Folks:
The new house that I’m setting up doesn’t have space for floor-standing speakers or even, in most rooms, bookshelf speakers. That means we need to try to recover unused space in the walls with in-wall speakers. What do folks like? When I last updated http://philip.greenspun.com/materialism/whole-house-music I concluded that B&W speakers were the best choice. Is there anything else worth considering in the in-wall world? Some of the Monoprice speakers were okay, and they are certainly cheap, but they don’t justify cutting open walls.
Thanks in advance for any advice.
I have B&W “in ceiling” speakers which were built into my every room in my house, circa 1996. Some are bigger, some smaller. Some rectangular (say 5″X7″, two ways)and some circular (CCM-50?). They’re strictly OK, not great at all. They are *not* comparable to my B&W CDM-1NT B&W bookshelf speakers, from my experience.
I used Polk Audio. Likely you won’t go wrong with any high end speaker
If you have a TV wall mounted in that room (like you mention in an earlier post) consider wall mounting a Sonos sound bar beneath it. It is a dramatic improvement over any flat screen TV speaker, plus gives you “speech enhancement” which my aging ears really need for modern movies, and a night-time low volume sound enhancement that works great. And as you know, you can wirelessly stream music through their bridge into that soundbar…go one step further and hide one of their wireless subwoofers underneath the couch or bed and your room will really sing. I am very happy with that set up, music sounds effortless and quite live, and thus I bypass the in-wall speakers I previously had hooked up to a conventional amp.
What’s your budget? If possible, I’d work with a pro audio outfit that builds recording studios, since they often have the same space restrictions. I like ATC. Travel Trax handles them in the Boston market.
Ronald: I’m not building a recording studio here! I looked at ATC. It seems to be an English company and I couldn’t find any in-wall speakers. It looks as though they sell speakers in cabinets or just bare drivers.
Anyway, I think it would be a little crazy to spend more than $1000 per pair of speakers in each room and ideally a lot less. Maybe splurge for the speakers in the living room (two biggish ones next to a TV that can be used for the front-left and front-right (with the TV built-in speakers serving as center channel) and also for listening to music; two smallish ones on the opposite wall as surround speakers) and then have more basic speakers elsewhere.
The Polk are very well liked. I have them in my kitchen and they are pretty good. You are not going to get deep bass out of any wall speaker and would need a subwoofer if you really want to shake the room.
You will find with audio that there is no upper limit on price. Audiophiles are willing to pay any amount to get that last iota of fidelity. Personally, I have a tin ear and find that the returns to me diminish pretty quickly – the first couple of hundred dollars gets you 90% of the way there and you could spend thousands more to get that last 10%. It’s just like airplanes – you can go from point A to point B in a used Cessna or spend 100x that amount on a new Pilatus.
I don’t use in-wall, but really like my Focal floor standers chorus 716, and they’re quite compact. Focal makes their own drivers and have a good reputation from my “cheap” to their uber-ludicrous upper end. These in-walls have same or similar drivers to mine so would be “worth ripping through wall”: http://www.crutchfield.com/p_091IW706V/Focal-Chorus-IW-706-V.html. There’s a distributor nearer you as well: http://audiodave.net/about/directions/
For Cheaper – I like Pioneer they have the best $100/pair speaker http://goo.gl/EQtLOU Based on that alone I would try their cheaper in-wall for $400/pair http://goo.gl/3D7cKo
There are a lot of Canadian audio companies make good-value speakers like Paradigm that also have in-wall. http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/search?atclk=Brand_Pioneer&ci=25047&N=3914785118+4066519062+4291275419
B&W in wall speakers are a good choice if you must have in wall speakers. I had the invisible ones in my previous house I custom built with my ex, but never did like them as well as a cheap pair of Mission’s I picked up in the early 90s for a couple of hundred, nor did I like them as well as a pair of Burmester B10s I purchased a couple of years ago for a few thousand. But, for built in’s B&Ws or Paradigms rule. Audition them and find a pair that suits your taste. It is a very bad idea to solicit the Internet for opinions on speakers. It’s akin to asking the Internet’s opinion on who you should date. But.. I digress.. the kids seem to be doing just that on facebook. Good luck with whatever you decide.