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Monoprice in-wall, in-ceiling speakers - Page 41

post #1201 of 1657
8/22/11 at 10:41am
Ok, I have read through the entire post and have decided to go with the 7604 for my front speakers and center channel for my 7.1. But I am still trying to find the best solution for my side and rear speakers. Should I do 4101 or just two more sets of the 7604. Or can someone else recommend a different one.
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post #1202 of 1657
8/24/11 at 2:05pm
The 7604 sound better than my rears that I bought... plus the microflange looks better... I wouldn't be against going with them all the way around.
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post #1203 of 1657
8/24/11 at 7:38pm
Instead of painting them (I'm not talking about the flange, that can be painted easier), wouldn't it be easier to just get some speaker fabric and wrap the plastic mesh with it? I'd rather have charcoal/black than the white and I'm really not a fan of painting them the color of the wall. I think that looks awful.

Maybe someday monoprice will sell some black ones.

Anyway, where can I get speaker cloth? I could just get some really old broken speakers off of craiglist and re-use the fabric.

So ... why even both painting?
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post #1204 of 1657
8/25/11 at 5:44am
google "black grill cloth". I know CSS sells it in Canada...
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post #1205 of 1657
8/26/11 at 9:01am
OK, crazy rookie question. I'm gutted to the studs, so I could plan to center the TV over a stud if I could figure out a way to utilize the extra (sold in pairs) MP 7604 for my center channel.

In other words, wire BOTH speakers to act as the center channel speaker, without blowing up my Onkyo 609 amp. Some kind of parallel - series wiring? Is this even feasible? Think it would sound better than a single 7604 speaker? I notice that some of the most expensive center channel speakers have multiple drivers. I will use another pair of 7604's for the L-R speakers as well

I'm planning on building an architectural "surround" to frame the TV and to hide as much as possible the LCR speakers by integrating them into the millwork. Yup, its WAF'y...

Your thoughts are appreciated!
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post #1206 of 1657
8/26/11 at 9:25am
Quote:
Originally Posted by JIMC_ND View Post

OK, crazy rookie question. I'm gutted to the studs, so I could plan to center the TV over a stud if I could figure out a way to utilize the extra (sold in pairs) MP 7604 for my center channel.

In other words, wire BOTH speakers to act as the center channel speaker, without blowing up my Onkyo 609 amp. Some kind of parallel - series wiring? Is this even feasible? Think it would sound better than a single 7604 speaker? I notice that some of the most expensive center channel speakers have multiple drivers. I will use another pair of 7604's for the L-R speakers as well

I'm planning on building an architectural "surround" to frame the TV and to hide as much as possible the LCR speakers by integrating them into the millwork. Yup, its WAF'y...

Your thoughts are appreciated!

I was planning the exact same thing, but abandoned the idea, based on what I read online from multiple sources. You could run the speakers in parallel, and the impedance would drop to 4Ohms, which was fine for my receiver.

The problem is that you have 2 speakers side by side outputting exactly the same signal. The woofers aren't a problem, but the tweeters are. Note that most center speakers have 2 woofers but only one tweeter. Having 2 7604's and therefore 2 tweeters will set up a noticeable interference pattern, making the center channel hard to hear at the interference points of the room (think 2 pebbles dropped into a pond). No heads will explode, but it just won't sound as good. Better off finding someone to buy your extra speaker (like I did, by asking in this thread)
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post #1207 of 1657
8/26/11 at 9:48am
What have people used to paint your in-wall speakers? I don't think that rolling or brushing is a good plan, even if the paint is applied in thin coats. I'm thinking of using a Preval disposable sprayer:
http://www.preval.com/

They're only about $5 each at the auto parts store, and seem like a good choice (since I don't have an airbrush or HLVP paint sprayer readily available.

I was thinking of "mounting" the speakers in cardboard for painting on a dropcloth, so the over-spray doesn't get on the wall, or on the driver part of the speaker. I suppose I could mount the speakers in the already-painted wall and brush paint the frame, while spraying the grills on a dropcloth.

Thoughts?
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post #1208 of 1657
8/26/11 at 2:55pm
Wow awesome thread guys! I'm loving the monoprice speakers after looking around for quality speakers at a reasonable price.
Everyone seems to like the 7604 over the 6816's for RCL speakers.
I have a 20 foot ceiling and my room is 15 feet wide and 25 feet long.
My reciever is an Onkyo TX-SR705 7.1 100W per channel. And I have a 10' subwoofer.
My question is would the 6816's sound better in my bigger room maybe? and which 4 surround speakers sound I get? I was thinking 4 of the 4929's so I can angle the woofer to my sweet spot or 4 7605's???

Thanks
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post #1209 of 1657
8/26/11 at 5:28pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by mailinator View Post
What have people used to paint your in-wall speakers? I don't think that rolling or brushing is a good plan, even if the paint is applied in thin coats. I'm thinking of using a Preval disposable sprayer:
http://www.preval.com/

They're only about $5 each at the auto parts store, and seem like a good choice (since I don't have an airbrush or HLVP paint sprayer readily available.

I was thinking of "mounting" the speakers in cardboard for painting on a dropcloth, so the over-spray doesn't get on the wall, or on the driver part of the speaker. I suppose I could mount the speakers in the already-painted wall and brush paint the frame, while spraying the grills on a dropcloth.

Thoughts?
First off, lf using the monoprice speakers, they come with their own paint mask.
I did not do this, I taped off the inside perimeter of the speaker and then rolled on the same paint colour as the wall using a wiz.



Painted the grills with spray paint matching the wall. I used black, so this was real easy. You can use the wiz to paint the grills but you must be very careful and use very light coats. Getting good paint coverage is extremely hard this way. Better to use some type of spray bomb.
LL
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post #1210 of 1657
8/26/11 at 10:27pm
In the basement theatre, we used the same spray-gun that was utiised to paint the 120" DIY screen (a slight neutral grey shade, but looks quite white to the naked eye). The grilles were painted the dark burgandy colour to match the wall, which looks good during lighted periods, but fades well to near-black when lights go down. In the attached pic there are no less than 10 Monoprice in-wall speakers around the screen.
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post #1211 of 1657
8/27/11 at 5:33am
Quote:
Originally Posted by workhurts View Post

Instead of painting them (I'm not talking about the flange, that can be painted easier), wouldn't it be easier to just get some speaker fabric and wrap the plastic mesh with it? I'd rather have charcoal/black than the white and I'm really not a fan of painting them the color of the wall. I think that looks awful.

Maybe someday monoprice will sell some black ones.

Anyway, where can I get speaker cloth? I could just get some really old broken speakers off of craiglist and re-use the fabric.

So ... why even both painting?

Joanne fabrics has speaker cloth... pretty cheap
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post #1212 of 1657
8/27/11 at 5:38am
I think that you could use two speakers for the center channel, keep them close together and if the tweeters had issues then simply unhook one of them behind the speaker...
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post #1213 of 1657
8/27/11 at 2:42pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by mailinator View Post

What have people used to paint your in-wall speakers? I don't think that rolling or brushing is a good plan, even if the paint is applied in thin coats. I'm thinking of using a Preval disposable sprayer.

They're only about $5 each at the auto parts store, and seem like a good choice (since I don't have an airbrush or HLVP paint sprayer readily available.

I got better results spraying the grills using a Preval (purchased at Home Depot). Rustoleum and Krylon aerosol cans seemed to operate at too high pressure.
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post #1214 of 1657
8/28/11 at 4:39pm
I'm using 7604's for L C R, with the monoprice in wall sub as a bridge for the lower frequencies, all in the front wall. (I have an F12 sub in The back of the room for true LFE)

My question is what to set the crossovers in the 7604s to.... 0, -3db, -6db. I'm guessing that I should set -6, since I have the "bridge" sub in front to fill in the gap. Am I thinking this correctly? I don't want the 7604s to sound shallow by setting it too low, though.
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post #1215 of 1657
8/28/11 at 5:05pm
Wow fitbrit! What a gorgeous theater! I love the colors, and the rear facing lights in the ceiling looks great in light-on environment!
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post #1216 of 1657
8/29/11 at 9:12pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Skidout67 View Post

Wow fitbrit! What a gorgeous theater! I love the colors, and the rear facing lights in the ceiling looks great in light-on environment!

Thanks! I spent a long time designing and modifying the design for this room. There are a couple of things I'd do differently if I could, including a larger screen.

The speakers (labeled below each one in the new pic attached)
I'm using an Onkyo TX-NR5007 receiver. This is a 9.2 receiver that allows 11 channels to be hooked up. Only 9 are active at any one time - a traditional 7.1 setup with either high or wide speakers, which you can switch between for different material. Normally the wide configuration sounds great, but action movies benefit from the high speakers for overhead effects like planes and helicopters weather etc.

1) The left and right speakers are the 8" 3-way 6816s.
I love these speakers - possibly the best bang for buck ever. I'm using another two pairs as surround and surround back speakers.

2) The "wide" speakers are the micro-flanged 8-Ohm centre channel 6317s in a vertical orientation.
I needed something quite narrow here, and it was before I was aware of the 7604s that are so popular in this thread of late.

3) The "high" speakers are the 8" 2-way 4101s.
I already have 6 of these in the dining room (before the 6816s were available). I thought they were outstanding value.

4) The centre "speaker" is actually four micro-flanged 8-Ohm centre channel 6317s.
Two are above the screen and two below. They're wired in series-parallel to provide a single 8 Ohm load to the receiver. I took a gamble with how this was going to turn out and it actually worked beautifully! With four of these the voices in videos aren't anaemic. Nor does dialogue appear to come from below or above the screen as in the case of a single speaker placed above or below a large screen like this 120". Voices seem to come from about where talking heads usually appear on screen - just a little higher than halfway up the picture.

I couldn't be happier with the way the room sounds. All my guest are blown away by the sound quality, and then once more when I tell them the total cost of the 14 speakers and two subs. The savings allowed me to get platforms built and have buttkickers/bass shakers added to each seat, which adds to the overall feel of movies on this room. The fact that there is a ton of sonopan in the walls and ceilings probably helps, as does the special foam floor tiles we installed.

I have a ton more pictures, including the surrounds and rear surrounds if anyone's interested. I'll post a couple more anyway. Apologies in advance for the crappy iPhone 3G pics.

Also a couple of pics of the theatre in action, one with ambient light on so you can see the size of the screen relative to the floor-ceiling distance. The speakers are hardly if at all visible, and don't distract from the screen content.
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post #1217 of 1657
8/29/11 at 9:44pm
Some more pics, including:

The cut-outs, awaiting the speakers.

The speakers before the grilles were painted.

Close-up of the 'upper' centre channel speakers.

Parallel to wall view of right and wide right speakers, as well as finished in-wall A/V component cabinet.
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post #1218 of 1657
8/29/11 at 10:01pm
More pics:

Surround and surround back speakers, also showing the inflatable seats, projector and 23" 1080p touchscreen, which mirrors the projector; it's used when the room is used for music only and the projector isn't on.

The front wall speakers, sans grilles.

I forgot to mention that the entire room converts back and forth from a home gym to home theatre in about 15 minutes. Seats can be deflated and the platforms moved away, leaving a 16ftx15ft area to exercise in, or for my toddler to run around in. The double doored storage room behind the seats contains all my equipment (or will, when everything is finally finished).
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post #1219 of 1657
8/30/11 at 5:05am
I read all the thread. Very informative.

I want to buy 23 pairs of monoprice speakers for my new built home. It will be a 12 rooms multizone system driven with Crestron Adagio (AADS+AEE, 45w@8ohm and 60w@6ohm per channel x 12 channels) for music listening in the different rooms. I'll also have 2 home theaters 7.1 with 2 Pioneer 1021K receiver (90w/channel @8ohm) with 2 others zones using the zone 2 output from this receiver. I'll control al this hardware with an iphone. I'll use an active subwoofer for each home theater.

After hours of reading, I had these conclusions/questions for monoprice speakers :

1) L-C-R Home theaters : definitely 7604 for excellent mid and high
2) Surrounds home theaters : 7604/7605 vs 4104 vs 4929 for in ceiling ? what is the difference especially between 4104 properly oriented and 4929 properly oriented to the listening area ? Any disadvantage to use 7604 for surrounds (I guess power delivered from receiver would be the limiting factor) ?
3) Multi zones rooms : 4104 vs 7604/7605 ? What is the difference in bass response between these since I won't have a subwoofer in each room ... ? Any lack of wattage from my 45w@8ohm-60w@6ohm with 7604/7605 ? Can I place 7604 in ceiling ?
4) Power rooms (driven by zone 2 Pioneer receiver; mainly 2 outdoor zones) : 4101 vs 4104 ? Would it be a good idea to install 2 pairs in parallel for each of these power zones ? I guess I'll have lack of bass without a subwoofer for these zones.

I know this is a quite complex post. But if you feel to answer some part of my questions, I would be very interested in your experience.

Thank you,
Alexandre Cadrin
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post #1220 of 1657
8/30/11 at 9:50am
Hey Guys, great thread. I am currently looking at possibly getting some of these as my rear speakers for now. I am building my basement home theatre. I currently have as my front stage Paradigm Studio series 60, 590 and sub 12. For rears i am going cheaper for now with the intent to later on upgrade to whichever matching rear speakers.

Anyways, my question is, which rears would sound better given my setup? I was looking between the 6816 or the 7604. They would be used for majority movies and tv watching. I would be doing 7.1 setup. I think i have my mind made up on 6th and 7th channel with the 4929 as i would like to angle the SB speakers towards the listening position.

Any help or recommendations would be awesome.

Thanks!
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post #1221 of 1657
8/30/11 at 11:07am
Quote:
Originally Posted by fitbrit View Post

More pics:

Surround and surround back speakers, also showing the inflatable seats, projector and 23" 1080p touchscreen, which mirrors the projector; it's used when the room is used for music only and the projector isn't on.

The front wall speakers, sans grilles.

I forgot to mention that the entire room converts back and forth from a home gym to home theatre in about 15 minutes. Seats can be deflated and the platforms moved away, leaving a 16ftx15ft area to exercise in, or for my toddler to run around in. The double doored storage room behind the seats contains all my equipment (or will, when everything is finally finished).

Where did you get those seats from?
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post #1222 of 1657
8/30/11 at 12:36pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by cstmstyle View Post

Where did you get those seats from?

The beauty of these, other than their comfort, is their price! You can get them from K-Mart or Amazon or e-Bay. I had them shipped to my mailbox in Champlain, New York, which is 3 minutes' drive form the Canadian border (I'm in Montreal). For the price of one decent beanbag, I got the whole set, seating 6-7 people.

I got the sofa from e-Bay, but the price at Amazon is currently an amazing deal (I paid close to the $50 original price).

I've since got two more of the loungers from K-Mart, to give me more flexibility of configuration, and also as spares in case any of the original four are damaged. I don't need to set up more seats than necessary for movie nights this way.


The disadvantage of these comfortable seats is that getting up from them can be a challenge, and you have to remove your drink from the cup holder when you sit down or get up to avoid spills.
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post #1223 of 1657
8/31/11 at 2:55pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by 04rex View Post
Hey Guys, great thread. I am currently looking at possibly getting some of these as my rear speakers for now. I am building my basement home theatre. I currently have as my front stage Paradigm Studio series 60, 590 and sub 12. For rears i am going cheaper for now with the intent to later on upgrade to whichever matching rear speakers.

Anyways, my question is, which rears would sound better given my setup? I was looking between the 6816 or the 7604. They would be used for majority movies and tv watching. I would be doing 7.1 setup. I think i have my mind made up on 6th and 7th channel with the 4929 as i would like to angle the SB speakers towards the listening position.

Any help or recommendations would be awesome.

Thanks!

I went with the 6816s because of their power handling, and I'm not disappointed at all. I didn't want to be changing in-wall speakers (upgrading at a later date), so I went
with the 6816s all around the first time, despite the extra cost. I wanted all of the non-centre, high or wide speakers to be equally powered so that I could have music playing in all-channel stereo mode during parties.
I've never heard the 7604s nor done a comparison; all I can say is that I'm blown away by the 6816s and I find it hard to imagine better sound for a similar cost. If the 7604s can do that...well, I guess Monoprice has stopped surprising me by now, so it could be true!
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post #1224 of 1657
9/4/11 at 3:17pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by fitbrit View Post
In the basement theatre, we used the same spray-gun that was utiised to paint the 120" DIY screen (a slight neutral grey shade, but looks quite white to the naked eye). The grilles were painted the dark burgandy colour to match the wall, which looks good during lighted periods, but fades well to near-black when lights go down. In the attached pic there are no less than 10 Monoprice in-wall speakers around the screen.
Amazing work! What brand/model spray gun did you use to paint the grills?
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post #1225 of 1657
9/4/11 at 3:27pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by fitbrit View Post
I went with the 6816s because of their power handling, and I'm not disappointed at all. I didn't want to be changing in-wall speakers (upgrading at a later date), so I went
with the 6816s all around the first time, despite the extra cost. I wanted all of the non-centre, high or wide speakers to be equally powered so that I could have music playing in all-channel stereo mode during parties.
I've never heard the 7604s nor done a comparison; all I can say is that I'm blown away by the 6816s and I find it hard to imagine better sound for a similar cost. If the 7604s can do that...well, I guess Monoprice has stopped surprising me by now, so it could be true!
Hey fitbrit, you mentioned that you own the 6818's and also have the 4101's (8" 2-way) in your dining room? Can you please tell us how they compare? Do you think the 6818's are worth 3x the cost?
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post #1226 of 1657
9/4/11 at 4:23pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by flight23 View Post

So I feel it is my duty to warn people not to buy these speakers. I fell into the trap created by all the great reviews on this thread, but since I need to buy 13 pairs of in-ceiling speakers for my distributed audio system I decided to buy 4 different pairs of speakers first, then decide between them for the rest.

I bought the following:
Monoprice 8" in-ceiling ($56 shipped)
AudioSource 8" AS8C ($75 shipped)
Phoenix Gold 8" AS8C ($85 shipped)
Polk Audio RC80i 8" ($250 retail, I got lucky and got them for $134 shipped)

I received the Monoprice ones first, and hooked them up to my Denon AVR-2808CI receiver. I tweaked all of the settings to my taste and let the speakers play for 24-48 hours before listening to them. Before getting any of the other speakers I felt like they did a decent, albeit not spectacular job. They have a good soundstage, but the vocals are very muddled compared to all of the other speakers. The bass is a bit flat and doesnt resonate the way I tend to like.

The Phoenix Gold speakers were up next. These were much clearer, but had even less bass. These are definitely what people mean when they refer to speakers as being "bright". Overall I didnt like these very much, but I would probably still prefer them over the Monoprice because of the clarity issue with the Monoprice ones.

The AudioSource speakers were actually very impressive. The match the clarity of the Phoenix Gold speakers but tone down the brightness a bit and add a little bit of punch in the low end. Overall these are definitely the best bang for the buck out of the four.

The Polk RC80i were a clear winner, but they should be considering basically everyone on the web sells them for $250 per pair. The clarity was by far the best, soundstage was better, and they had the most bass.

So, as the saying goes, you get what you pay for. That being said, however, for most people I dont think the difference between the Audiosource and the Polks would be worth $180 extra per pair. At the price I got the Polks ($134/pair) it really makes it a tough call. I decided to get 5 total pairs of the Polks (2 in kitchen, 2 in basement, 1 in master bath) and use Audiosource for the other lesser used areas to save some money.

For surround speakers I think all of them are servicable, but given that the Audiosource speakers are only $20/pair more I dont think there is any reason to consider the Monoprice ones unless you are really strapped for cash.

Id really like to test out more speakers (this is fun), but cant really afford to keep buying random speakers. Other things I considered were the Cambridge Soundworks 6.5" in-ceilings and I looked at every 8" speaker on Amazon and picked the ones that seemed to have the best specs under $150/pair.

Thanks for the good comparison review. But, aren't most people going to add a 12" sub to their setups? I have Polk 6.5 x 4 right now and there's no way they can deliver bass by themselves.
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post #1227 of 1657
9/4/11 at 4:54pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by funkmasterta View Post

Amazing work! What brand/model spray gun did you use to paint the grills?

Thanks! It was my design, but all the work was done by my excellent contractor, JP.
I have a bunch of people coming in an hour for a Movie night. I'll answer some of these questions tonight if it's not too late when they leave.
Joe
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post #1228 of 1657
9/4/11 at 10:31pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by funkmasterta View Post

Amazing work! What brand/model spray gun did you use to paint the grills?

In the DIY screen section, this gun is highly recommended by MississippiMan, one of the most helpful people on AVSForum. It's what I got to paint the screen, and my contractor said it did a great job with a thinned out paint for the grilles. In the dining room, he grilles were painted by hand (dabbed on with a paintbrush), and the clogged holes painstakingly fixed with a straightened out paper clip. The gun is better.
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post #1229 of 1657
9/4/11 at 10:45pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by funkmasterta View Post

Hey fitbrit, you mentioned that you own the 6818's and also have the 4101's (8" 2-way) in your dining room? Can you please tell us how they compare? Do you think the 6818's are worth 3x the cost?

When I got the 4101s the 6816s were not available. My contractor put them in and we really liked the sound they produced, especially after a couple of weeks. The bass was surprisingly good, but definitely improved on with a standalone sub.
The 6816s outclass the 4101s with bass, and do have a really nice mid-range, which is especially noticeable in music that's heavy on the vocals/accoustic guitar.

Would I say they're worth just over twice as much ($37 compared to $86)?

Well, I didn't think of it that way. I wanted my HT to shine at 80%-90% of the experience of a top-class home theatre at only 20% of the cost or less. Therefore, I went with best speakers (from the specs) that Monoprice sold, already being pleased with my three pairs of 4101s. I thought I'd get 4101s for the surrounds too, but in the end I decided not to cheap out and get the 6816s all around. I'm glad I did, especially for all channel stereo music to fill the room during parties.


So do I think my three pairs of 6816s were worth the price I paid? Hell yes! Worth double the cost of the 4101s? Still yes! Worth three times as much? Maybe. But again, I tried not to compare, but rather think in absolute terms what I was getting for the money, and the application; the 6816s are driven at much higher decibel levels than the 4101s are usually, and for a longer period too.
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post #1230 of 1657
9/5/11 at 12:33pm
First off, this thread has been very helpful. I'm remodeling my home, so looking at this as an opportunity to put in-walls in throughout. As budget allows, I'll be adding Sonos 120's in a gear closet adjacent to the family room. Based on the discussion here, my plan right now is to opt for Monoprice 6816 as LCR, SL, SR and use Monoprice 4619 to complete my 7.1 setup. I'm going to keep my Definitive Technologies SuperCube as the subwoofer.

Since the other rooms are strictly for music, I was thinking that the Monoprice 4619's would be a good choice.

This was based upon my research here and other forums. If anyone has any recommendations or input, I'd love to hear it.

Also, for those who have wired a whole house to a gear closet, I'm wondering what other supplies I should order for my electrician. Anyone care to share a photo of how they have their gear setup? I've yet to meet the electrician, but hoping to provide him with a clear outline. You only get one shot at wiring when the house is completely exposed, so hoping to do it right.

Finally, in rooms where there are a pair of speakers, is there a preferred placement of the speakers? Same goes for my 7.1 speaker placement.

Thanks in advance.
LL
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