations in your home. A typical example of this is kitchen only when you are home by yourself but when guests are over you want the same sound source to project from speakers in all the common areas (Ex:, kitchen, living room, dining room, outdoor space, etc….). Sonos immersive theater set (Link: https://www.sonos.com/en-us/shop/premium-immersive-set-arc-ultra-sub-era-100-pair-black) combined with their outdoor set (Link: https://www.sonos.com/en-us/shop/indoor-outdoor-set-era-100-move-2-black) give you a good living room and outdoor space option. You can add additional speakers to cover larger areas or more rooms. The Sonos app allows you to group speakers into specific zones, so you can create multiple or single environments of sound.

Channels are what audio people talk about when describing how many unique output speakers a single source uses. For example, a 5.2 channel system could have 2 tower speakers, 2 base speakers, 2 bookshelf speakers, and 1 center speaker (Example: https://www.polkaudio.com/en-us/product/all-brands/signature-elite-platinum-home-theater-system/BN1024.html#specifications). You need to understand how many channels you need to achieve your performance requirements. This is where talking to a specialist is really important. You should walk through what you want to do (i.e., play one source in kitchen space, play same source in kitchen, outdoor, and living room space, play a source in the media room in the basement but never synchronize or share it with the speakers upstairs, etc….) and a specialist can design a system to make that happen.

Now that you have your requirements, you can pick a brand/price point of components that meet your needs and include wireless connectivity options.

Some equipment options are:

The key is to understand is that wireless systems only require an electrical outlet and Wi-Fi coverage. If you have a wired system, you will need to connect the speakers to your amp or music source with a built-in amp via monster cable or some other audio wire. In an existing home, this either requires exposed wires or opening up walls to install wires behind drywall/plaster. Wireless speakers use your Wi-Fi network to transmit the audio data, therefore they only require an electrical outlet or battery source. Typically, the wireless speakers must all be the same brand to function with a branded source and be controlled by a single app from your phone.

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