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Wall Speakers

fblittle

fblittle

New Member
I am new to this forum, and I was quickly looking through it and did not see anything about mounting speaker drivers in a wall. I want to make some speakers, preferably 4 way speakers, like JBL L250s, but build them into the wall.

Does anybody have any suggestions or tips etc.. about doing so? I am building a room out in my shop for an office / getaway room and thought that it would be more beneficial to mount the speaker drivers in the wall. The wall is made with steel stud construction and double layer for sound and heat insulation, so there is plenty of room in the wall for them.

Should I mount them in the corner, or on the ceiling or on the front wall?

Any tips would be greatly appreciated. :music:
 
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Tip: Forget it. Bad idea on many levels.

Mount some in-wall speakers, if you like, but they're not going to rock out.

You can't stick L250 drivers in the wall to make L250s.

Neither can you recess built speakers in the wall without altering their design performance, nope....
 
Ah, ignore Zilch...it's time for his pessimism meds. ;)

If you're trying to take L250 drivers and stick 'em in the wall then he's right, you're in for quite a few miles of bad road. If you just mentioned the 250's as a 4-way and you don't have drivers in mind then it can be done.

First you'll need to figure out where you want them and the volume of the section of wall you're using for an enclosure. Most in-wall setups are used either for background music or flanking a flat panel TV. Either way, you probably want them on the same wall and not in corners. If you're going to be using them for sitting and listening seriously then you definitely want that kind of setup. Once you figure the volume you can look for an appropriate woofer. When you find the woofer you can use it's specs (usable frequency range, impedance, sensitivity) to pic the mid. You'll probably want the mid in a subenclosure. Then you work your way up the drivers.

If you have no idea where to start with sourcing the drivers then start with the volume, post it back here and let AK be your eyes. Unless you start with something made for inwall installation you're probably going to be doing a scratch crossover design meaning that you can't pull crossovers from something like the mentioned L250's and use it. You'll have to develop the right crossover.

Now the downside:
-if you decide you don't like them it's rough to change things
-you can't mess with positioning to improve imaging, soundstage, bass response, etc. Everything will have to be done in the crossover
-unless you isolation mount the drivers any vibrations will travel along the walls and be more evident in other parts of the house than with free standing speakers

Of course it's your room, do what you want with it. :thmbsp:

Ray
 
Firstt off, these are just my opinions, so don't think I"m trying to rain on your parade. I understand that many times the journey is more important than the destination ;)

For the money required to take a speaker designed to be in an enclosure sound even DECENT with a piece of drywall for a baffle you could buy some better in-wall speakers. The Polk LC265i and NHT IW4 immediately spring to mind as two very good sounding inwall speakers that don't give up much in way of performance to their freestanding bretheren.

If you DO decide to head down this road, your first challenge is going to be producing an solid enclosure in the stud cavity that has the same approximate volume as the speaker's original cabinet. Keep in mind that you'll have less than 4" of depth to work with so you're going to have a couple of pretty huge enclosures. (The performance encloure for the Polk model listed above is nearly 6' tall)

Sonically, there a are a lot of challenges in getting good sound out of a speaker in a wall. Greatly increased rear reflection energy is an issue, as the back surface of the woofer cone is only a couple of inches away from the back of the cabinet. That means more energy bouncing off the back wall of the cabinet and coming back through the cone slightly delayed relative to the front wave...a major sonic problem.

Add diffraction, bass loading, and proper placement to the mix, and you have one heck of a challenge. Keep in mind that any measurement/crossover deign is going to need to happen with the speakers in place, as they will measure (and sound) COMPLETELY differently in the wall than they might in a test enclosure (in other words, the crossover recomendations that come from the DIY speaker company are going to be pretty much useless)
 
As yet another alternative- you might look at our sponsor "Parts Express"' link and see what they are offering in the way of a suitable inwall speaker system. If space is at a premium where convential box speakers will not help space constraints then in wall/ ceiling speakers are left. If that were my problem I would tend to go with ceiling type (for drop tile ceilings) so I could at least move the speaker tile(s) around as I would possibly move my desk/ listening area as well.
One last consideration for me would be the small mini monitor type speakers to use on the desltop, like Minimus 7's or NHT Super Zero's, etc- maybe even augmented with a small sub under the desk!
Good luck
DC
 
An issue I have with ceiling speakers is they give you an odd and un-natural spacial sense of the music. When a singer sings to you, he's around ear level, and facing you, not like spider man, and on the ceiling singing down at you. Same for tuba players and violinists. They are on a horizontal plane with you, and not suspended above you, playing down.

For ambient music, or just some backround "noise" however, they're fine. It's the equivalent of listening to music in an elevator or supermarket or department store. Far from ideal or perfect, but still allotting at least a modicum of enjoyment.



With wall speakers, the problem that arises is you can't tilt the speaker to your listening area, to react on a plane with your line of hearing. Once in the walls, you're stuck with the position of them.

Not so bad if you have a wide dispersion speaker, or if you mill around the room and aren't staying relatively still or in a certain fixed position, or if you've carefully measured out and dictated where to mount them for best performance, or if the significant other controls the "look" of the room and dictates either tiny Bose cubes or subtle in-wall speakers.

But you may find you want to tune the speakers to your listening area for best performance. Then it's hard to beat a freestanding speaker.

For non-critical listening or if you want just some ambient music or music that is backround only, either wall or ceiling should be fine.

For critical listening, I'd keep 'em outside of the walls and ceiling.
 
If you want to put speakers in the wall you may want to consider JBL D123 Extended Range drivers. There were designed to be placed in between ceiling and/or wall studs.
 
"Four-way, like L250"

D123s do not an L250 make, by any means.

My JBL in-walls have aimable tweeters.

It's the standard naive misperception that you can just stick drivers in a box (or a wall) and make speakers.

Well, you CAN, and then pretend they're good, of course, but, what Ray said.

I made some speakers outta Celotex 50 years ago. That kinda worked.

Maybe sheetrock is better.... :dunno:
 
I would assume that if he is building from scratch, the crossovers would also be designed from scratch. That being the case, what would prevent one from making a nice performing inwall with the same drivers?
 
"D123s do not an L250 make, by any means."

True enough, but then neither do L250 drivers mounted in the wall.
 
dnewma04 said:
I would assume that if he is building from scratch, the crossovers would also be designed from scratch. That being the case, what would prevent one from making a nice performing inwall with the same drivers?
Click to expand...

1) Provide and seal the requisite cabinet volume. 3.5" is not deep enough for anything larger than an 8" woofer, and even that is a compromise.

2) If it's sheetrock on the other side, it's likely not stiff enough, even doubled, and thus must be braced. The steel studs certainly are not. You end up building a suitable cabinet within the wall, and using up depth and width to do it.

3) Sheetrock is not good enough for a front baffle mounting the drivers. 3/4" birch ply, minimum. Now you've got a finish matching problem, and you want that baffle removable.

4) Time alignment. It's a vertical, flat baffle. L250 isn't.

5) Yes, crossover from scratch for a 2-Pi alignment on an overly large planar baffle. That's going to require crossover design skills plus sophisticated measurement gear and the knowledge of how to use it for this special case:

http://www.audioheritage.org/html/perspectives/smith.htm

It's a development project.

archie2 said:
"D123s do not an L250 make, by any means."

True enough, but then neither do L250 drivers mounted in the wall.
Click to expand...
Exactly.... :yes:
 
I wouldn't assume that if one were to make an inwall speaker that all typical speaker building requirements just get thrown out the window.
 
dnewma04 said:
I wouldn't assume that if one were to make an inwall speaker that all typical speaker building requirements just get thrown out the window.
Click to expand...

Same stuff applies, you just have a somewhat bigger front baffle. :yes: I thought doing inwalls was easier than freestanding speakers. There's no baffle step to deal with, you don't have to worry about placement issues, don't have to worry (much) about finish issues, etc. Of course the stuff I did commercially was mostly 5 - 6.5". Subwoofers in walls is usually a bad idea for the reasons Zilch listed above. We did make a bandpass with horizontally opposed 8" (to eliminate shaking) that was made to mount above drop ceilings. Something like that might work out.

Ray
 
Hang a pair of PT800s on the wall, stick a sub in the corner, and be done with it.

That may best L250s, actually.... :yes:
 
My thoughts exactly, Ray. If I were building a new home, I would probably build my speakers into the walls for the sheer simplicity of making them work well. Providing you are building from scratch, of course. You can nearly take the text book crossovers at face value.
 
Good advice all / Clone L250s?

OK thanks, I like the advice I am getting here. I understand that they won't be able to approach the level of the L250s in the wall Due to positioning, tilting, Baffeling, etc.. I am building this office space form scratch, by my self, and thought that since I am building it myself I could do anything I want to it (it is sound insulated). I am certainly going to install some cheaper wall mounted speakers for surround sound and some background listening, but I think that I will try to build a set of speakers to use with my amp and other gear.

I like alot of others here, when I was single, I had a reasonably good setup, but when I got married and had kids all that went to the way side until now when my kids are starting to apperciate music so its time again to make a good system.

Any other tips are much apperciated.

BTW: has anybody cloned a set of L250ti/L260 speakers? I have a wood shop and electronics skills I could make a set myself if it would pay off? :yes::no:Any info on this would be also appreciated.
 
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