How hard are in-wall speakers to add to an existing finished room?

August 17, 2005 2:45 PM

I'm thinking about moving to a more minimalist home theater -- in-wall speakers, all components in a nearby closet, nothing in the room except the TV attached to a wall. I'm not finding much in the way of resources for doing this in existing construction. Anyone ever try something like this?

Everything I've found when researching seems to be at either ends of the home theater spectrum. They either cover the basics of how a $300 home theater goes together (like wiring and connections) or they talk about new custom home construction and loading up your walls with tens of thousands of dollars worth of custom stuff. There's nothing in the middle for someone wanting to spend a grand for a simple setup that isn't home-theater-in-a-box.

I've found the IR repeaters/blasters/eyes for mapping remote commands in a room to the components elsewhere (~$100-200), and I've found some cheap racks to put in a closet (~$200) to hold the components. I can find in-wall speakers (down to about $80 per speaker), but everything seems to be designed for new construction, for bare studs.

Is it a tremendous cost/pain to add speakers to existing finished (stud construction) walls? Will those $80 speakers cost $800 after labor, repainting, and construction?

Is it something I can do myself? I can't seem to find any books on home theater for do it yourselfers, but seems like it's all pretty simple stuff like cutting holes in drywall and fishing wires down to the crawlspace.

posted by mathowie to technology (12 comments total)

$80/ea in-wall speakers are going to really bad. Not "slightly worse than you'd prefer"... they'll sound awful.

Doing something like this isn't terribly hard (you seem to have figured out the gist of it: an RF-based master remote, IR blasters for the components, a hiden rack), but without decent speakers it's probably a downgrade from whatever you have at the moment.

I'd suggest you consider having a TV and speakers visible, and if you're really concerned about space, looking at sat/sub systems. They'll also sound much better than any sanely priced in-wall system.
posted by mosch at 2:52 PM on August 17, 2005

The best source for HT info on the net is HomeTheaterForum.com. Their DIY / Construction sub-forum should be a wealth of information.
posted by keswick at 2:56 PM on August 17, 2005

I second mosch. Unless there's absolutely no way around it, avoid in-wall speakers at all costs. It's very difficult to sonically isolate an in-wall speaker from the wall, so any sound they create will be 'colored' by the inherently bad sonic characteristics of the wall.

A good compromise would be to get some smaller speakers and wall mount them. You could even fish the speaker wire through the wall and achieve much the same effect that you're after.
posted by pmbuko at 3:06 PM on August 17, 2005

Hmm, so small satellites hooked to the walls would sound better than even $300 in-wall boston acoustics speakers?

I guess small speakers don't protrude too much, but my dream was to really let the living room be a room to live in most of the time, with TV some of the time.
posted by mathowie at 3:15 PM on August 17, 2005

I put in in-wall speakers and they sound horrible.

I don't care because it was for my parents, who wanted good looks at any (low) cost over good sound, but if it were my place I would have beeen incredibly disappointed. The speakers in the TV sound better than this setup, IMHO.

I got the speakers wholesale, but new they would have retailed at $149.99 CDN/pr.
posted by shepd at 3:17 PM on August 17, 2005

Oh, and before you blame the amp, while it's certainly not top of the line, it isn't absolute garbage either... it's an H/K AVR 45. It sounded great with the huge speakers (about 4' x 2' x 1') that were attached to it (which are mine now), so it's the in-walls.

You might be able to get good in-wall sound by using speakers that have a sealed box around them. Open back ones are no good since it's impossible to predict the size of the airspace behind the driver. That determines the quality of the sound.
posted by shepd at 3:20 PM on August 17, 2005

After visiting a friend who dropped a sizable chunk of change of in-wall speakers, I can't recommend them. It's a balance thing - if the aesthetics of the satellites bug you more than mediocre sound bothers you, then go for it. My friend doesn't care that much about the sound as long as it goes boom, so he's happy. For me, I don't go there to watch movies any longer.
posted by mkhall at 3:20 PM on August 17, 2005

Wow, I had no idea their sound sucked so badly. Thanks everyone (seriously, this just saved me lots of headaches).
posted by mathowie at 3:27 PM on August 17, 2005

Wall-mounted ribbon planar speakers might be a nice (albeit potentially expensive) compromise. The only company I know to manufacture them is Magnepan. Most models are between one and two inches thick. Their MMGW speakers are meant to be wall-mounted, other models may be wall-mountable also. That said, a lot of reviews I've ready about ribbon planar speakers is that you need a pretty beefy amplifier to drive them, so this route could get spendy pretty quick.
posted by hootch at 4:37 PM on August 17, 2005

I'd like to offer a little perspective on in-wall speakers. Cheap ones sound bad. Expensive ones sound bad if you put them in a standard wall.

But good quality in wall speakers, from a top company like Triad or Atlantic Technologies in a well designed space sound amazing.

Frankly, any speaker that's in the $80 range isn't going to do much for you. Sorry.

I went completely off the deep end on home theater and here's the most important thing I learned: sound is the most important part. Get the room acoustics right and everything else is easy.

I'd recommend that you start hanging out at the avsforum. That's where all of us Home Theater geeks hang out and you'll find lots of people putting together theaters just like you want.
posted by cptnrandy at 6:58 AM on August 18, 2005

I've pulled component wires between rooms and it's not terribly difficult, as long as you can get access below or above. Mine are run in the basement.

I have no personal experience with in-wall speakers, but I'd be surprised if a quality model by somebody like Klipsch didn't at least sound decent. A higher-end stereo store should have a display set up so you can judge the quality for yourself. Of course the downside is you have to be sure you'll never want to move your tv, or you'll be left with a wicked patch job where the speakers were.

The other option is to get the sub / small satellite speakers and surface mount them, as others have suggested. The holes will be easier to patch if you ever move them, and you'll have more to choose from than flush mount speakers. If you totally want to avoid the drilling and fishing, you could look into using cable raceways to run the wires. These can generally be painted the same as your wall/trim colors so they're not terribly obtrusive.

The only problem I could see with putting your components in a closet is you'll need to deal with the heat generated by the equipment. This is especially crucial with something like a PVR. Mine gets pretty toasty, to the point where I fear for the life of its hard disk. The solution here would be to get a louvered door for your closet (generally NOT handsome!), or find some other way to ventilate through your closet's floor or ceiling. Maybe a thermostatically controlled bath fan in the ceiling of the closet would do the trick.
posted by SteveInMaine at 7:19 AM on August 18, 2005

A certain Canadian speaker manufacturer is currently working on a hybrid in/on wall speaker design that avoids the problems most in-walls suffer from. About 2 inches sticks out from the wall, but the rest of the speaker is hidden behind the wall. They will also have a center channel available in this model line.

(I do not work for this company, but I do own a few of their speakers.)
posted by pmbuko at 7:33 PM on August 18, 2005