Hi,

First timer with media room setup.
Need help in deciding between inwall vs floor standing speakers

Two toddlers at home, and so wife says inwall, whereas I prefer tower speakers

My installer has suggested the following options. Please share your experiences with any of these speaker packages.

Inwall : KEF CI4100 QL
I am hoping that being THX certified- this is kind of comparable to floor standing ones.

Or,
Tower: Klipsch 8000F, Martin Logan 40i or KEF Q750

Please advise.

If you prefer towers, and your wife prefers in-walls, perhaps an on-wall type speaker would be a good compromise.

haha :-) I guess that might be the final result..

Check this thread for some ideas:


https://www.avsforum.com/forum/89-sp...endations.html

A THIRD option, which would be equally child-proof but provide much better performance than in-walls, would be WALL-MOUNTED bookshelf speakers. These will cost less than towers, but when paired with a strong subwoofer, sound equally or (more likely) better than towers alone. Subwoofers are fairly child-proof...if you want an extra measure of child-proofness for a sub, just get a downfiring one.

If you have tools and rudimentary skills, you can actually install on-wall bookshelves yourself and skip the substantial cost of paying to have your walls cut for in-walls. Two other huge advantages of wall-mounted bookshelves are, much easier to return the speakers if you don't like how they sound, and when you move you can easily take them with you instead of leaving them behind (unless you want to patch big holes in your walls).

A compromise with the wife would be to use wall-mounted bookshelves for the critical front 3 (which do 85-90% of the output) and in-walls for the surrounds.

Good compact wall-mounted bookshelves should run no more than $100-200 apiece. Examples:

• Ascend 200SE
• NHT SuperOne 2.1
• RSL CG23 (free return shipping on these)

A strong sub starts at about $600...how much of a sub you need will depend on the total CONTIGUOUS cubic feet of the whole space including all adjacent open areas not just your listening area.

PS. In general, pay an installer for LABOR ONLY, and order speakers yourself. If your installer refuses to do that, find one that will...it's not hard. One reason installers love to recommend in-walls is that it ropes you into paying for their hefty labor charges.

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Some fairly childproof speakers would be a pair of Klipsch Klipschorns, tucked into a couple of corners, 175 pounds each, impossible to tip over and no drivers within reach of a little ones explorations. Even a pair of Klipsch Lascalas would be immune to most incident.

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I say go with some good quality in walls. They will hold significant sound quality advantages over a little bookshelf looking out of place tacked onto the wall. Box speakers being placed in a room is a *disadvantage* in terms of sound quality.....in wall speakers mounted flush to the wall is actually a more ideal solution. Furthermore, for a shared living space or living room, this can look much more aesthetically pleasing.

Consider that high end home theaters often have speakers mounted behind the screen in a baffle wall....not for looks, but because there are sound quality advantages compared to having speakers mounted in front of a wall. If you are on a shoestring budget and can't afford a couple hundred bucks to pay someone to install the speakers, then tacking bookshelf speakers on the wall will make sound.

Basically, good in walls will perform as good or better as a good set of towers while being child proof and as decor friendly as you can get. So you get your cake and eat it too. 100% WAF and 100% performance to boot.

In order to avoid getting speakers you aren't happy with, just ensure they measure well before buying and installing:

https://www.avsforum.com/forum/89-sp...nce-shows.html

Kef makes excellent speakers. I'd take a look at Revel's in walls as well.

However, regarding the KEF model you linked, your LCR should not be using 4" drivers....three of them barely have the cone area of a single 6.5". I'd look at models with dual 6.5" or single 8" minimum.

If I were doing in walls, I'd have to get some pricing on Revel's W893 in walls. Measurements look fantastic, meaning they will sound fantastic as well, and they are three ways.

Thanks all for the suggestions... Finally, I was able to check out CI4100 demo in my friend's house today.
Looks too small for a center speaker.. but might work for LR I think..

Some people have used in-walls for L/R speakers and then a normal speaker for the center. This only makes the most sense because the center does 70-80% of the HT output, including 99% of the all-important dialogue.

See pics below.

One of the indisputable DISADVANTAGES of in-walls is that you cannot aim them at the main listening position, unlike a boxed speaker.

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