What's up guys? Just moved into my new house two weeks ago. The house was pre wired for ceiling speakers. I am new to home setups. I'm looking to buy 4 ceiling speakers but don't have a clue which ones. Can you guys help me out. Budget is around 300-500.
Someone pointed me to these http://www.parts-express.com/pe/showdetl.cfm?Partnumber=300-372 I dont now if those would work for a home theater.
For the most part ceiling speakers are a compromise when they are used in a HT. I would suggest you at least buy something you can audition beforehand or assume they are all compromises and buy the speakers from PartsExpress.
I agree with Jan. A buddy of mine has a small HT system with in-wall speakers, and while it sounds ok, his previous setup with small Paradigms (Titans and Atoms) sounded better.
What I'm saying is in-wall speakers are quite variable in SQ and your position to them makes their quality even more variable.
Many years ago, before there were any prefab "in-wall" speakers being sold, the shop I worked in made our own in-wall/ceiling mount speakers using the old KEF kits. These kits utilized the same drivers you would have found in the KEF Coda or Correlli and the same drivers also found in KEF's studio monitor speakers and dozens of other British manufactured speaker lines who simply ordered their parts from KEF - the same drivers as you would find in the original BBC LS3-5a for instance. All that is to say I have had the opportunity to hear the same drivers in numerous configurations and though the systems we built were undeniably KEF they never really matched a speaker with an enclosure.
In-walls are typically restricted to less than carfeul placement since their reason d'etre is to not be seen as conspicuous items in a room. Where position is adjustable with a boxed system there is no adjustment with in-walls and your position then determines the relative "toe in" of the system to your ear. As you sit farther and farther off axis from the tweeter the more high frequency loss you incur as driver dispersion narrows as frequnecy rises. In the mid to low bass the enclosure volume and its structure determine bass smoothness, alignment (tight/boomy - dry/warm) and extension. Unless you are buying an inwall with a specific enclosure fitted behind it you loose bass extension and quality as a typical trade off with in-walls. Even with a purpose built enclosure most in-walls must be adaptable to many locations and they are seldom meant for the best sound but mostly the sort of not-so-bad sound that suits background music and rear channel applications.
If the speaker system was not designed from the ground up as an in wall system you will have problems with dispersion and reflection which will make the speaker's frequency response uneven in the middle to high end. A well designed and well placed in-wall can benefit from an infinite baffle type non-enclosure in some cases but the reality of such systems normally don't exist in use.
A pretty good in-wall can sound not too bad and even surprise at the openess of the unboxed sound. Move off axis to sit down, however, and all that goes away. Add to this the idea that many background music systems want in-wall speakers and you find not every in-wall manufactuter even tries to provide good quality sound.
Some in-walls or ceiling speakers have directional 'wave baffles' that allow you to direct the tweeter in a particular direction, which is always the direction that the lower driver is not pointed in.
Ambient sound at best, even with some speakers that have notable attributes.