Best In-Wall / Ceiling Speakers for Value

The concept of in-wall/in-ceiling speakers is great, but the predictability and logistics involved with attaining a decent degree of accuracy can be rather exhaustive in many cases (and for many reasons, some more obvious than others). One of the more obvious reasons is taking into consideration the listener's expectations. If a listener only needs some 'sound in a room' there are some great sounding, budget oriented solutions to get a moderate amount of 'sound' to a particular room via the ceiling or the walls.

If on the other hand you are seeking a solution with attention to details, cosmetic integration, clarity, decent accuracy and dynamics, you will most likely have some hurdles to deal with before this setup is considered 'done' (especially so when doing this after a house is already built).

Topping the list of major concerns is the fact that wall speakers are one of the hardest things in audio to audition due to their being so few choices available on the shelves. Even with the available user adjustments on some models their sound, accuracy and dispersive/reflective properties are also dependent on the enclosure you place them in and the structure you install them into.

It is certain that you will have a lot of UN-predictability with these systems due to the variances in houses. They may sound great in one room and poor in another or great upstairs but terrible out on the back porch.

One might think 'let's just use 'free-air' or 'infinite-baffle' woofers, some decent tweeters' and be done with it. On the surface, this would seem to be pretty good advice except for the fact that porous drywall, studs and nails have never been any reputable engineer's idea of a suitable audio enclosure. This can lead to one chasing many rattles and other noises throughout the house. Oftentimes, fixing one rattle will just lead to the next loose spot and more noise..repeat. They can sound so much different [when installed] that it is not always easy to decide on proper placement. Once mounted, they are also very cumbersome to move.

Efficiency is an important issue since it is nearly always more cost effective to get more efficient speakers (than it is to buy more power to drive a not-so-efficient set of speakers). +-3Db represents doubling or halving of the applied power. That is to say that a speaker rated at 87Db will need twice the power to reach 90Db as one that is rated at 90Db. This gets into dynamics (among other things) but the important thing to think about in this case is the component's lifespan.

For obvious reasons, the best results using in-wall or ceiling systems will occur when they are designed and installed during construction of the house or building where you can control the locations and installation with much greater ease and effectiveness.

Let us not forget that if you have the room and do not mind the wires, a pair of modest bookshelf speakers will do wonders (and pretty predictably).

I would also suggest thinking about what you really expect out of one of these setups and how much time you are willing to spend setting it up to get the results you are after before you rush out and buy anything.

Once you see some of these designs you may ask yourself: "Why not just buy some raw speakers, some crossovers and mount them in the wall or ceiling?". Food for thought (and another post) .

Thankfully, the choices here are all ready to go. Do a little research about these and always consider a good means to an end as you go. Keep it simple, when possible.

Here are my picks based within price ranges but also on a combination of things including construction, warranty, efficiency, expectations and bang-for-the-buck factor. You can easily(?) spend $1000.00 on a pair of these but I will show you some which cost much less yet sound very nearly as good.

Just remember as you read that if we were all meant to have the same esoteric things, there would be no need for such a fancy word in the first place. ò¿ò