My first consideration on reading this is, what really are your looking to get from this? Realistically? Because the room is big, open to another noisy space, and listening is secondary at best. A conventional stereo setup aimed to sound good near the table sounds difficult if not impossible. But then why under the other circumstances would you even try? The answer to me seems to be to face the reality this is gonna be background for the most part anyway.
Your in-wall idea is the obvious solution. Obviously also you don’t really care for it. Who does? It sucks. But it is in this situation eminently practical.
My outside the box option for your consideration is (if you can find appropriate space in this big room): Set yourself up with a very simple sweet little near-field listening system. Tube integrated, CDP, bookshelfs on stands. Done. Well, quality power cords, interconnects, speaker cable- always need all of that. Done.
Even way out of the sweet spot background listening playing pool it’ll probably sound better than the in-wall, and for sure will look a lot better. Go for major style points- simple, elegant, compact. If you can set it up with a chair in a nice near field location then the size and noise of the room will be a lot less of a factor, and turn being off in a corner into a feature not a bug. Fully tweak it out with nice yet budget wire, etc, I did one exactly like this grand total $1200 and it was really fun enjoyable listening.
Your in-wall idea is the obvious solution. Obviously also you don’t really care for it. Who does? It sucks. But it is in this situation eminently practical.
My outside the box option for your consideration is (if you can find appropriate space in this big room): Set yourself up with a very simple sweet little near-field listening system. Tube integrated, CDP, bookshelfs on stands. Done. Well, quality power cords, interconnects, speaker cable- always need all of that. Done.
Even way out of the sweet spot background listening playing pool it’ll probably sound better than the in-wall, and for sure will look a lot better. Go for major style points- simple, elegant, compact. If you can set it up with a chair in a nice near field location then the size and noise of the room will be a lot less of a factor, and turn being off in a corner into a feature not a bug. Fully tweak it out with nice yet budget wire, etc, I did one exactly like this grand total $1200 and it was really fun enjoyable listening.