Flush Mount Speakers
Flush Mount Speakers in Carlsbad, California
Flush Mount Speakers - The Best Speaker Solution
When you set up surround sound in an imperfect acoustic environment like a family room, there are 4 ingredients for creating that feeling like you're in the movie - wide sound field, center speaker placement, the motion-sound connection, and subwoofer placement.
First, we need a wide sound field. We want the right and left speakers further apart. We do not just want to flank them next to TV. When you are watching television or movies, most motion goes left to right. While everyone talks about famous surround sound scenes that utilize the back speakers, such as Top Gun, The Matrix, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, etc., the truth is that most motion on the screen moves left to right. A wide sound field exaggerates this motion to make you feel like you are in the movie, not just watching it.
Secondly, we want the dialogue audio to be connected to the video, which is where center speaker placement
comes into play. We want the center speaker located above or below the screen usually within 16 inches. Builders will wire many track homes for center speakers in-ceiling, but unless your TV is mounted high, like over a fireplace, this is going to create a disconnect where when you look at someone’s lips in the movie you are watching. When you hear dialogue, you are going to know it is coming from the ceiling and not seem real.
Thirdly, the tweeters need to aim to the seating area to create the motion-sound connection. Generally, low frequency sounds are less directional than high frequency sounds. If you imagine the inside of a speaker, there is a woofer aka “the big speaker” which handles bass and mid-range. Then there are wide dispersion speakers aka “the small speakers”. Finally, the tweeter, which handles high frequency sounds is a narrow dispersion speaker, think of it like a flashlight beam coming out of the speaker. The high frequency sound is how our ears track motion. Sounds such as, bullet ricochets, glass breaking, or crunching of dry leaves, allow us to add realism to the motion we see on the screen.
Lastly, subwoofer placement
is a lot more simple. The purpose of the subwoofer is to handle deep bass. Subwoofers are just the opposite of a tweeter. Frequencies below 80 HZ become monosonic, which means that even if the subwoofer is next to your chair, you will think it is coming out of your other speaker. This is ideal. Since they are non-directional, we can locate the subwoofer in the room and focus more on the settings as well as hiding it (for aesthetic reasons) and not have to worry about the acoustic impact.
Why Flush-Mount Speakers?
We use flush-mount speakers for several reasons. First, bookshelves or tower speakers are usually designed to be away from a corner by about 24 inches, which is not practical for most homes, especially if you have kids or pets. If you talk out loud and cuff your hands around your mouth, imagining your mouth is in the corner of the room, you will immediately notice the change in tonal quality overall. Similarly, if you hold your hands flat on each side of your mouth like your mouth was located on a wall, you will notice the changes again. Since the speaker manufacturer for these tower speakers, have no way of knowing how their speakers are going to be installed, they tune them to be away from corners of walls. Ironically, this is where they are normally installed. Flush-mount speakers are tuned to be in a flat surface. Their tonal quality is, as advertised.
Secondly, we simply have more real estate to work with in-ceiling, than we have real estate to locate tower or bookshelf speakers. Since in the previous section, we discussed the importance of a wide sound field, you might have a situation where the left front wall is really a doorway to an adjoining room prohibiting the location of a bookshelf or tower speaker, where we would ideally want them. Having the flexibility with in-wall and in-ceiling, gives us the flexibility to lay out the speaker configuration properly.
Thirdly, when it comes to fishing wire in a finished home, flush-mount speakers allow us to cut access holes and “patch” them with speakers. This dramatically reduces the amount of dry-wall damage in a room.
Lastly, in a medium-sized room we are going to want at least 6.5 inch drivers in our speakers, and in a large room we are going to want 8 inch drivers. In a traditional bookshelf speaker, this would require a very large box to make the speaker perform properly. These large boxes and towers make for a less than desirable family room. If this is your man cave, then maybe this doesn’t bother you, but most of our customers prefer the clean look and hidden-wiring of flush mount speakers. The incredible performance they deliver by using the air cavity in the ceiling or wall, with acoustic installation, is like no other.
Why Preference-brand Speakers?
We have always looked for that “category killer”, that one manufacturer that makes a couple models of product that quite simply deliver the optimum solution for the customer; functional performance, outstanding quality, great warranty, and ease of installation.
Preference brand - In-wall center speaker, flush to the wall, and camouflage with wall color
Over 10 years ago, we stumbled across Preference speakers at a customer’s home during a consultation, already installed. We were stunned with Preference’s outstanding bass, performance, consistent sound through a wide volume range, and their lifetime warranty. These speakers use spun carbon Kevlar drivers, and high grade crossovers, only found in very expensive speakers. In addition, Preference makes a wide variety of flush-mount speaker design from angled in-ceiling products, ideal for front speakers and low ceiling installation, to in-wall and even single point stereo speakers. It’s hard on a web page to understand how good they sound, but as the founder of Digitainment, I could certainly have any speakers I wanted. I choose Preference for my home. Come by our showroom and listen for yourself. It’s a shocking, exciting surround sound experience.
