in-wall or free standing (1 Viewer)

[Vince_T]

Hello all,
Well in process of planning and getting quotes for a new home theater in my basement and wife has been concerned about getting freestanding speakers for LCR speakers with our twin 2 year old boys. One of the HT people we have been working with mentioned going with in-wall (possibly boston acoustics VRi580 for the 3 front speakers) my concern is how is that going to sound compared to big freestanding ones (we have been looking at Pardigm studio 60, RBH MC6t, and Klipsh RF35 for the LR speakers and then the matching center channel for each). This will be a 7.1 (or 7.2 if we do 2 subs) and the sides and rears will be in ceiling and im just not sure of how having the main speakers being these small in-wall things. I want to be able to crank up the big movies and games and hear and feel it without it cracking etc. Any thoughts are appreciated

thx
Vince

 

[Vince_T]

no one has any thoughts on this?

-Vince

 

[John Garcia]

With in-wall, if you can't check the setup first, you have no idea if the speaker placement that was chosen is going to work. With freestanding speakers, you can move them around to accomodate your listening area and position(s). I would NEVER use in-walls for the fronts, but all the rears would be OK, if their placement is carefully selected.

 

[James Edward]

After being an HT hobbyist for many years, I recently began working for an A/V installation company, and therefore feel somewhat qualified to answer your question.

In-wall speakers, with a few notable exceptions, do not sound good at all vs a box speaker. I am consistently amazed at how often we do setups with great electronics, and crappy sounding in-wall speakers, but it seems to be what people want.

I'd do whatever it takes to keep the box speakers away from the kiddies- even poorly placed boxes sound better than many in-walls. As John said, rears are a different story. They do not carry nearly the load of the three fronts; using in-walls for them does not really impact the sound nearly as much.

If you do go for in-walls, check out Snells. The ones with an acoustical 'tub' behind them sounded pretty good, but they are expensive.