All

I'm getting ready to some some remodeling in our living room, and that
will mean I have the room completely emptied (for painting and a new
floor). Taking advantage of the emptiness, I plan to dump a cheapie
little Sony five-speaker surround setup I bought on sale several years
ago that has never been particularly satisfactory.

To that end, I'd very much like to consider flush-mount wall speakers
as a replacement. The room is used to watch movies (with a 50" RP Mitsu
TV) and day-to-day regular TV shows with an old but steady Pioneer
receiver/amp that may get replaced in the next year or so (or may not -
it isn't necessarily a priority right now).

So, all that said, I'd appreciate some opinions on the flush-mount
speakers. Good idea, bad idea, and why?

Room is generally rectangular (20x17) w/10' ceilings, but opens up to
the entry foyer on the north (speaker "left") side. "Front" speakers
will be on east (long) wall with TV; surrounds on west wall. South wall
does not meet in a "corner" with west wall; there's an opening directly
into the kitchen. North wall doesn't really exist - the west wall that
extends north all the way to the entry foyer and the front door. In
other words, there is no literal "corner" for either NW or SW extremes
of the room...

Thanks in advance,
-David

wrote:

I'm getting ready to some some remodeling in our living room, and that
will mean I have the room completely emptied (for painting and a new
floor). Taking advantage of the emptiness, I plan to dump a cheapie
little Sony five-speaker surround setup I bought on sale several years
ago that has never been particularly satisfactory.

To that end, I'd very much like to consider flush-mount wall speakers
as a replacement. The room is used to watch movies (with a 50" RP Mitsu
TV) and day-to-day regular TV shows with an old but steady Pioneer
receiver/amp that may get replaced in the next year or so (or may not -
it isn't necessarily a priority right now).

So, all that said, I'd appreciate some opinions on the flush-mount
speakers. Good idea, bad idea, and why?

Room is generally rectangular (20x17) w/10' ceilings, but opens up to
the entry foyer on the north (speaker "left") side. "Front" speakers
will be on east (long) wall with TV; surrounds on west wall. South wall
does not meet in a "corner" with west wall; there's an opening directly
into the kitchen. North wall doesn't really exist - the west wall that
extends north all the way to the entry foyer and the front door. In
other words, there is no literal "corner" for either NW or SW extremes
of the room...


Flush mount, or in-wall speakers can sound very good. The main problem
is that if you want to change your speakers or re-arrange your room
you're stuck with what you've got unless you're willing to pay $$$$ for
a remodeling job or have the know how and the time to do it yourself.

I recently had a room put on to my house and was thinking about built-in
flush mount speakers with an infinite baffle design (the architecture of
the addition would have allowed me a quite large cavity for the rear of
the speakers for a true infinite baffle as opposed to acoustic
suspension.) I decided against it because I didn't want to lose the
flexibility that conventional speakers allow - I've already changed them
out once, and may well change out the boxen again within the year.

So, my advice is "no", not unless you're really sure that this is what
you want. Imagine 5 years from now when everbody is watching 100" video
screens but you're stuck with your 50" because your speakers are only
52" apart.

//Walt