Proton 550

[m. zillch]

I haven't seen the room/speakers but mounting speakers up high can be awesome. Tons of people, including pros, do it without complaints. For one thing they often fill the entire room more evenly and when you have party guests standing/sitting at various points of the room they all get a clear shot to the sound. Just ask motorcycle collector and audiophile Ann Margret:

Notice all the buttons on her turntable? It allowed automatic direct access to the track (or programming of the sequence) you wanted via a computer-guided optical scanning of the disc surface!

Her top shelf mounted speakers are Acoustic Research, some variety of the AR-2 or AR-3, it is said:

They had tweeter/midrange controls on the back so if they sounded a tad dull if heard off-axis there was a solution!

 

[m. zillch]

This expensive house, I believe named after it's color, white, also used AR speakers mounted as such:

A later tenant, Rosalynn C., apparently liked the sound but not the appearance, so she cleverly concealed them behind acoustically transparent cloth and a strategically placed plant in a porous wicker basket:

As I understand it, her general idea of having concealment stuck and later tenants found it most curious how the various rooms of their new home are filled with great sound yet they can't find the speakers.

Note how additionally the door is hidden in this office room with an elliptical shape.