[EdL]

Does anyone know why most in-wall speakers are rectangular and 2 & 3-way configurations and ceiling speakers resemble car speakers?


The home we purchased has in-wall speakers (SpeakerCraft 6.0 RT) in the ceiling. They sound like nothing but mid-range. I will be building a box to enclose them, which should help.


I'm wondering if I should just replace them with, "normal", speakers.


Any experience or opinions on using in-walls in the ceiling?

 

[Thade]

I'm fairly new to all this myself so I can't give you an expert opinion. I think In-Ceiling speakers are round so they blend in a little better & have the look of a light/smoke detector. I'm curious to see what you come up with as I am planning to use in-ceiling speakers in my new house for rear surrounds. I have all the wiring in place but I haven't decided on a speaker or wether or not to use the wiring at all.


Jeff

 

[wirwin]

An installer I talked to said that they prefer circular speakers for in-ceiling use because of ease of installation. With rectangular, you have to pay a lot of attention to getting them aligned correctly and any slight misalignment (where the speaker is not 'parallel' with the walls) is easily seen. With circular this is not an issue.


He said this doesn't apply when the rectangular speakers are mounted in a wall because you can use a spirit level to get a more exact alignment.


I thought that if I was paying an installer to do the work, I would expect him to take the extra trouble to make sure they were aligned correctly. But since I'm going to install mine myself I took his advice and bought circular speakers for my ceiling.

 

[ntode]

I think it has to do with the way the sound is intended to reach the listener.


I would think that the rectangular speaker would have more issues with horizontal and vertical dispersion (I hope that is the right word). With circular speakers I would assume they radiate (also may not be the best word) sound in all directions more effectively, which is what the surrounds are meant to do.


This is my guess, and I'm not an expert, but I was thinking about this a couple of weeks ago and that is what I came up with.

 

[smchan]

Speaking of in-ceiling speakers, check out Triad's new offering.


Sam

 

[Art Lloyd]

I am missing something here. The drivers in both "circular" and "rectangular" speakers are, indeed, round. The question is whether the surrounding structure of the speaker is finished by a round or rectangular construction. If you were talking about the difference between speakers with the woofer and tweeter built

concentrically or set a few inches away from each other I could understand dispersion theories. The shape of the speakers front plate should have little to no bearing since the unit is sent in a wall or ceiling. The issue about appearance and alignment with a wall seems more about installer competence and laziness than about speaker quality. Maybe I am all wet, please explain. Art

 

[ntode]

Art,


You are indeed correct. Rectangular and Circular speakers alike share the same characteristic of Round drivers. What they don't share is placement of those drivers within the speaker (enclosure) itself. Rectangular speakers have a round woofer, midrange, tweeter, etc.. aranged in a vertical or horizontal fashion. The Ceiling speaker stack the drivers one on top of the other, much like a car stereo speaker. (at least the ones I have seen do). I would think this would affect the dispersion of sound coming from the speaker.


Then again, I could be way off base. My statement is a guess of mine. I am not an expert and do not claim to know much about in wall and ceiling speakers, but I think that is at least a fair guess.

 

[Plasma George]

Circulars definately put more in a small package with the tweeter in the center.

Rectangulars take more area as they don't stack.

I think that's it, sound disspersion of the drivers has nothing to do with whether the tweeter is on top of the woofer, or in the center.

I would NEVER put HT speakers in a ceiling, when you set the speaker distances, your dolby decoder will compensate as the sound moves around the room on a level plane.

I'm not aware of any vertical adjustment for the sound coming from above the listener.???

I tried it cause it was cool, but the sound wasn't as accurate.

 

[EdL]

Thank you all for your input. I asked the question at several Hi-Fi only stores and couldn't't get a straight answer out of anyone, although they all hinted at the dispersion thing. The in-ceiling in-walls that came with the house are not really used for any critical listening (whole house audio only), so will continue on the path of least resistance. The rectangular hole is already cut out. Now it's just a matter of finding a reasonable priced upgrade from the SpeakerCraft 6.0's


Thanks again.

 

[ntode]

Check out the latest Sound and vision magazine for a short article on inwall and in ceiling speakers.