Distributed Audio Video
Sound that belongs to the room, not to the equipment.
Music where you want it, when you want it. From discreet architectural speakers to outdoor entertainment and dedicated listening spaces, we design audio systems that deliver exceptional sound without competing with the architecture.
The brief
Music everywhere it should be, from speakers you were never meant to notice.
Serving
Atlanta, the metro suburbs, and North Georgia. Most often during new construction or a remodel.
Designed alongside
Most asked
Overview
Distributed Audio Video
Most homes end up with music in the wrong places, a portable speaker on a counter, a soundbar working far too hard, one room too loud and the next silent.
Whole-home audio solves this architecturally. Speakers are selected and placed for each room’s geometry and finishes, then concealed: flush ceiling drivers with trimless bezels, in-wall models behind fabric, or fully invisible drivers plastered into the wall so there is nothing to see at all.
Every room gets its own source and its own level. The kitchen can have music while the study stays quiet, and the whole house can follow you outside when the evening moves to the terrace.
How it changes the day
What this actually feels like to live with.
Music that follows the evening
Start in the kitchen, move to the dining room, finish on the terrace, the same music, at the right level in each space, without carrying anything.
Rooms that stay quiet
Zoning means the study, the nursery, and the guest suite are not conscripted into somebody else’s playlist.
Nothing on the shelf
No portable speakers charging on a counter, no black boxes competing with the joinery. In the best installations there is nothing visible at all.
Serious listening where it matters
Where a client is genuinely a listener, we design a proper two-channel system for that room and integrate it, rather than treating every space the same.
Design considerations
What we’re thinking about while you’re thinking about the house.
These are the decisions that determine whether the finished result feels deliberate or approximate, and most of them are made long before installation.
- 01
Placement is acoustics, not symmetry
Ceiling speakers centered to look tidy on a reflected ceiling plan often sound wrong. We place for listening positions and room geometry, then work with the designer to keep the ceiling composed.
- 02
Aimed, not just placed
Sometimes the ceiling will not let a speaker sit where it should. Speakers with aimable drivers let us place them where the architecture allows and direct the sound toward where people actually sit.
- 03
Hard rooms need different answers
Stone, glass, and plaster are unforgiving. Speaker selection, angling, and equalisation all change in a hard room, and pretending otherwise produces a bright, fatiguing result.
- 04
Invisible speakers have real trade-offs
Plaster-over invisible drivers are extraordinary in the right application and the wrong choice in others. We are direct about where they excel and where a trimless in-ceiling speaker will serve you better.
- 05
Outdoor audio is a different discipline
Open air offers no boundaries to reinforce sound. Landscape systems use buried subwoofers and distributed satellites so coverage is even and the volume never has to be antisocial.
What clients ask for
The brief, in their words.
- Music in every space that should have it, and none that should not
- Speakers that disappear into ceilings and walls
- Independent control room by room
- One system for streaming services, vinyl, and television audio
- Any source on any screen, with the equipment out of sight
- Even, natural sound outdoors as well as in
Questions
What people ask us.
What is a whole-home audio system?
It is a distributed system that delivers independent audio to multiple zones throughout a house from centralised, concealed equipment. Each room can play its own source at its own volume, or every room can share the same music, controlled from a keypad, an app, or a touchpanel.
Are invisible speakers as good as visible ones?
Modern invisible speakers are genuinely impressive and, in the right rooms, indistinguishable from good in-ceiling models for background and general listening. They are not the right answer everywhere, for critical listening or high-output applications we will usually recommend a high-performance in-ceiling or in-wall speaker instead, and we will tell you which is which.
Can whole-home audio work with Sonos or streaming services?
Yes. Streaming platforms and popular music services integrate directly, so the system your family already knows how to use simply plays through architectural speakers instead of portable ones, and appears alongside the rest of your home’s controls.
Can video be shared to every television in the house?
Yes. Sources live together in the equipment rack, and 4K HDR video is distributed over the home network to every display. Any television can watch any source, and there are no boxes under the screens.
Can this be retrofitted into an existing home?
Frequently. Retrofit speakers and wireless amplification make it possible to add zones to a finished home with modest disruption. How far it can go depends on construction and access, which we assess during the consultation.
Designed alongside
Related solutions
Begin
Let’s talk about distributed audio video.
Bring us your plans, your renovation, or just the thing that isn’t working. We’ll tell you what’s possible and what we’d do first.