I have a new outdoor patio in which I am going to mount 6 speakers in the rafters. The rafters are wood two by twelves with sixteen inch centers. Four spkrs will be going into two by twelves, two will be going into the eves which are two by sixes.see pics please. We will be insulating this ceiling with the possible intention of making this a closed in room with walls in the future.The speakers will be at about a ten foot height. I will be using a new receiver to power these speakers and a separate sub woofer that will be on the ground somewhere. The ceiling will be covered with vinyl siding material so I will need to cut out the vinyl to accommodate the speakers. There will not be drywall over the rafters. Most ceiling speakers I see are meant to attach to drywall,which I wont have, and I don’t believe the vnyl siding material is substantial enough to support a speaker.do they make a speaker that comes with a mounting bracket to attach it to the rafter much like a pod light or ceiling fan. If I do find one ,will having the entire rafter open from peak to gutter effect the sound negatively. (which is about 12 feet of open rafter) if I need to I can create a box for each speaker using outdoor drywall, which I can then mount the speaker to. I will have to work the insulation into the design somehow as well.Thank you paul
You plan to use vinyl- is it smooth, or does it have a small V at the edge?
You could use in-ceiling speakers that have a "can" behind the driver. That way, the insulated space isn't affected by the speaker, the speaker won't care if the space behind is insulated, large, small, insulated, stuffed with________, etc. JBL, Speco, Atlas and many other companies sell these and they're used all the time for commercial installations. Some actually sound good, too.
If the sub(s) will be far from the main speakers, get ready for some odd delays and what's called 'disembodied bass'- this is when the location of the bass sound doesn't seem to make any sense and you may find that setting the crossover is more difficult this way.