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Greetings all. I will be moving at the end of the year to a new home and am planning out the 5.1 audio system for the living room. I have settled on using in-walls for various reasons: WAF, not taking up floor space, technical advantages (no baffle step), and theoretical advantage of not paying for a fancy cabinet since my budget is ~$500/speaker for the front 3. Even then I will be biding my time waiting for sales and open-box deals to try to shave some more dollars off the budget.
All that said, after spending way too much time doing research (mostly here), I am currently settled on using the Revel W553L for the L/Rs. The trouble I'm having is with the center channel. Initially I was just going to do a third W553L turned horizontally, but of course now I know that an MTM turned horizontally has horizontal dispersion problems. But of course I have the usual center channel problem: it's the most important speaker and I don't want something less capable than the L/Rs, but I have limited vertical space to work with. Since I'm using a wall mounted TV, the W553L in its vertical orientation is simply too tall -- either the TV would be pushed up too high or the speaker would be too low.
So, my options seem to be:
1) Use the W553L horizontally and live with the horizontal dispersion issue. Now, according to Amir's measurements, the horizontal dispersion isn't too bad here:
Plus or minus 20° for a total window of 40° doesn't seem too bad. Here is my current thinking for how the front room will be set up, though of course furniture layout is just a guess and likely not to proper scale (and please forgive my quick Paint 3D job here):
So as you see, I'm currently thinking we'll be about 9 feet back from the screen/center speaker. Assuming I haven't completely forgotten my trigonometry, that gives roughly 3 feet on either side of the "sweet spot" before the holes in the frequency response kick in. Of course anyone sitting on the side sofa will be screwed, but I can live with that.
2) Go with the in-wall equivalent of using a bookshelf for the center. Unfortunately there isn't any data available for the other Revel in-wall options in the same price range outside of their Harman-provided spins, but the spin for the W763 looks pretty good and the price is roughly the same. I can live with its height, and since it would be in its normal vertical orientation the horizontal dispersion should be good out to probably plus or minus 50°. My worry is that, since this is a single 6.5" woofer rather than the dual 5.25", its power handling, distortion, and bass extension won't be up the same level (and again, no actual data to work from). The question is, is this really an issue? I do like to turn the volume up occasionally for movies, games, and music, but I'll be well shy of reference levels and it's going to be handing off sub-80hz duties to the sub. On the other hand, as you can see this is a rather large "great room", although the ceilings are merely standard 8 feet.
Also, Revel claims the 7xx models use "high-output" woofers and tweeters, but without data who knows what, if anything, that actually means.
3) Find a 3-way in-wall speaker from another company to use for the center channel. I haven't seen anything that really qualifies, though, in the price range I'm looking at. It also has to fit in standard 16"-on-center stud bays, as I'm not keen on cutting out studs as part of this install.
4) Relent on the all in-wall and go with a standard boxed speaker for the center. It would be sitting on the entertainment center anyway so it doesn't up floor space regardless. Seems kinda odd to me to have everything in-wall except the center channel, though (plus the sub). Also I'm still in the same situation of finding a good 3-way in my price range.
I also have two other things I'm curious about as part of the install:
1) Is there any consensus as to whether it's advantageous to stuff the relevant wall cavities with some sort of insulation? If so, should it be rock wool, fiberglass, polyfill, something else?
2) The surrounds will be in-ceiling, Revel C363s if that matters (already procured at a good price open-box). These will be open to the attic space that's way larger than a wall cavity... is that going to be any sort of issue? I'm not much of a carpenter, but if it makes sense to build a decent sized box to go behind them I might be open to it. And then again, should the box be stuffed with something?
Thanks in advance to anyone who makes it through my wall of text!
All that said, after spending way too much time doing research (mostly here), I am currently settled on using the Revel W553L for the L/Rs. The trouble I'm having is with the center channel. Initially I was just going to do a third W553L turned horizontally, but of course now I know that an MTM turned horizontally has horizontal dispersion problems. But of course I have the usual center channel problem: it's the most important speaker and I don't want something less capable than the L/Rs, but I have limited vertical space to work with. Since I'm using a wall mounted TV, the W553L in its vertical orientation is simply too tall -- either the TV would be pushed up too high or the speaker would be too low.
So, my options seem to be:
1) Use the W553L horizontally and live with the horizontal dispersion issue. Now, according to Amir's measurements, the horizontal dispersion isn't too bad here:
Plus or minus 20° for a total window of 40° doesn't seem too bad. Here is my current thinking for how the front room will be set up, though of course furniture layout is just a guess and likely not to proper scale (and please forgive my quick Paint 3D job here):
So as you see, I'm currently thinking we'll be about 9 feet back from the screen/center speaker. Assuming I haven't completely forgotten my trigonometry, that gives roughly 3 feet on either side of the "sweet spot" before the holes in the frequency response kick in. Of course anyone sitting on the side sofa will be screwed, but I can live with that.
2) Go with the in-wall equivalent of using a bookshelf for the center. Unfortunately there isn't any data available for the other Revel in-wall options in the same price range outside of their Harman-provided spins, but the spin for the W763 looks pretty good and the price is roughly the same. I can live with its height, and since it would be in its normal vertical orientation the horizontal dispersion should be good out to probably plus or minus 50°. My worry is that, since this is a single 6.5" woofer rather than the dual 5.25", its power handling, distortion, and bass extension won't be up the same level (and again, no actual data to work from). The question is, is this really an issue? I do like to turn the volume up occasionally for movies, games, and music, but I'll be well shy of reference levels and it's going to be handing off sub-80hz duties to the sub. On the other hand, as you can see this is a rather large "great room", although the ceilings are merely standard 8 feet.
Also, Revel claims the 7xx models use "high-output" woofers and tweeters, but without data who knows what, if anything, that actually means.
3) Find a 3-way in-wall speaker from another company to use for the center channel. I haven't seen anything that really qualifies, though, in the price range I'm looking at. It also has to fit in standard 16"-on-center stud bays, as I'm not keen on cutting out studs as part of this install.
4) Relent on the all in-wall and go with a standard boxed speaker for the center. It would be sitting on the entertainment center anyway so it doesn't up floor space regardless. Seems kinda odd to me to have everything in-wall except the center channel, though (plus the sub). Also I'm still in the same situation of finding a good 3-way in my price range.
I also have two other things I'm curious about as part of the install:
1) Is there any consensus as to whether it's advantageous to stuff the relevant wall cavities with some sort of insulation? If so, should it be rock wool, fiberglass, polyfill, something else?
2) The surrounds will be in-ceiling, Revel C363s if that matters (already procured at a good price open-box). These will be open to the attic space that's way larger than a wall cavity... is that going to be any sort of issue? I'm not much of a carpenter, but if it makes sense to build a decent sized box to go behind them I might be open to it. And then again, should the box be stuffed with something?
Thanks in advance to anyone who makes it through my wall of text!
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