Thinking of equipping your house with speakers so you can enjoy music and audio throughout?
There's a dizzying array of choices these days, including traditional freestanding cabinet-style
(or box) speakers, in-wall and in-ceiling speakers that sit flush against the room surface, even slim on-wall speakers to match a flat-panel plasma or LCD display.
So here are a few oft-overlooked things to look and listen for when choosing loudspeakers. You don't have to be an audio expert to follow these pointers, but they will certainly set you and your home audio system apart.
Box 'em!
Cabinet-style speakers come with boxed enclosures; that's what their cabinets are. But in-wall and in-ceiling speakers should also have enclosures or back boxes, as they are sometimes called. Enclosures and back boxes prevent the sound that emanates from the back of the speaker driver from bleeding into adjoining rooms and other parts of the house. This and any vibration dampening will also help prevent in-wall speakers from vibrating the plasterboard surrounding them.
Another benefit of enclosures is to prevent debris and bits of insulation from becoming lodged in a speaker driver, resulting in unwanted vibrations and poor performance. Foams and other methods also can be used to insulate the sound of in-wall and in-ceiling speakers from bleeding into other rooms.
Be consistent
You'll likely use your audio system differently from room to room. You might like it loud in the family room and softer in the bedroom, home office and kitchen. That can necessitate different sizes and types of loudspeakers
and that's OK. What you won't think is okay, though, is the possibility of walking from room to room and not being satisfied with the sound in one place or another. That's why you should try to use one brand of speakers throughout your house, at least for the whole-house audio system. Many speaker manufacturers try to maintain a consistent tonal quality throughout their entire line of speakers, so you can enjoy hearing both high-quality in-walls in one room and less expensive in-ceiling speakers in another.
