Lewis Dalven, resident audiophile, shares his thoughts on product, trends, industry happenings, and why Steeley Dan is the greatest band ever.
While the form factor of most loudspeaker company’s aspirational “reference” models remains the floor-standing tower, a lot of our business is actually in the “architectural” or in-wall and in-ceiling category. Our speaker manufacturers are great at putting their own technology stamp on the models they make, offering a big measure of what people love about the sound of B&W, Paradigm and Golden Ear speakers in a discreet, hide-away package.
Stereo, Like it’s Supposed to Be
The magic of stereo is its ability to trick our auditory system into imagining a musical performance taking place on a stage stretching between just two speakers positioned in front of us, as if we were sitting in a concert hall seat. For this to happen, ideally the speakers are presenting the illusion from a height at our ear level or a bit above, and their distance apart is close to their distance from our ears…a roughly equilateral triangle. While this ideal can be approached with the use of in-wall speakers, it is a much tougher trick to pull off if the speakers are installed in the ceiling.
The Big Issue With Ceiling Speakers
We all know ceiling speakers from visits to the mall, elevators, or anywhere music is “piped in” for background entertainment. But for many years, legitimate high fidelity speakers have been made for use in the home that deliver very good sound from overhead. The problem hasn’t been quality of sound, it’s that from overhead, it’s not “making the magic happen”, even with great quality sound, and that’s a little disappointing. Starting a few years back a company introduced a “tilting” tweeter in their speaker, and another made a line where the whole speaker tilted within its bezel, usually just 15 degrees. Today, we are seeing speakers with 30 degree tilt in a wide range of models and budgets. With this technology the sound image created by the speaker can appear to be coming from well below the ceiling, offering the promise of a real stereo soundstage from in-ceiling installed speakers, for stereo and for home theater systems. Is it perfect? Not quite, because the illusion will be optimized for an area of the room where the speakers are aimed (hopefully your favorite sofa!), which dilutes the effect in other parts of a room. There is still a place for conventional ceiling speakers in traffic areas like hallways, kitchens, or recreation areas where specific seating cannot be defined.
The Players
The latest addition to our tilting speaker line-up is the Golden Ear Invisia HTR7000, which brings their signature High Velocity Folded Ribbon technology to this category for the first time, at $499.99 each. Paradigm offers this design approach at 4 quality levels, ranging from the Classic series at $279.00 each to the no-holds-barred Signature series at $999.00 each. Their best-sellers are the AMS series, at $429.00 each. All the above come in round bezels, allowing the tilt axis to be directed by rotating the speaker in its mounting hole, and are open-backed. Our lead vendor, Bowers & Wilkins, offers tilt-mount speakers in their CI-700 and CI-800 series. These are different from the above in that they are all enclosed modules and have square bezels. The CCM-7.5 is the entry point to the range, at $750.00 each, and the CCM-8.5 is the top, at $2000.00 each. This model features a rotating sub-assembly within its square enclosure which allows the tilt axis to be adjusted, and mounts into a separate back-box that can be installed in advance (price included above).
The Payoff
If your room layout requires speakers to be positioned where there are no walls available, and you still want a believable stereo presentation, the news is good….you have options! For the simple pleasure of music enjoyment, or to maximize the impact of a home theater setup, opting for a ceiling mount speaker now offers more performance than ever before.
