But why would someone want ceiling or in wall speakers, instead of a pair of normal, efficient and highly affordable speaker cabinets. There could be a few reasons:

Saving some space in the room;
Maintaining the aesthetics of the room;
Hiding the wires;
Getting rid of the holes in the walls.

In the past, there weren’t many fans of wall or ceiling-mounted speakers. While there are still people that think plenum-mount technology is just a whim, on the other side it is this technology in particular that gains more and more advocates. This is probably due to a change in life styles. People want the environment adapted to their needs, not the other way around.

There’s one sure thing with in-wall and ceiling speakers: they are not for those who are into high-end audio. You could hardly find an audiophile willing to trade the deep bass that he or she loves so much for a bit of extra shelf space.

But even if not an audiophile, you’ll need to pay attention to the following parameters:

Frequency response – gives you the range of the audible spectrum that the speakers can reproduce; the human ear can hear 20 Hz to 20 MHz, thus the more a speaker approaches this interval, the better.
Power handling – specifies the ranges of power the speakers can safely receive from the amplifier (e.g. 20-100 watts);
Efficiency – also called sensitivity, this rating indicates how effectively the speaker uses the power sent to it by the amplifier.
A key aspect in having in-wall or in-ceiling speakers is how you capture the back wave. You can’t always know what happens behind that wall, how big the hole really is, or if it’s sealed. The answer is to use sealed speakers, no matter their location. Otherwise you’ll have a lot of rear acoustic energy wasted into the back-wall and a distorted, uneven sound.

Mounting the speakers

Usually it is a lot easier to mount ceiling speakers than in-wall speakers, at least where there is a fake ceiling. Mounting in-wall speakers is more of an architectural problem. That’s probably why these are also called “architectural speakers”. People don’t like to have small rooms, thin walls, and wires bursting from one room to another.

The easiest alternative is to project the audio system before even having the walls built up. The advantage is freedom to plan things (speakers among others) exactly how you want them. Figuring out the wires is the part you should do before building the walls. Some planning is needed ahead: talking to an electrician, finding out how much wire you need, seeing what kind of wire you can actually use (UL-rated wire is approved for use in walls in all 50 states). Also, seeing the layout of your lighting system, and how it would interfere with that of the speakers.

Inserting the speakers can be done on the run, as the wall is being raised. Some people successfully use the drywall as a speaker’s enclosure. The key is to have the speakers in the right place from the start. This would save you time, money and nerves.

Installing the speakers in an existing wall or ceiling is a bit more difficult and pricey. But it can be done. At first, find out what’s behind the walls you want the speakers mounted in and see if you can drill. You need to make some holes into the desired spots, and build the speaker-enclosures.

Ceiling speakers have a drawback: the location. we’re not used to having the sound come down at us from the ceiling, but from our side. The sensation of the sound-waves reaching the head and then the ears, is a bit strange. Some ceiling speakers are flexible within a given degree, so they can be pointed towards the listener. They are round-shaped in order to match the bulbs and lamps that also found their site on the ceiling.

Niles, SpeakerCraft, and others use directional tweeters and woofers that can be separately adjusted to compensate for imaging problems arising from the positioning drawbacks.

Most in wall speakers have paintable grilles, so you can perfectly black them out.

Above all, my biggest dilemma is what to do if my trendy, camouflage speaker, be it in-wall or in-ceiling, breaks down? Most users say I don’t need to worry as they can be taken out, repaired or even replaced. There’s also absolutely no need to worry if I want to add some speakers to my system, they say. One solution would be to think ahead and stuff the wall with more wire for later add-ons. Still, I find this unnecessary hassle. But for the sake of interior design logic, it may be worth it.

Learn how wireless speakers and headphones work, read product reviews and find out shopping tips and tricks at http://www.Wireless-Speakers.org.

A quick overview of speaker structure helps to see where the latest innovations are being made. The sound producing mechanism of speaker is held in place by a frame. The frame consists of: a basket, a soft donut shaped gasket, and two plates that carry the load of the magnet. There are seven components of this mechanism. These elements are: the magnet, the metal core, a voice coil wrapped around a light weight bobbin, the cone or diaphragm. The voice coil and cone/diaphragm are a unitary assembly and held in position by a speaker surround and the spider (also known as a damper). When current flows through the voice coil, it is pushed forward by electromagnetic force.

Out of the 27 utility patents in the past 18 months, the greatest number belong to the voice coil, which has 8. The component with the next most innovation is the cone (also called a diaphragm), which has 6. The third is the spider (also called a damper) with 4 innovations. Followed by these are the basket (2), magnet (2), gasket (1), horn (1), and surround (1). A patent was even issued for a new type of dust cap (1) that disperses pressure waves with less interference. The dominance of voice coil patents might just be evidence that this is the critical point because this is where electrical energy is converted into mechanical energy for the purpose of pushing air.

In addition to innovations that focused on components, there were 10 utility patents that involved major restructuring of the speaker. Examples of this include the use of bar magnets or voice coils embedded in the cone. In fact, the majority of innovations involving overall speaker structure were for flatter speakers. A massive research and engineering effort spent on creating flat speakers was a clear other trend in the past 18 months. This all points to one thing: the speaker of the future is going to be flat. At least that is what the manufacturers think. This is likely to be based on market research that shows customers vying for flat speakers to go along with their flat panel TVs.

An example of an innovation in flat speakers comes from a patent by Sony. This design produces a speaker that can be 5 ft tall, 3 ft wide, and where the sound is generated by vibration motors that push a non porous fabric. There is no voice coil and no cone. The Sony patent includes the uses of rack and pinion gears to adjust the location of the vibration on the fabric for optimal sound. We all want our flat panel TVs, and in the future, we may all want our flat panel speakers, too.

Freelance inventing is not dead. The two clear leaders in speaker innovation are freelance inventors and the Pioneer Company (Table 1). Combined, these two make up 41% of all new utility patents in the past 18 months. Following these two leaders are Sony, Matsushita, and the collaboration of Pioneer Co. and Honda Co., in order of the number of patents. These latter companies make up 26% of all new utility patents. All of the patents were awarded to for profit entities except one lone patent awarded to National Taiwan University.

Design patents are mostly for look of speaker cabinets, giving the inventor rights to a certain type of the speaker appearances. Standard speaker cabinet designs had a clear lead over the other types with a frequency of 9 patents in the 12 months. The other types of design patents are for home theatre cabinets, automobile speakers, remote acoustic hailing devices, iPod docking stations, and of course, computer speakers. Other types include: microphone shields, portable speakers, subwoofer enclosures, tweeter enclosures, and even speaker stands. The top five design types listed above account for 59% of the speaker designs.

Out of the patents that were just design patents, 57% were for just only 1 speaker; 57.1%. Designs with two speakers had 26.5% of the patents, with far fewer patents that involved more than two speakers. The design with the largest number of speakers had 8. This speaker was by Moog Inc. for a remote acoustic hailing device. These military devices are for delivering audible warning messages to potential threats at stand-off distances.

The leading companies in the speaker design patents were Sony in the top slot, followed by Samsung, SDI Technologies Inc., Moog Inc., Hosiden, and Panasonic. These six companies accounted for 69% of all the speaker patents in the past 12 months. Even though the two leaders are foreign, there were also three domestic companies in the top six for speaker design patents, which is nice to for American engineers to see.

One discouraging aspect of recent speaker patents for American engineers is the predominance of patents by foreign inventors over that of domestic inventors. The percentage of domestic utility patents for speakers was a measly 11%. Out of the 27 total patents that were reviewed, 24 of them were foreign, while only 3of them were domestic.

With regard to speaker design patents that focus on speaker enclosures, the story is similar, with 43% of speaker design patents going to domestic inventors. Although American inventors do not account for the majority of the patents in speaker design, it is clear that they are more interested in speaker design than in speaker function.

The electromagnetic speaker of today has had largely the same structure since it was patented in 1875 by Alexander Graham Bell. The trusty speaker may not have been the target of radical technical inventions for some time, but the newest patents awarded show that radical design and performance improvements may be in our future.

Nathaniel Lee Glenn is a technician at State of Franklin Analytics, member of the Audio Engineering Society, and engineering student at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville.

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These devices are of many types and come in various models: on-wall, in-wall, satellite, bookshelf and floorstanding. Bookshelf and floorstanding models usually have the best sound since the enclosures and speakers are performance matched. Satellite models are quite small, and occupy much less space. On-wall ones are quite common with flat-panel TVs. In-wall models not only have good sound, but can also be painted so as to match the walls. All models of stereo speakers come in various shapes, sizes, and finishes; the ideal way to select these devices is to test several models by listening to them before making any decision.

Tips to Choose the Right Stereo Speaker

1) Read reviews on the Internet and in audio magazines to help you determine which stereo speakers to listen to.
2) Look for the acoustic suspension speakers if you wish to have tight, clean, accurate bass.
3) Set your budget for the speaker cables; they can cost you a few dollars to several thousand of dollars.
4) If you want big and wide soundstage, go for the flat panel speakers.
5) If you are looking for inexpensive models, shop in electronic stores; however, if you are in search of high-fidelity ones, audio specialty stores are the right place to go.
6) Avoid listening to those models that are not within your price range.
7) Ask the salesperson of the shop to position the models optimally.
Let the appearance or size of the speaker be less significant than quality.
9) Take a few common CDs to the shop you visit; listen to songs on at least three/ four different pairs of stereo speakers.
10) Ensure that the salesperson demonstrates all the pairs at equal volumes.
11) If possible, ensure that the salesman is using electronic equipment which is similar to what you have.
12) If stereo speakers sound good in the shop, arrange for listening to them at your home using your own system. You may ask the seller to provide you appropriate cables in case you do not already have one.
13) Follow these simple steps to choose the right pair of stereo speakers for you.

If you are searching for more information on stereo speakers, you may visit TIC Corporation. They are one of America’s most renowned exterior outdoor audio manufacturers, and offer outdoor speaker products at an extremely economical price.

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Suspended Ceiling Installation