inwall\ceiling speakers (1 Viewer)

[Matt Weldy]

I am going to have the def tech speakers in my home theater. They are just the small ones, with the matching center channel. What I was wondering is if I should get these speakers for the rest of my setup (soon to be 7.1) or if there are some in wall in ceiling speakers that will match with the front def techs and will sound good also. I would rather have in ceiling speakers and we will pretty much be sitting right underneath them.

Also If I buy the def tech's for the whole system. Will it hurt to mount at least the side surrounds on the ceiling angleing down towards the listing position. With the rear surrounds on the wall behind the listing position.

Also is there a link to some website that will also help me with this.

Thanks

 

[Chris Muellen]

There are advantages to going with the same speaker all around. Having timbre-matched speakers all around can avoid your system sounding off and really add to the effect of panning across the channels. This can be easily done with Definitive Technology speakers. If you go with self-standing speakers or bookshelf speakers all around, Definitive makes it easy to match the sound across their lines by using similar drivers in their speakers. Their C/L/R centers are very well matched to their floor standing BP line. I would hope they would have kept this same design philosophy up with their smaller speakers like those in the ProCinema line.
Definitive makes in-wall speakers. I have an in-wall setup in every room of my house (bathrooms too!) and can tell you that speakers sound very different whether inside or outside a wall. I think this will changes the speaker characteristics in an unpredictable way and can potentially make your speakers sound awful. Also attending demos of in-wall speakers are next to pointless. If you can even find a dealer that has the in-walls you are interested in, they will almost certainly sound different in your home.
Some speaker manufacturers get around this by selling a speaker box that mounts inside your walls that makes the speaker's characteristics a bit more predictable. These can be great but will add installation issues (i.e. what if there is a stud where your six-foot speaker box should be?)
Because speaker manufacturers don’t know what the volume of the speaker box (your wall) will be, it is near impossible to get the speakers to sound similar from front to back and left to right.
My recommendation would be to purchase similar speakers all around. If you decide to upgrade to floor standers, you may not be able to live with the fact that the in-walls are hard to remove in a cosmetic fashion.
BTW, Dolby Labs (www.dolby.com) has advice on speaker placement. You are probably familiar with Definitive's website (www.definitivetech.com). Good luck. Let us know what you choose.
- Chris

 

[Warren_Sc]

The Avia set-up DVD says that timbre matching is most important with the L/C/R. Even if you used the same speaker for every channel, the room could effect the timbre to some degree (depending on how you set them up).

I went with some B&Ws in-ceilings for my surrounds to go with my def-tech L/C/R. It sounds fine to me. Purists will argue but they haven't met my wife... :p)