Setting multi-room whole house audio system is not as difficult as you thought. We highly recommend you design and layout the wires during the construction of your house. If you want to add music system to your current house, it is very easy to consult local audio/video installer or at least you can contract the electrician to run the speaker wire for you. Buy the equipment yourself so you have better control of the quality and price. The following is a general guideline that can help you design the multi-room whose house audio system.

Which rooms do you want music in?
The first step in designing your own multi-room audio system is to take a close look at how you live in each room of your home. Make a list of the rooms where you spend the most time. Then try to classify the type of listening you'll do in each room.

1. Critical Listening — In which rooms will you (at least occasionally) sit in one spot, facing the speakers, and really concentrate on the music? The family room? The home theater room? In critical listening rooms, you orient the speakers toward the prime listening seats.
   
    
2. Entertainment Listening — Think of all the rooms in which you and your family or guests gather to read, talk, work, cook or play. In most of these situations, you play music at low volumes, but you may want to turn it up occasionally. You don't sit in one spot, nor do your guests. The speakers go where they can best spread the stereo sound throughout the room.
   
    
3. Background Listening — Classify rooms you just pass through or spend small amounts of time in — such as hallways, bathrooms and the laundry room — as background listening rooms.

What type of speakers should you use?
As you read about the different types of speakers, keep in mind that there's no reason you need to stick with the same speaker design throughout your home. You can select speakers for each room or area individually, to best match the layout, décor, and type of listening you'll be doing there.

Adding a power subwoofer is a great idea to achieve deep bass in rooms where you're installing small flush-mount, bracket-mount, or bookshelf speakers — particularly in areas where you'll be doing critical listening. As part of a multi-room system, a powered subwoofer should have speaker-level inputs. These simplify volume control, since the same wall-mount knob controls the volume of the speakers and the subwoofer.

Speaker placement for critical listening
Place the left and right speakers an equal distance from your prime listening seat, so that the tweeters are at ear level while seated or adjust the tweeter toward to your listening position. If you're installing speakers in a wall that's 10 feet from your chair, place them no more than 10 feet apart from each other and no less than 5 feet apart. If the speakers are placed too close together or too far apart from one another, you will not hear a proper stereo effect.

Sometimes the layout of a room (or the positioning of artwork or furniture within it) makes it impossible to place in-wall, on-wall or floor-standing speakers for critical listening. In such cases, choose a high-grade set of in-ceiling speakers including the LCR critical home theatre design, Ideally, these speakers should have pivoting tweeters, which allow you to direct the relatively unidirectional high frequencies toward your prime listening seats for optimal sound.

Another consideration: When a speaker is placed in a corner, its bass output is reinforced by your room acoustics. You hear more bass, but not necessarily good, tight bass. This so-called "boundary effect" can make the bass sound "loose" or "boomy." Always place your speakers at least one foot away from a corner or a wall/ceiling boundary.

Speaker placement for entertainment listening
In rooms you move around in or frequently entertain in, speaker placement designed for critical listening won't work well. The music will be too loud in one area and too soft in another. By employing three or four speakers in a room, or by judiciously using a combination of direct and reflected sound, you create a sound field that is relatively even. You'll hear some degree of stereo effect regardless of where you are in the room.

Ceiling speakers are a great choice for entertainment listening, because they provide the most even dispersion of sound throughout a room. However, should the wall offer an easier installation or a better match with your décor, place the speakers at least 6 feet off the floor. Both in-wall and in-ceiling speakers should also be placed at least 2 feet away from corners to keep the reflected sound in balance with the direct sound.

When a room is long and narrow, L-shaped, or larger than 300 square feet, consider using more than two speakers. They should be wired in alternating channels, to provide a decent stereo effect in as many areas as possible.

When your décor or budget will not allow more than two speakers in a large or irregular room, try to place left and right stereo speakers near opposite corners of the room. Another option, particularly suitable for long, narrow rooms, is to place two dual voice coil single stereo ceiling speakers in the middle of the room's opposite ends. Each stereo-input speaker plays both the left and right channels of stereo music via one woofer and two angled tweeters, conveying some of the spaciousness of true stereo sound.

 

Ceiling speaker placement:

1. Diagonal placement, gives good coverage in a typical rectangular room of 300 square feet or less.
2. Use of three or more speakers in a large or L-shaped room.
3. In a narrow room, place the speakers in the middle at either end. In this example, stereo-input speakers would be a good choice.

Speaker placement for outdoor entertainment listening
To bring music to your patio or deck, a wide range of weather-resistant speakers are available. Because the sound from such speakers is not bottled up like it is indoors, more power is needed to adequately fill an outdoor space with music. Placing speakers way out in the yard, and expecting them to blanket an acre with sound, is asking too much from a typical receiver or amplifier.

Try to place outdoor speakers within 15 feet of the listening area. The practical way to cover your patio or deck is from the side of the house. The speakers can be tucked into the eaves, which puts the sound behind you as you face the yard.

Speaker placement for background listening
Are you tired of having to crank up your sound system to ear-splitting levels in your main listening room just so you can hear your music while you're in the laundry or the bathroom? Background speakers make your entire house play music for you, and at appropriate volume levels for each listening area.

Typically, the most effective way to bring background music to small rooms is to utilize dual voice coil single stereo in-ceiling speaker. In a bathroom, laundry room or dressing room, a single stereo-input speaker can provide good background sound inexpensively and effectively from the center of the room. In large rooms, the more speakers you use, the more pervasive the soundfield will be. Since the volume will never be high in your background-listening areas, you don't have to worry about the negative effects of too much reflected sound.

By creatively placing speakers to reflect their sound off of furniture, walls and ceilings, you can provide pervasive sound without any visible speakers. For example, you might try placing a set of bookshelf speakers out of sight on top of your kitchen cabinets, pointed at the ceiling. The sound reflects off the ceiling, and down into the kitchen, providing good background music coverage throughout the room.

Powering your speakers
After you've decided which rooms you'd like to put speakers in, and what type(s) of speakers you'll be using, the next decision you'll need to make is how to power them all.