In-wall vs On-wall vs LCR box (<$1500)

Get yourself a nice Center Box and 2 nice towers or Bookshelves from the Same Mfg' Model/Line. I would not Go in Walls.. you have to spend A lot of Money to get good Quality.. If you Do I would look into Axioms, they have a Enclosed Box and also make On walls..they have a lot of options.. Once you GO in Wall you Cant go Back!! The WAF loves them!!! It took me 8 years of Fights and Pleading to get back in a Box for the Front Mains!!

I agree with flying freak. You have to spend big dollars to do in-walls right.

For your price I would go with bookshelf for LCR. They will project best sound stage for the money. I intially started with Bowers and Wilkins CM5 for LR and CM Center and it sounded reasonably good. I think they run about $750 per speaker at Best Buy. Unfortunately, my son poked a hole in the tweater and I was concerned that my dog (250 pound Mastif) would take out the other speaker). So I looked at in-wall and in-ceiling.

After I put in the rear in-ceiling speakers (B&W CCM 683) about $450 per speaker, my wife fell in love with the hidden in-ceiling look. I then opted for the much more expensive in-ceiling 818 for LCR. They run $800 per speaker. The sound quality is quite good, but the sound is projected downward to seating area. It is good for HT, but not so hot for two channel listening. Also, sound does not project well outside the room if the room happens to be adjacent to another open room.

At some point I am going to get rid of the in-ceiling LCR and go to in-wall. I have done lots of research and I think Triad appears to be fairly well respected on this forum. They have lots of different price points for both in-wall, on-wall and in-room. You should check out their site if you go this route. Note also that one of the challenges with in-wall is that it is difficult to place the center as it goes horizonal and will require additional construction costs to install unless you are good at that sort of thing.

Best bang for the buck will be bookshelf or floorstanders if your wife can handle the look.

In a perfect world, the husband's need are subjugated to the woman's needs and for the most part, for peace in the family, that's good counsel. But every once in a while, the husband must violate this counsel and in my opinion with all due respect for the wife's sensitivities on this issue, for the sake of the home theater itself, the husband has need to prevail on this issue.

Do with my above as you will for it's the sanctity of your home, not mine.



With that in mind, working with your wife on this matter, here's something to consider.

Yes. I know it's waaaaaaaaaay above your stated budget. The intent of the recommendation is to give you some ideas.

Here's a link to some more Klipsch architectural ideas.

Wishing you well with your efforts to make the both of you happy and your home theater happy with this project.

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Edited by BeeMan458 - 8/29/12 at 6:53pm

The Axiom VP100 comes in at 13.2' and would require no stud Mod! Now I have never Personally heard these, They get great Reviews are mad in Canada vs China!! They have Metal Cones wich are a Bright Sounding Speaker, I have had Infinity in walls and same Technology/Speaker.. They sounded good, But I prefer a Kevlar Cone as found in the B&W's
http://axiomaudio.com/vp100-inwall-center-channel.html#
Another option is the Niles there going for Cheap, Fully enclosed, what ever you get try to get Enclosed.. There some good speakers out there with GOod Pricing.. Even the Triads pop up ever y now and then..
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Niles-IW650FX-Stage-Front-FG01331-Wall-Enclosed-Home-Theater-Rear-Speakers-/150780572594?pt=Speakers_Subwoofers&hash=item231b38f3b2

The UIW RLS III is an in-wall done right. It uses an integral wooden enclosure, so from that aspect it is properly designed. In-walls have the advantage of being "infinite baffle" designs, which eliminates the issue of SBIR, (Speaker Boundary Interference Response), from the wall behind the speaker. You should listen to these speakers before you decide, but, in general, they are a "good" in-wall choice.

One other consideration... if you want a CC, there is no Definitive in-wall CC choice. You will end up with an unmatched CC. Definitive makes some smaller LCR in-walls, but they don't have integral enclosures. I would avoid them, just as I would avoid *any* unenclosed in-wall. You could always just use "phantom" center mode.

Craig

I have the UIW RLS II speakers and love them. They replaced some expensive floor standing speakers and sound even better to me for audio quality.

Honestly, if you have a stud finder you can install these yourself with no problem for left and right surround. Is the wall load bearing? If not it should not be hard to modify your wall for the center channel as the only real purpose of the studs is to hold the sheetrock to the wall. Reframing would not be hard. You would also need to pull speaker cable through the walls, but again, this is not rocket science and lots of DIY help in the theater forums here.

If this is too much for you then I think your option of going on wall would make sense. Speakerbar, for me, would be the last option if you value audio quality. While it will be a noticeable improvement over TV speakers, it is not going to replace a true three speaker main system.

You will most likely get better feedback in the soundbar forum:
http://www.avsforum.com/f/195/soundbars

My 2 cents. Deftech makes good stuff. Atlantic Technology and Triad would be a tier above. Also if the speaker is sitting on our mantle, you are going to need to aim the speaker down slightly towards the listening position, so keep that in consideration when buying (unless you have a really low mantle)

Ideally you want the tweeter at ear level, so ability to aim the tweeter and woofer is key since it could be sitting up well above ear level.

Golden Ears are good Speakers! I would take those over a 3 channel sound bar Any Day.. your gonna get better separation and they will have Bigger Drivers.. Sound Bar = Small Drivers!!

The one thing I have noticed about sound bars is that some of them have poor off-axis response (most likely due to the way the speaker is designed with multiple tweeters and woofers in a horizontal speaker). I would tend to go with the Golden Ear solution myself.