Monoprice in-wall, in-ceiling speakers - Page 13

No, not after the night club, but for the two rivers just south of you. The Comal and the Guadalupe Rivers, because they are Cool, not only in temperature but also in style

Justin,

Check out this article as it may help you understand some of the issues in-wall and in-ceiling speakers:
in-wall & in-ceiling speakers

Wish I had seen this post earlier, so that I could have recommended this earlier.

Hope this helps!

I currently have pre construction rings installed in the ceiling. The diameter of the rings are 9 1/2 inches. Monoprice says 9.8 cutout. Can the people who own these say that measurement is spot on? Is there a chance I can use the rings that I have in place?

intereted in the non angled 8" in ceiling

You might be able to use them, however chances are that they will be different enough where they will not work properly. If you can get into your attic and look at the brand of the rings, you could probably find the matching speakers of that brand. Otherwsie, you may consider getting a speaker that is slightly larger than the cutout so that you can simply cut a larger hole.

Would you please follow up on this thread once you get a chance to listen to them? My experience with inexpensive in-wall or in-ceiling speakers from various manufacturers has always been lots of distortion and very poor sound. Even the ones that looked like they were built well. Most would be fine for light background music but none could be cranked for a party. It would be interesting to know if decent speakers can be had at monoprice. Thanks.

That is a rediculously good article . I was about to say good find when i noticed the link in your signature. You even took the time to outline the various terms used to describe them! Very cool!

Add me to the list of people very happy with these speakers. I installed 6 pairs and 2 single-stereo ones into a large house, and they work really well for general whole-house music.

I wouldn't install for a HT or anything, but for whole-house music distribution, they're very good (and stack up against the $200/each speakers all the high-priced CI's want to use).

AbMagFab, keep in mind that monoprice is a relatively recent anomaly. I have been around in-wall/in-ceiling speakers for many years and $200 each or $400 a pair (MSRP) is typically what it takes (maybe not anymore) to get decent sound.

The price may be high but thats not the CI's fault. Things cost what they cost. If speakers sold thru monoprice sound as good or very close to $400 per pair speakers then great. That means more people will be able to enjoy music around their home and help the industry (and all of our favorite hobby) grow IMO.

It's not that recent... it's been at least a year, maybe longer. And there are similar ones from a bunch of other vendors (I'm guessing it's all the same source, whitelabeled).

My point is that now, the CI's really should be offering this, and most (all?) don't. In my experience, the CI's all still are trying to oversell hardware, and make money off the h/w, versus selling and adding value with their services.

I said fairly recent .. I was comparing it to the 15 years i have been a CI. So 14 of the last 15 years there wasnt a lower cost option that sounded good.

The company i work for deals specifically with the high end market. We would never suggest anything less than what we consider the best. Monoprice speakers will never be a line item on our invoice. That doesnt mean that Monoprice speakers are not good and are not a great option for DIY'ers or entry to mid level dealers/projects.

One could argue that the hardware we sell is overpriced.. one could argue that a kia is just as good as a lexus and one could argue that you or i are being paid to much by our employer or clients if your a business owner.

Overpriced is a relative term and an unfair one IMO. I prefer "does not fit the budget". While one person may have $2000.00 earmarked for their theater another person may have 2 million. A $2000.00 theater can be great but that doesnt mean that 2 million is crazy or overpriced. Whether its shoes, shirts, cars or CE products.. we all want the best bang for the buck.

The CI business model has changed a lot over the last few years. The old days.. System design was given away, wiring and installation were break even if you were lucky, configuration and programming were freebies and profit came from protected product lines with good margins. Now the CE products are coming down in cost.. to the point where there is ZERO profit on the sale of a plasma, sources like Blu-ray & apple TV etc.

Some CI's have adjusted the way they do business. We have begun to charge for our consultation time. We bill for the hours we waste dealing with other trades and the cable, sat and phone companies. We bill for system design, user interface creation & programming. Some CI's were ahead of the game years ago and some are still practicing the outdated business model of trying to squeeze profit from products that are cheaper at walmart than we can obtain them from our distributors.

None of this matters though. Things cost what they cost. If company A wants $50 for a banana.. then a company A banana is $50. That doesnt stop company B from selling that same banana for $2. This doesnt mean that company A should lower their price or offer cheaper bananas. I could really go for a banana right now .

If you hired me to install a system for you and you wanted monoprice speakers i would tell you why i think you should go with a product i am familiar with and trust. If you tell me you want to use monoprice speakers instead i would say... OK. You order them, i will install them and bill you for labor. I dont have a problem with customer supplied CE products so long as they will work. TV's with discretes for example .

Installation hardware, display mounts, cabling & control system are things that i wont budge on though. I have spent my fair share of wasted hours trying to make junk work. Its much better to work with products that i know will work every time.

A good CI is a system designer first and a retail/ installation company second. You wont get a rock solid system design from monoprice or the geek squad. You guys think to yourself "that CI is to expensive". The reason you guys think that way is because your not the typical client. Your @ AVS, you know the business, and to you.. $125 an hour labor to install speakers is crazy because you can do it yourself. Its not crazy for everyone else though.

Monoprice & internet sales in general are a great thing for everyone. It has and will continue to open up the market and the availability of cool toys to more people. But i dont think its fair to assume or expect CI firms to offer their products.

See, you're highlighting the failure of many/most CI's. You're looking at *budget* and thinking *price*. That's just improper, IMO.

If someone has a 2M buget, but it can be done for 500K - then do it for 500K. But most CI's will happily use the 2M. And that's a shame.

These speakers are the same. They sound just as good as a $200 CI speaker (sonance, etc.), for a fraction of the price. Is "sound" subjective? Sure. But for in-ceiling speakers for whole-house audio (not HT), the sound difference (if any) is negligible and irrelevant, and hardly worth the substantial increase in price (since most time you're looking at 10-20 pairs). But show me a CI that will recommend to a customer to go with the cheaper speakers because they're just as good - never!

Anyway, CI's are desparate for work now, partly because of the housing market, but mostly because they can't adjust to a value-driven model. They are all still in the budget-driven model, which isn't going to work long-term.

All IMO!

This sort of logic would have us all driving hyundai or kia. Would that be a bad thing? Maybe not but our entire business is based on want vs. need.

If a client came to me with $2 million dollars and wanted it spent i would help them do it.

Once, i uninstalled a brand new URC MX-850 & base station that was installed by security company and installed a Crestron CP2-E and TPMC-8X for a client. The MX-850 was programmed poorly and the client was not able to use it. I offered to reprogram the MX-850 so that it would work the way it should with single button macros & discretes. The client insisted on Crestron because she was familiar with it and knew that it did what she wanted it to do reliably, for years.

I could have made the MX-850 do the same thing but the client wanted Crestron.


I cant speake for every CI but i suggest brands that i know will work, brands that i know are supported when they fail and brands i know will last. If an HDMI cable comes with the directv receiver i use it vs. trying to sell monster cable. But.. if i need a 25' HDMI cable i am going to use a 'good' one that will cost more than something purchased at monoprice. This is because i know, from experience, there is a possibility i will have issues with a 25' HDMI cable so why gamble? $100 saved on the cable will cost me $2000.00+ dealing with HDMI related service issues.

Some of the product choices & costs involved are not purely based on sticker price. Monoprice can offer low priced products because they are not in the installation business. They dont have the same overhead.


Anyone who is truly desperate for work has spending issues. Might be time to stop having children and buying boats and $500 jeans etc. The housing market slow down has cost some CI's work just like it has cost some timber companies work. These things happen when economies are driven high via credit spending and the bottom drops out when lenders want their money back.

CI's sell toys and we all know you have to pay to play. The company i work for has a business model that works as long as we follow the 'rules'. If we started shaving money off of products and lowering labor rates or gambling with products that are priced lower on the web then the end result and over all quality suffers and eventually the business fails.

The market is ever changing for CI's and everyone else. Monoprice speakers and other lower cost DAV products are opening the market up to new customers and this is a good thing. These new customers will typically be DIY or the hybrid client that does half himself and has the other half done by a CI.

I doubt though, that any CI will actually offer monoprice speakers. Maybe.. some will allow or even suggest that the client order them and deal with shipping and service issues themselves. I am at the point now where i dont even want to provide TV's because one out of the box failure means im losing money on the sale. I would rather the client obtain the TV themselves so long as they choose one of the models i recommend (quality and ease of integration via control & number of inputs outputs).

There will always be customers who set aside a budget and want a CI to handle everything. There will always be customers that want to obtain some of the gear themselves & even pull cable and install speakers & TV's themselves but they call a CI to do part of the work. And there will always be the DIY guys who obtain the gear and do the research so they can do it themselves. There are CI firms that are flexible and they will work with anyone and there are CI firms that are not flexible. Its the same with any business. There is no right way to do business just like there is no right way to make a sandwich (bread on the outside people).


Same here, i appreciate your opinion and i enjoyed the discussion. I am interested in all things A/V and its good to understand where other people are coming from and why they think the way they do.

I guess we'll just disagree on this. If a client wants a BMW, then give him a BWM. If a client wants music around his house, then give it to him as cost-effectively as possible.

They're not really the same thing.

And rarely does a client know enough to say they want the $200 speaker versus the $20 speaker, especially when explained and demo'd to them. However if they do, then by all means give it to them.

However I have yet to meet anyone who won't say "yes" to saving money, all things being equal enough. And these speakers fall into this category, IMO.


And therein lies the issue, I think. Why not? Why not offer, with whatever caveats you want, a speaker that can save your customer 75-90% on h/w costs? Let them make the informed decision, versus making it for them.


Completely agree. However (IME) it seems like the CI's fall far more often into the Monster/Sonance/Belden/etc. camp, than into the doing what's best overall for the customer and looking to services, not product, to make their money.

If a client wants Crestron give him Crestron or give him a radio shack all in one? How is a BMW any different than the entry model KIA?

Performance? Reliability? Cool factor?

These terms can be applied to Crestron or Sonance when being compared to lower end products.

I dont see a difference so i think we will have to agree to disagree on this one.


A patient at a clinic rarely knows enough to say "can you get my antibiotics from Canada i hear they are just as good and quite a bit cheaper".

If a CI's business model works because he uses a specific brand of in-wall speaker why should he sell anything else? His choice was made for many reasons other than price just like a clinic's choice to use a specific brand of antibiotic was.



What about you allows you to say speakers are ok to save money on but if i want a BMW i will buy a BMW? I drive a dodge minivan but i have a Crestron system in my family room. The guy next door has a boat but doesnt have a DVD player.

Everyone has what they see value in and a budget in mind while shopping. There are guys out there right now browsing audiogon looking for a $1500 power cord for an amplifier they paid $1000 bucks for at ebay. There are guys at BMW looking at $100k cars when right down the street they could get a kia for $15k.

Most of my customers dont know the difference in a $20 speaker vs. a $200 speaker or $10000 speaker for that matter. What they do know is that there system performs above and beyond the way they imagined it would. Thats because i invest my time into providing a better experience vs. demoing multiple brands of speakers.

This is the difference in a Custom Installation company vs. monoprice or Bestbuy. Monoprice's business model is to move as many boxes as they can as fast as they can. A CI's business model is to provide a solution that exceeds the clients expectations. These are 2 very different beasts. The confusion is caused because at the end of the day.. its all just speakers to some. In a box on a shelf they might seem similar but in a real world application they are very different.


I wont and cant offer the customer speakers that save them 75-90% because i am not an online retailer who drop ships products directly from the factory in China. Thats not the business i am in. CI's provide solutions. Monoprice sells products.

However, as i said before.. the client is free to use whatever they want. So long as they obtain it and assume the risk for the product. If they want to use mono price speakers they can and the labor bill will be the same. If they want to use a Vizio display that doesnt have discretes they have to pay extra because it takes longer for me to make it work properly.

When someone gets sick they go to a doctor. When someone gets sued they get a lawyer. When someone wants distributed audio they call a CI.

No one trys to find operating room equipment online or trys to suggest that the lawyer does something differently to cut down on costs so why is it that you assume a CI should change the way he does business?

Would you rather that all doctors and lawyers run their business so that the invoice is as low as possible or would you rather them run their business in a way that will produce the best possible end result? I dont want them cutting corners just like i dont want my mechanic or landscaper cutting corners. Why would anyone want their CI to cut corners?

CE products have become easier to integrate and great websites like this and places like monoprice have opened up the market for more people to enjoy our toys. Thats great.. but why should it be a reason for a CI to change the way they do things?


I never push snake oil cables & green CD pens but i will suggest good speakers and amplifiers. We typically sell Triad and Focal in-wall/in-ceiling speakers. Sonance are good but IMO nothing compares to Triad and Focal. They blow away all other in-wall/in-ceiling speakers and do a good job competing with most floor standing and book shelf speakers. These speakers can act as background noise or be cranked for a crazy party.

As far as i am concerned, using a product i know will knock their socks off is doing whats best for the customer.


Edit... Adding.. I just thought about this while rereading.

We sold Fujitsu plasmas for as many years as they were available. We never sold any other brand, not even once. Fujitsu was one of the more expensive displays on the market. We never offered anything else because we knew we could integrate them (discrete IR and RS-232), we knew they had a quality product and we expereinced zero failure with them.

1 year after the death of Fujitsu we gave samsung a shot. 5 plasmas zero RS-232 jacks. No warning no reason.. samsung just decided to remove the RS-232 jacks. So now what? Now we waste hours (i would guess 20 total, thats about $2500) trying to figure out how to use the Ex-Link jack as an RS-232 port. Samsung support has no idea what were talking about "ex what" or "thats for a motorized mount". Finally we get it figured out and the POWER ON command doesnt work but everything else does once the Plasma is ON. So that means RS-232 is worthless and we have emitters hanging off the front of 5 very nice looking plasmas.

We no longer offer Samsung and we advise clients to stay away from them. This is a perfect example of why CI's push the products they do. While a samsung and a fujitsu might look the same sitting on a shelf or while browsing bestbuy.com.. they are 2 totally different beasts. One works and one can be properly integrated into a custom installation.

Great polite discussion guys. It's nice to see two people disagree on something without personal attacks. This could serve as a model for others.

Keep it going guys I'm really enjoying the reading and learning a ton!

But don't you even think it's wrong to charge for services? I mean, where do people get off on thinking they have a right to charge for services when what's best over all for the customer is what you think to teach them how to do it so they can teach an illegal alien in the Home Depot parking lot how to do it for them for $3 an hour? And selling Belden cable? Oh my, what a rip off! I mean, 1000' of Cat 5 cable for $130, the horror of it all. And shame on all those dumb broadcast engineers who cable huge facilities with Belden. Don't they know they could save 1 cent a foot if they go with Crazy Eddy's cable?

I think you might be confusing CI's with trunkslammers. Not only will they lower the price, they will destroy your home & disappear before they finish.




Me. I want the client to have something that will work properly. If they want to use products i didn't recommend they can, but they have to obtain them and assume responsibility for them. Including additional installation cost for poorly designed products & all service calls.

If i ever go into business selling speakers i will give monoprice a shot. I currently work as a Custom Installer. We sell Distrubuted Audio/Video, residential systems integration & home theater solutions.

Anyone interested in a pair of speakers should give http://www.monoprice.com a shot.

Adding.. Monoprice's business model uses lower pricing as a referral system. The company i work for uses customer satisfaction. We dont really have any competition. On earth anyway .

Bingo. You get it.

Oh, I agree, it's ridiculously simple . Monoprice is great and Triad is great, insofar as different strokes for different folks and/or rooms. But some people believe they have the magic ruler for deciding what is reasonable and what is unreasonable, not only for themselves but for everyone else. All the more hilarious when even products such as Belden are deemed to be overpriced. I'm glad I learned that though. Here all this time I thought I used Belden because it's an exceptionally reasonably priced product that performs to a very high standard, by a company whose products are engineering driven.

Belden *is* overpriced, specifically for all their custom cable. Their mini-5 proprietary "component" cable, all their proprietary connectors, their wrapped CX/C5 cable, etc. It's double or more what comparable cable costs.

And I think we're past the point of thinking one vendor's RG6QS or Cat5e/Cat6 is better than another...

Would you give me an example of "non-proprietary" cable?

Please be specific and provide a link to an example.

...oh, no they even have proprietary connectors! Please provide a link. And again, please provide a link to a non-proprietary connector.

Links to specific examples of each please.

There are a lot of absurd claims made by high-end cable manufacturers, Monster Cable is one of the worst, so here I will be careful to answer so as not to be misinterpreted. There are differences between many cables, whether those differences are meaningful and translate into real performance differences is not easily condensed into a few sentences. But in a nutshell, all RG6 and Cat5 is most definitely not the same. Conversely, that does not mean that RG6 that is $5 a foot and claims to possess magical properties is better either.

RG6 is a spec for size. and one can assume some minimal performance specs (but not always) why does belden sell many types of RG6? because there are many different applications. with many differnet needs. and as such... many different costs.

Which monoprice ceiling speakers have the best quality for general music?

For my critical listening rooms, I have martin logan electrostatic speakers, or ML in ceiling speakers.

I don't want to fork out the money to buy Martin Logan Helos 100's for all 20 ceiling speakers.

Everywhere else, I want to use something that is good enough and does the job well enough -- if I need to upgrade later, it's easy enough to discard the monoprice units and swap out one ceiling speaker for another.

If I am buying the monoprice, which ones sound the best?

Has anyone been able to compare different monoprice ceiling speakers against each other

AbMagFab,

You did not answer my questions quoted below. And I'll add one other. You made a statement that their cables are overpriced, especially their "custom" cables. What "custom" cables are you referring to?