In Wall Speakers – The Cool Way To Listen to Music

A complete guide to finding and buying in wall speakers.

In wall speakers are becoming a hugely popular choice when it comes to kitting out your home with the latest musical electronics and equipment. They can let you listen to music while you are in the kitchen, living room or anywhere else, and they can even be used to stream music throughout different rooms of your house.

The fact that, like most electronics and music equipment, they have come down in price in recent years makes them more affordable to a wider range of the general public, and as the sound and performance quality of music and audio equipment goes up in general, they are becoming increasingly attractive to people who want to enjoy music throughout their home without huge speakers taking up valuable storage space.

There are two basic kinds of speakers to deal with before you think about making a purchase. The first are simply "in wall speakers" and the second are "in ceiling speakers". The difference between the two is obvious -- "in walls" go in your walls and "in ceilings" go in your ceilings. The basic idea of both is having the speakers set inside a cavity in your wall or ceiling, which then acts as a cabinet to amplify the sound coming from the speaker. Because the speakers do not need to come inside a separate cabinet you can get a much stronger sound from a smaller size of speaker, which is a popular reason for buying them. In ceiling speakers work in exactly the same way, except they use the cavity above your ceiling.

There are many other aspects to consider when it comes to purchasing your first set of in wall speakers. If you do not want the speakers to be visible from inside the room where they are installed, then look for a set that have paintable grilles, so they can be camouflaged to fit the décor of your room. You should also be looking at the speakers' frequency response, which is measured in Hz. A frequency response of around 50-20,000 Hz should give you great sound quality with deep bass and a balanced sound. Speaker sensitivity is measured in dB, and it rates how efficiently your speakers can deal with power. The general rule to stick by is, the higher the sensitivity in dB, the more power efficient the set of speakers are. You should always look for a set of speakers which have a good balance of both frequency response and sensitivity.

You should also be looking at the ability for speaker to handle sound. If you are using speakers for a home theatre of experience, or you want to listen to music at a very high quality, having a subwoofer to smooth and enhance the bass frequencies of sound is a must. These can be easily fitted to your speaker system. If you have a limited amount of space then look for in wall speakers with a single stereo system, to minimise the space they take up.