A little of both. I have 11 ft ceilings in a roughly 20x20 great room with 6.5 inchs. The outdoor ceilings with the 8 inch was more like 14 feet ceilings and then there is more background noise outside - and it is nice to help transmit even further since I haven't put deck or patio speakers in yet. I bet 12 feet is roughly the switch over in common practice to 8 inch. There are no absolutes and size is certainly not all that matters. But an 8 inch on 9 foot ceilings would be out of place. It is a bit like recessed cans - 6 inch on 8 foot ceilings is a bit big. I absolutely think you will be fine with 6.5 inch in your great room. You can always go bigger but going smaller would be a mess. You might think that 8 inch speakers are visuallly intrusive.

Cat5e will work fine for HDMI, and indeed, probably for anything you'd need in your house. That said, the primary expense in cabling is the labor, not the materials, so running Cat6 is generally not dramatically more expensive. I personally prefer to run Cat6 for future proofing, unless the cost is dramatically different. Cat6 is somewhat harder to work with and terminate properly than Cat5e is, so you'd want to make sure your installers are capable of doing it correctly. My multi-room TV solution is not the best you can do, but it works for us. I have coax and network run to each room with a TV, and a Tivo there. That allows me to watch live TV, and I can also watch recordings from any other Tivo in the house, as well as Netflix, Amazon Video on Demand, Hulu etc. I also have a file server that has some saved video and audio content on it. The Tivos can play that over the network from any room. And I have a blu-ray player in each room for playing discs. It's not what some would call a "whole house" solution, but it works really well for us. Yes, it would be more convenient to not have to put a disc in every time we want to watch a blu-ray. But the alternatives for that are either a pain or expensive (or both). The coolest way to go is something like Kaleidescape, which gives you a true whole-house movie library with no discs. But it's insanely expensive. You can rip your DVDs, but it's time consuming and most of the solutions for playing them back aren't that great in my opinion, especially if you have non-technical people using it (which is true for most of us, and even those of us who are technical don't necessarily want a challenge when we're kicking back to watch a movie). You could have a central disc player and distribute the video, but then that leaves you having to go there to put in the discs, and the only real benefit is that it saves you the cost of a player in each room. Blu-ray players are cheap. There are tons of things you can do, but I think a lot of it is overkill for most people. A Tivo and a disk player in each room with cable and network is a good way to go. Or even skip the disc player if you don't watch many discs.

I want to do at least 6 zones. Two or three of those will have an extra set of speakers connected. I do want individual volume control in each zone but don't "need" different sources/zones. I won't bother with the theater room setup being part of this--it'll be separate, in the basement (already have that system from the previous house, bought 2 yrs ago). I just want access to CDs, mp3s, internet radio, radio, etc. David_Cary on the building house forum gave me some good ideas already. I've been considering the mid-level system from hometheaterdirect.com. David has it in his house and seems pleased with it, and I've read all the reviews. We aren't audiophiles in our house--we just want to listen to music. Anything will be an improvement over our last house where we used an intercom for radio in each room (all it was wired for). I don't want to spend a fortune in equipment--maybe 2000-2500 max, total (speakers included). I also need to have the wires run, so that will be an expense as well. We were going to try and do it ourselves, but the timing isn't good for my husband and his business traveling, so we'll have to hire that out (don't want to hold up construction!). I just need to know what I should have them do, then we'll buy the equipment and do the installing of components ourselves. The more I know upfront, the less they'll be able to talk me into, or out-of....know what I mean? Thanks! Tracey

Most likely the people you've talked to, like myself, can't stand the thought of a halfassed system. You're installing two speakers in each of eight rooms. That's sixteen speakers. But you're whining about two more? Geez. WAAH. At least let them run the wires and leave some blank cover plates where the surround speakers SHOULD (yes, I said should, not could. Should. Installing a large fancy system but intentionally crippling it is a dumb idea.) be so that a future homeowner with more sense can have them hooked up... Surround (at least prologic, the very very very basic version) works well for most music too, btw. Not sure about that there kumquat computer of yours... "Simple". Yes, you can have simple, but I can add basic surround sound to your "simple" system for the cost of two speakers and a transformer. Less if, as I predict, you've already purchased a receiver that has a "true" surround sound decoder built-in. My cost to add surround to your simple system would be far less than sixteen speakers. Of course, if you're really looking for cheap, find a school building being torn down or remodeled, that was, built in the 70s or early 80s, and salvage their old Dukane paging system. Your music will sound like a phone receiver duct-taped to a megaphone, but it'll be simple, and you'll be rid of that pesky surround sound you're so deeply opposed to. You'll also have a really nifty PRIVACY button so your mac can't listen to you swearing back at it about the inferior noise you've chosen to subject yourself to.