Flying Speakers (1 Viewer)

[David Masefield]

Not the variety with wings that you see when you've had one too many Bourbons.

My room has a problem re doors.
There are big sliding doors either side of my home theatre where the surrounds would/should go. I would prefer not to use stands to position the side speakers and so I was wondering whether anyone had had experience with or had actually suspended speakers before. I know they do that sort of thing with rock concerts etc with the front of house speakers etc but was wondering if anyone had done this with their home setup. Hung speakers on chains or steel cables above doorways, walkways, kitchen bench etc and angled them to suit the seating?

Another thing I was wondering was.....
5.1, 6.1,7.1 etc use two surround speakers and varying numbers of rears from none to two.

What would stop you from using more than one set of surround(side) speakers to play you surround sounds.
What would be required to do it if you can?

 

[Allen Ross]

get some piano wire and bam instant isolation, no need for spikes, imagine all you stuff that way, mmm dual Tumults 500lbs suspended from the ceiling, i wonder if they would start to swing.

 

[Chris Tsutsui]

I read at the JBL site (White papers section), they had an article that could estimated the rope/wire you'd have to use, and the type of knot and system used for suspending speakers.

Not that you'd be suspending large speakers or clusters, but it could be a helpful read regarding suspending speakers.

What can happen during a sharp transient, is the speaker can "hop" up, and then create a jolt of downward force greater than just the weight of the speaker.

 

[Allen Ross]

it would be my dream to have a cluster with a few crowns behind them

 

[David Masefield]

I would guess that correctly rated marine grade stainless cables and shackles etc would do the trick and would look quite good as well.
using chain would be good though as you could vary the height/angle using the loops in the chain.

 

[Drew Eckhardt]

I used ceiling fan boxes, matching box covers, 1/2" pipe flanges drilled to match the ceiling fan stud spacing, 1/2" pipe nipple (Home depot has this available in a lot of lengths, 2" appart), Omnimount -PA mounts, and plywood cut to fit the bottoms of my side surrounds and drilled with the terminal cup mounting pattern to hang my side surrounds 6' off the ground 18" in from the side walls.

They're far enough from the walls and ceiling so they don't suffer too much acoustically, are completely aimable, and actually look good.

 

[Mark_E_Smith]

You must be careful to match the resonate frequency of the tensioned wire (like a instrument string) to a frequency outside of the hearing range. The best way to do this is hang the speaker and twang the wire to see what they sound like. Also you could use some small shock absorbers to dampen the motion. It is possible while playing tones that the speakers might start a bouncing motion and rip the rafters out of the house not to mention causing massive digital feedback on all optical sources!