In-Wall Essentials Wilmington DE

There is endless controversy over in-wall speakers. Are they good? Are they bad? Are they a compromise? The answers to these questions arent altogether straightforward, like many other things in life. Done properly, an in-wall speaker system can be astoundingly good. Done poorly, its only virtue can be a reduced spousal divorce factor.

Today there are many choices for in-wall speakersfrom run-of-the-mill, vibration-prone plastic panels with cheapo drivers to very high-quality line arrays with planar radiators. Therefore, you really cant make generalizations about the performance of all in-walls, but there are specific pros and cons associated with them. Some of these are real, and some are only perceived, but youll have to deal with all of them in your business.

There seems to be this idea in the consumer world that in-wall + speaker = poor sound quality. Sorry; wrong answer. The only way you can be certain of a low-quality in-wall system is to specify low-quality components and install or calibrate them improperly. Theres nothing inherently wrong with in-walls.

Now, sound leakage from the speaker to the rest of the house is a real problem. Fortunately, in-wall speakers with back boxes can significantly reduce the amount of sound leakage, so its always a good idea to use them. Sealing the stud bay around the speaker with insulation, loaded vinyl barrier, and expanding foam or acoustic caulk also reduces sound leakage.

In-walls with back boxes solve another issue with in-wall speakers: cabinet volume and construction. The cabinet of a speaker is just as important to its overall sound quality as the transducers or crossover. Unless an in-wall speaker has a back box, youre relying on the stud bay to be the cabinet. I dont know about you, but speaker engineer doesnt exactly come to my mind when I see framing carpenters at work. So, stick to in-wall speakers with back boxes.

Im continually amused when people proclaim that in-wall speakers cannot image. The simple fact is that virtually all professional sound mixing rooms have wall structures called baffles around their main monitor speakers, and no one would dare to criticize their razor-sharp imaging. In-wall speakers are essentially identical to baffle-mounted monitors, so with proper placement they can produce the same glorious and razor-sharp image.

In-wall speakers sitting flat on a wall may suffer from poor coverage in the upper midrange and upper high frequency range due to transducer beaming and no option for toe-in. If you must put in-wall speakers flat in a wall, use models with pivoting tweeters and broad mid-frequency horizontal dispersion. Ill give you a hint: Vertically oriented midrange-tweeter-midrange speakers often work quite well, but dont let me catch you turning them sideways.

An in-wall center speaker very often needs to go in exactly the same spot as the screen. Fortunately, you can put the speaker behind an acoustically transparent screen.

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