re: New Home - Outfit My Home Audio

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The closet shares a wall, but the built-in is between them. There’s a 1’ difference in the ceiling height of closet and top of built-ins (11’ ceiling in closet, 10’ built-in, 12’ Room).

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The 1' of space makes it somewhat hard to use many off the shelf subs, however, you could probably make the SVS SB-1000 work. It is a 10" sealed sub that is only 13.5 inches tall. You could probably build a shelf in the closet so it sits at just the right height to have the driver clear the bottom edge of the built in. The Sub would be pushed up against the living room layer of drywall the either the OEM grille would need to be modified or a custom grille made. Given the location the grille wouldn't have to pass scrutiny from a foot away. You could probably attach the OEM grille as is (it comes in white or black) by attaching it to the wall and moving the sub back about an inch so the lower grill frame didn't interfere with cone movement. You could also use a metal mesh one that could be painted wall color if it isn't white.

The problem with a consumer in-ceiling sub is the decent ones start at about $500. By decent, I mean like the Polk and Klipsch and not a no-name. Sounds fine BUT they are all passive, meaning they have no amp included so even at the cheap end that is another $200. Be aware there are a lot of cheap in-wall/in-ceiling subs for sale BUT all I am aware of do not have any back box if you put that in a ceiling it will be operating like an infinite baffle speaker and will never work well.

The problem is you want a solution not many people pursue. The ones that do usually either don't give two craps about the quality of the sound and go super cheap or they do care and want an elegant concealed sound system and have a custom integrator come in and install higher end stuff like James or Triad. James

Most just accept a white or black cube and put it in a corner behind some furniture or the woodworkers build it into a nice piece of furniture. I respect what you want to do and it is doable even in your budget but it requires some thought and creativity.

To reanswer your question you need power near the proposed sub site (if you go with my DIY approach or a commercial one box "active" sub) as well as running RG6 from the sub location to the location of the sub output source (receiver, sound bar etc).

I will note there are some very small commercial subs that do a very good job for the size, I am talking down to 9" cubes. Some are in your budget and some slightly above but if you feel like you can hide one of these in the corner somewhere you have saved a lot of work. Be aware the sub does NOT need to be on the same end of the room as the main speakers. I'll leave a list of some if you care to google them.

Velodyne Microvee and Minivee
Definitive Technology Supercube 2000
Golden Ear Forcefield Three
NHT Super 10
Paradigm Cinema Sub

All of them are basically a one foot cube or smaller and most fit inside your budget.

I just wanted to say that if you want a WHOLE home audio system and have kids/wife. Just jump into Sonos. It’s super easy and really not all that expensive compared to creating a whole home audio system with receivers and speakers.

There was also a company that has the name "sun" in it that was compact but put out big sound. I'll look.

ETA it is Sunfire

Yep. I have a Klipsch RW-12D now that is a humongous beast but it puts out some power. That was a crazy deal when it was being sold. Got it for 229.

I have the Velodyne Minivee and it is very impressive for its size.