In-wall speakers - Newbie Install Concerns!

M

Mike_s

Enthusiast
Hello, Setting up my first ever HT and we have almost decided on 1 x 300 IW LCR 6 as the center channel and 2 x 300 IW 6 as the Left & Right channels. TV is at the center of a 12 feet wide wall. This entire wall has a hard plywood paneling. There is an air gap (cavity) of 4 inches between the front surface of this paneling and the front of the brick plastered wall behind it. So there is quite a huge volume of air involved here.

These LCR's are not fully sealed from behind and are partially open and will be inserted into this air gap. My concerns are:

1) Can I simply install these as it is (open to air)?
2) Will there be any push pull kind of effect when all the 3 are moving the same air in the cavity?
3) Do I need to make a sealed and dampened enclosure behind each of these?
4) Would this large air gap have any bad effect on the sound?

Thank you. God bless. Stay safe. Mike.
 
mazersteven

mazersteven

Audioholic Warlord
I am a believer that In-Ceiling, In-Wall speakers should have engineered enclosures. I'm not an installer or speaker designer so I can't answer your question with precise accuracy. I do know the sound will be effected by the wall cavity.

For almost the same money why not eliminate that

Legacy Pixel
 
M

Mike_s

Enthusiast
Thank you Mazer, will surely look into it. Further search has led me to James Loudspeakers. Their ON-wall models seem very interesting due to their sealed design and the dimensions of certain models are near perfect for my needs. Perhaps I should start looking at On-walls to remove any concerns about the air volume behind In-wall speakers or something which are sealed.
 
mazersteven

mazersteven

Audioholic Warlord
I would think the Legacy speakers would out perform the James. JMO

On Walls I would consider. Triad I linked also does on-wall

RBH

Axiom
 
TLS Guy

TLS Guy

Seriously, I have no life.
Thank you Mazer, will surely look into it. Further search has led me to James Loudspeakers. Their ON-wall models seem very interesting due to their sealed design and the dimensions of certain models are near perfect for my needs. Perhaps I should start looking at On-walls to remove any concerns about the air volume behind In-wall speakers or something which are sealed.
I see a problem with your plan. A wood wall will not have anything like the damping factor of sheet rock. So I would expect a lot of coloration from a large plywood wall surface. I definitely think the speakers need an enclosure. However without knowing the T/S parameters of the drivers, it is impossible to know the optimal enclosure.

I just did an in wall design, MTM sealed left and right, sealed three way center, and in wall TL sub. Certainly there were some problems from reflection from the wall and TV, that reinforced part of the bass spectrum and required a lower crossover than calculated. However the project was great success, and has excellent WAF factor.

Talking of WAF my wife and architect/interior designer daughter had discussions on the grill color and trim. I was in a mind to match the wall and trim to the wall color, but my daughter especially said the fabric needed to match the TV and the speaker trim match the TV bezel. The white cabinet trim to match the cabinet and be white. I think they were correct, so that is what was done.



Here is the FR of the right speaker at 1 meter on axis. The calculated F3 is 83 Hz, but you can see the wall effect starting just below 200 Hz, and there is a rise in response below 100 Hz from the wall. This actually lowers the F3 by an octave to 45 Hz. That made the optimum point to cross to the sub 40 Hz. Higher and then there was huge wall reinforcement of the in wall sub, with the driver being right below the center speaker, the TL port being just the left of the power amp cabinet close to the floor.



Anyhow it was a fun project and I learned a lot.
 
M

Mike_s

Enthusiast
The Legacy Pixel certainly has a "marriage saving" look like the Sonus Faber Venere LCR.

I looked around some French forums and I found a reply given by Focal addressing the same concern. Strangely, it has been almost 2 weeks since my query to Focal.

1599958880059.png

1599959209041.png


"Optimized to operate in free air" not in the literal sense, but does this mean infinite baffle? Anyway, its just not worth the risk given its cost IMO. Given the highly varying air volumes in each of our situations, one would logically think that a sealed back box should be part of the design to remove the air volume out of the equation.

Monitor Audio CP (Controlled performance In-wall series) has sealed backs and they confidently say to plonk them where ever you want and back their product with a Lifetime warranty which is too good to pass. They look good too. I am really liking the MA CP IW 260 X.

Thanks to all for their time. Highly appreciated. Will keep you posted.
 
mazersteven

mazersteven

Audioholic Warlord
Monitor Audio ✔

I recommend their Floorstanders all the time. I forgot about their On-Walls.
It's been awhile since I've auditioned their On-Walls, but remember I was impressed with the clarity and imaging.
 
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DigitalDawn

DigitalDawn

Senior Audioholic
+1 for Triad. They will even custom paint your speakers and or grills to match your walls. Fantastic company where speakers are hand-built in the USA.

If you need any help please let me know.
 
M

Mike_s

Enthusiast
Something silly (and scary) just popped up. MA 260X specifies 3.75 inches as mounting depth.

Dry wall thickness - 0.25 inches
Void space depth behind dry wall - 3.75 inches
Total depth including the thickness of the dry wall - 4 inches

If the specified mounting depth of 3.75 inches includes the thickness of the dry wall, there wouldn't be a problem, I would have 0.25 inches to spare. If not - its back to the drawing board. In this case I'll just abandon In-walls altogether and start looking at On-walls.

Their drawing shows this.
1600037787500.png
 
mazersteven

mazersteven

Audioholic Warlord
Is that measurement from the front of the grill? Or does the speaker fit flush to the wall here

1600037787500~2.png
 
M

Mike_s

Enthusiast
Front of the grille. Blue is the Dry wall.
1600043813931.png
 
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M

Mike_s

Enthusiast
Ha ha, found it. This was printed on the template drawing. Looks like I can sleep now, 3.75 inches seems to be including the dry wall or at least that's what I make of it now. The 4.01 inches seems to be the extra for the edge/grille.

1600044301188.png
 
M

Mike_s

Enthusiast
After a lot of searching, I have narrowed it down to these.

1) Monitor Audio CP IW260X as Centre and 2 x Monitor Audio CP IW380IDC or even 3 x IW260X
2) Sonus Faber PL563 as center and 2 x PW 562.
3) Plenty options from the Revel In-wall range. (Hardly any reviews)
4) Dali Opticon LCR.
5) Focal 300 IW LCR6 and 300 IW6 (Lot of talk about Focal brightness).

These are not cheap, so I would have to fill in the side surrounds and heights with different brands and specs.

Is that all right for the AVR to have a mix of 4, 6 and 8 ohms and different dB? Sonus Faber are 4 ohms and I am quite inclined towards them. Never heard though. Would be nice if someone could share their views on Sonus Faber house sound especially for HT.

If nothing works out then NHT and XTZ are yet to be seriously explored.
 
M

Mike_s

Enthusiast
Finally, ordered for 3 x MA CP IW 260X. God willing, they should be home next week. Getting the MA Bronze 2 as side surrounds. Now I cannot afford MA in-ceilings :D, so the hunt is on for a decent pair of in-ceilings for atmos/DTS.
 
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TLS Guy

TLS Guy

Seriously, I have no life.
Finally, ordered for 3 x MA CP IW 260X. God willing, they should be home next week. Getting the MA Bronze 2 as side surrounds. Now I cannot afford MA in-ceilings :D, so the hunt is on for a decent pair of in-ceilings for atmos/DTS.
I have just fitted new in ceiling speakers. I have recently installed four Mark Audio CHN - 110 drivers. They are absolutely superb.









They have an Fs of 44 Hz, so properly loaded they have as much bass extension as a lot of tower speakers. They are truly full range with a really smooth response extending to 25 KHz and their HF response is better then that from most tweeters. Power handing is 45 watts, linear xmax 8mm and sensitivity 88.5 db. Impedance 8 ohm so an easy drive. No crossover required. You will need to build back boxes. I have modeled them and the optimal sealed enclosure is 0.25 cu.ft. This gives them an Fs of 91 Hz roll off second order at 12 db per octave.

FR



Full details here. Price $66.00 each.

This series of drivers has been developed by a team of really good driver engineers to further develop on the work of one of the greatest driver engineers, the late Ted Jordan. This is the extension of his work on the Jordan Watts driver of over a half century ago. I used four of those 50 year old drivers for the last year and they were fine except power handling was 15 watts. It was fine until the Voice of Jupiter damaged a couple of them, but I can repair them.

The voice of Jupiter is the 1871 organ in the Royal Albert Hall. Originally it was powered by two enormous steam engines! Anyhow this is one of the loudest instruments in the world and can drown out any orchestra or rock band. As this is the year of Covid, organist Jonathan Scott gave an organ Prom with a selection of his organ transcriptions on August 29. He has made over 400! The BBC announcer said the wood paneling in the Hall was shaking and that her chest was vibrating. So of course I had to see if I could make my chair shake and my chest vibrate here. Well I could, but it did some damage to a couple of those JWs. The Albert Hall has a huge dome and the hall was empty. The new up mixers are incredible and you really feel you are under that dome. I think it was that that put so much power on the ceiling speakers. I have played that recording on my rig with those Mark Audio speakers and made my chair shake and my chest vibrate and have everything come out unscathed. This is all quite insane I know. But if those ceiling speakers can survive that, then they will pretty much survive anything.

The bottom line is that those drivers are I think the best choice above anything else for domestic ceiling speakers.

I think this winter I will make some prototypes if we have interested members here. Those drivers a just the ticket for the home constructor to build world class speakers at little expense. Only woodworking skills will be required and they can be powered by pretty much anything. I am pretty sure they can be used for the optimal center channel speaker for optimal dialog clarity, since the speaker will have no time aberrations.
 
M

Mike_s

Enthusiast
Got 3 x MA CP IW 260X, a pair of MA Bronze 2 and a pair of MA in ceiling speakers finally. Setting up in progress. Straight out of the box, the 260X sound wonderful.
 

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