Guru Tips and Tricks

By: Ken Humphreys
Speaker Engineer

Have you noticed those attractive speakers mounted in a wall or ceiling and admired the way they visually disappear in a room? Are you looking to add distributed audio throughout your house? In-Wall and In-Ceiling speakers may be the right choice.

The following questions paired with our advice will help you decide what you should look for, and if these “architectural speakers” are the right choice.

Are in-wall or in-ceiling speakers right for you?

Architectural speakers can look and sound great, but there are still a few situations where they are simply the wrong choice. Please ask yourself the following questions to see if they’re right for you.

• Will I be moving my speakers around?  If you’ll want to move your speakers around, you should always select traditional speakers. Since architectural speakers become part of the room, they will be sold with the house — so if you are renting, planning to move, or tend to drag your speakers into the garage while you work on your car, traditional speakers may be a better choice.
• Do I have the time, skills or budget to install them in my house?  Installing the speakers themselves is generally pretty easy, but running wires to the speakers can be tough. If you’re not sure what you’re getting into, you will want to read an installation manual. If this task seems too daunting, there are probably professional installers in your area that can install your speakers for a fee. If all this sounds like a huge rigmarole to you, stick with traditional speakers.
• Am I okay with great sound instead of exceptional sound? If you’re looking for loud speakers with great bass and audiophile-quality sound, traditional speakers are a better choice. If you’re determined to take “The In Wall Challenge” and see how close you can get to this kind of performance with in wall speakers, you will need to use them with a subwoofer. A speaker’s bass performance is affected by its enclosure, which in this case is the wall. Walls and speaker enclosures couldn’t be more different – speaker boxes are built to contain sound, and your walls are designed to contain you, your kids, and all your stuff. Walls also enclose an unpredictable air volume, which means the speaker can’t be tuned for its enclosure. So if you want bass as serious as the bank, a standalone subwoofer is essential.

Will you be using in-wall or in-ceiling speakers as part of a home theater system?

Architectural speakers are great for home theater, but there are a few hints to help you tweak and tune your system to get the best performance possible.

• For the front three speakers (center channel, front left & right), in wall speakers are a better choice than in ceiling speakers — simply because you can place them at the same height as your TV (and your ears.) However, In ceiling speakers can be used as front speakers with good results, owing much to your brain’s amazing ability to match up sonic and visual cues. Just make sure the in ceiling speakers can “aim” the tweeter at the listening area.
• The front three speakers are the most important speakers in your entire home theater, and are not the place to scrimp on money. This is particularly true for the center channel speaker where vocal clarity is crucial to movie watching. So, be sure you select good quality in-wall speakers for your front speakers — then Julia Roberts won’t end up sounding like Bea Arthur.
• We recommend that you use a subwoofer with your in-wall speakers, and choose the “small speaker” setting for all in wall speakers when setting up your receiver. You’ll get much better bass, reduced distortion at higher listening levels and increased power handling. It will also allow you to be unconcerned about your speakers’ woofer size or bass capabilities — it will sound fantastic.
• It’s a good idea to voice match your speakers. This means that the same manufacturer should make them all, even if you’re mixing and matching in wall and traditional speakers.
• Both in-wall and in-ceiling speakers work well for surround applications. If you like a diffuse environmental sound, the ability to aim the tweeter helps by allowing you to direct the sound away from the listening area. This will spread the sound all over the room, making it difficult to locate – which is exactly what you want for that immersive cinematic experience.
• Pity the poor speaker designer who doesn’t know many things about your room that could affect the sound quality. Will the speakers be mounted in a corner? Near a hall? In a room prone to reverb or sound absorption? The ability to adjust the bass and treble levels can be very helpful in tailoring the sound to compensate for these (and other) variables.
• If you’re going to paint your speakers to match the wall, make sure to get paintable speakers and grills.

Will you be using in-wall or in-ceiling speakers for background sound throughout your house?

In-ceiling speakers are more popular than in-wall for this use because they are usually easier to run the wires to and magically disappear into the ceiling. When you mount speakers in a ceiling, wide dispersion becomes more important since the listener is likely to be further “off axis.” In English, “off axis” means “away from where the speaker is aimed.”

• In order to get wide dispersion for immersive, whole-house sound:
  • Avoid speakers without a tweeter.
  • Look for speakers with 5” to 6½” woofers and dome tweeters (for wide sound dispersion, a smaller tweeter is better.)
  • Lower crossover frequencies (below 3000 Hz) also help.
  • A switch to boost the bass level is a very attractive feature since many factors conspire to rob the bass. Some of these are:
    • Walls and ceilings are poor speaker enclosures.
    • The likely speaker mounting location is away from side walls.
    • In-wall and in-ceiling speakers typically have small woofers.
    • At typical background-sound listening levels, your ear is less sensitive to bass.
    • Subwoofers are usually impractical or inconvenient for this application.
  • Look for a switch to adjust the treble level. If you expect to be directly under the speaker or in a reverberant room, the sound will probably benefit from having the treble reduced. The opposite is true if you’re off to the side of the speaker or in an absorptive room – you’ll want to boost the treble.
  • Since “speaker selectors” (including the “Speaker B” button on your receiver) usually connect your speakers in series with each other or with a resistor, it is important that all your speakers be the same when using these devices.
  • Long speaker wire runs and speaker selectors will have less effect on speakers that have flat impedances (like all Aperion in-wall and in-ceiling speakers).
  • If you’re going to paint your speakers to match the wall, make sure to get paintable speakers and grills (most are).

Will you be using in wall or in ceiling speakers outdoors?

• Needless to say, they should be designed to handle the weather. If the manufacturer’s literature doesn’t say one way or the other, look for the following things:
  • A woofer cone with a rubber edge
  • Woofer and tweeter constructed out of a material that isn’t paper
  • Grills that are made of a non-rusting metal like aluminum or stainless steel and/or are powder coated
• Unless they are designed for outdoor use, don’t expect long speaker life in marine environments, and definitely don’t mount them in damp, rainy places. This includes the entire Deep South.
• Speakers placed outdoors will almost always lose a lot of bass. Always choose one with a switch to boost the bass.
• If you want your outdoor speakers to play at even moderately loud levels at a distance of 10 yards or more, you’ll need to feed them a surprising amount of power. This is especially true if you’re boosting the bass. Look for high power handling (over 50 watts) and larger woofers (6½” – 8”) and make sure your receiver can supply enough power to take full advantage of your speakers.

Conclusion

So there you have it. In-wall speakers have some limitations, yet you will be very pleasantly surprised just how good they can sound if you take care and make wise decisions. Good luck!

By: Ken Humphreys

Speaker Engineer

Making Fair Speaker Comparisons

Which speakers should you get? You’ve read all the specs, done your homework memorizing speaker concepts and theory, read tons of reviews, solicited the opinions of friends and scoured the internet. But at the end of the day, the real test is how they sound. Yep, you’re going to have to evaluate them by ear.

But how can anyone be expected to do this intelligently? Trying to evaluate speakers wired up to unfamiliar electronics in an unfamiliar environment that in no way resembles your own can be an exercise in frustration or torture. You don’t know how the electronics are set, what speakers have favorable room placements and what smoke and mirrors the shop employs to make speakers sound better. To make matters worse, you can’t clearly remember what your favorite speaker from the last place sounded like compared to what you’re presently hearing.

Clearly, the best way to do this is to compare the candidates in your own home but a decent showroom can be informative as well. Try to find a small local dealer who knows what they’re doing. A big-box retailer isn’t the place to do this well. What you’re looking for is the opportunity to perform fair, revealing, unhurried, side-by-side speaker comparisons without a sales clerk breathing down your neck with pressure. So we present our ABC’s of how to properly and fairly compare speakers.

Setting Everything Up

The first step is to position your speakers where they belong. If you have the manufacturer’s recommendations, use them as a jumping-off point. If not, here are some general rules of thumb:

1. Keep them at least 2’ from corners
2. Tower speakers go on the floor (naturally!) with their fronts about 2’ from the back wall; small speakers should be at ear-level, often with their backs near a wall.
3. Keep the speakers you are about to compare to each other about 6” away from their competition.

If these guidelines end up putting the speakers where you don’t want them, try to find speakers that are designed to work as you’re planning on using them. Set these speakers up as you intend to use them. Grills on or off, aimed straight forward or at the listening area – however you plan on using them is fine. If these any of these choices aren’t important to you, try to set them up as the manufacturer intended.

A few more details and you’ll be ready to start listening. Make sure the receiver is set up with the loudness button (if it has one) turned off, the bass and treble knobs in their neutral positions, the pre-set equalization set to the “flat” option and, if you using a subwoofer, re-set it to where you like it after making these receiver adjustments. If you can’t switch between the speaker candidates, having banana plugs terminating the speaker wires will make it much easier to move wires around.

What to Listen To

It’s a good idea to choose some material that represents what you actually listen to — your favorite movies and music. Of course you’ll want to pick some material that pushes the speaker’s limits. It’s fun to listen to those hold-on-to-your-molars action scenes – but in the long run, you’ll appreciate the virtues of great all-around sound more than a speaker’s ability to handle extremes well. Sound that shakes the walls isn’t all that great if every actor sounds like they’re talking through a sock. So don’t overlook the more difficult and subtle task of evaluating the speakers’ sonic chops. To help you out, here are a few of our favorite discs for doing this:

CD’s:

• Norah Jones: Come Away With Me
• Mark Knopfler: Shangra-La
• Donald Fagan: The Cat
• Greg Brown: Confessions
• Ladysmith Black Mambazo: Long Walk to Freedom
• Fritz Reiner: Night on Bald Mountain
• Pink Floyd: Dark Side of the Moon
• AC/DC: Back in Black
• Peter Gabriel: Secret World Live
• Steely Dan: Gaucho
• Jack Johnson: On and On
• Keb-Mo: Slow Down

DVD’s:

• Diane Krall: Live in Paris
• Master & Commander: The Far Side of the World
• The Blue Man Group: Audio
• Hero
• Open Range
• Phantom of the Opera
• Gladiator
• The Incredibles (or anything by Pixar)

How To Listen

Listening may seem like a pretty passive act. But, in fact, there’s a lot going on in your brain to make sense of incoming sound. On one hand, this helps you to hear well and distinguish nuance in all manner of sound. On the other, it presents some challenges that need to be respected if you plan on making fair speaker comparisons.

The first among them is that your brain processes loud sounds differently than quiet ones. Since some speakers play louder than others with the same receiver setting, it is very important to adjust the volume knob on your receiver as you go from one speaker to the other so that they play at the same level. This is especially important if you’re using the “A” / “B” buttons on your receiver to toggle between speakers.

Your ears play another “trick” that affects quick side-by-side comparisons. When sound is colored in some way, your ear tries to make it “right” by actively compensating for this flaw. If speaker “A” blasts the treble, your ear will dim the high frequencies a bit. While usually a blessing, this active brain correcting process takes a short while to “un-adjust”. When switching from speaker “A” to speaker “B”, even if “B” is a perfect speaker, it will sound “dull” and deficient in treble for a while. So refrain from making hasty judgments when you first switch to a new speaker. If you’re comparing speakers by disconnecting and reconnecting them, the time required to do so will usually be enough so that you won’t have to worry about this effect. Definitely do not shop for speakers after going to a loud concert.

The next “trick” isn’t so much a “brain-thing,” it’s more of a “human-nature thing.” When selecting speakers you will probably bring along many pre-conceived opinions of what makes a speaker good. Things like speaker size, supposed technological advantages, price or what your know-it-all buddy says about a brand. If you can’t have someone else do the switching or keep your eyes closed, at least try to be conscious and keep an open mind. A lot of your initial sound preferences depend on things other than the speaker’s sound, so bear that in mind when auditioning speakers.

While listening, the right question to ask yourself isn’t “Which speaker sounds the best?” but “Which speaker sounds the most true-to-life?” Don’t strain or listen for too long at a time, take a break every 30 minutes or so.

You’ll find it easy to tell which speaker has the most bass or least treble. But what really matters is balance. Not more than; not less than; but the right amount of. If some of the following descriptors come to mind while you’re listening, there’s likely a balance problem: Boomy, chesty, boxy, hollow, tube-like, honky, nasal, hard, overly present, metallic, sibilant or fizzy. Listen for problems like male voices that sound overly resonant, or too-thin; female voices that lack body, are sizzly or dull. The ability to reveal detail and nuance is important but can be faked by simply boosting the treble – a “solution” that after listening for a while proves less of a solution and more of an irritation.

Rate the bass for definition as well as robustness; the midrange for clarity and transparency; the treble for an unaggressive kind of clarity.

In Conclusion

Above all, relax and have some fun. Invite some friends and get their thoughts. Make up a scorecard. When you’re done, the confidence of knowing that you’ve really chosen the speakers that work best for you will add to the enjoyment of your listening experience.

Speakers Make The System

If a person’s got second-rate speakers they’ve got a second-rate home theater, no matter how high-end the other components. Any home theater junkie will tell you the best way to improve a home theater is with a speaker upgrade. Heck, many experts even go as far as recommending that half your entire home theater budget be spent on the speakers.

Ultimately, comparing speakers really comes down to one major thing: that erogenous zone known as your inner ear.

Your Comparison Checklist

Please use this checklist as you shop for your new speakers

[   ]	The name—Does the company have a reputation for making great speakers? Be sure and shop only those brands that are whole-heartedly dedicated to excellence in sound. Time spent reading some trade reviews and scrolling some online sites will point you in the right direction. Some of the brand names we respect are: Aperion Audio Boston Acoustics Bowers & Wilkins (B&W) Energy Klipsch Infinity M&K NHT Paradigm Polk Audio You’ll notice this list doesn’t include many of the bigger names that star in the electronics superstores. It’s not that their speakers aren’t good, it’s just that they aren’t great. Your ears are very sophisticated little devices. They’ll ultimately pick up the flaws and limitations that will nag you into regret. The brands identified above are designed to keep your aural senses smitten for years to come.
[   ]	The showroom vs. your room—What is the best way to audition them? It’s ideal to test drive speakers in your own room with your own system. To help you whittle down to the two or three brands you’re willing to invite home for an audition, you can start by listening to speakers in the store using your favorite DVD or CD. Note the speaker brand that best produces the experience you’re going for. Be sure there are no enhancements being used on a receiver or equalizer. It’s best if all the brands are heard under the same conditions. How do you find the perfect speaker system if you can’t compare them accurately at a store? Easy. Do a little research, read a few reviews, then buy only from those who offer great return policies (especially on speakers). Remember: it should be your right to return or exchange the speakers if you’re not completely satisfied.
[   ]	Type of speakers—What is the difference between Direct Radiating and Dipole? • Direct Radiating are the speakers you picture in your mind’s eye. The ones with tweeters and woofers all facing the same direction. Direct speakers are used for the front speakers (center channel and front left/right), but can also be used as surrounds. • Dipole speakers are more commonly used as surround speakers because they have more a dispersed sound field. They are the only type of speaker certified by THX for use as surround channel speakers. Bipole speakers work basically the same way.
[   ]	Quality—How does the speaker look and feel when you handle it? Go ahead, pick up the speaker. Does it feel substantive, like it’s made of heavy-duty materials? Tap on the enclosure. It’s good if it sounds solid, not so good if it sounds hollow. Are the binding posts (wire connections) a 5-way binding post or do the connections seem a little on the scrawny side? Obviously, binding posts are preferred.
[   ]	Warranty—What is the manufacturers warranty? Are the speakers made by a company you trust will honor the warranty?
[   ]	In-home Audition and Return Policy-Do you have the option to return the speakers after you have lived with them for a few weeks? Just like a new baseball glove, speakers need some time to break-in, time for the speaker to loosen up and settle. Only then will any shortcomings surface. Bottom line: a first rate store should offer a first rate return policy.
[   ]	Price—What can you expect to pay? If you haven’t discovered this yet, you soon will. Speaker prices run the gamut from suspiciously cheap to “you’ve got to be joking”. The good news is there are some amazing speakers for the price. Remember: while other components come and go with technological advancements, a remarkable set of speakers can last for years, even decades.

By: Professor Humphreys
Speaker Engineer 

So what’s the deal with all the different kinds of speaker wire?

There isn’t a more controversial topic in the world of audio.  In one corner, you have the true believers asking incredulously: “What do you mean you can’t hear the difference?  There must be something wrong with your ears.”  In the other corner you have an equally emotional response: “Stop it!  There IS no difference”.

Meanwhile, most audio equipment makers, fearful of offending their dealers who make a lot of cold hard cash selling speaker cables, remain mute.  We aren’t compromised by such concerns, so we’re going to give it to you straight.

This controversy itself is a little hard to understand, considering that it has been so thoroughly researched with scientific studies, precise measurements and double-blind listening tests.  Especially since the overwhelming evidence has all come down on one side.  The results?  People can’t actually hear any difference as long as they follow some simple best practices.  So why does the cabling industry exist?  That’s pretty simple: It’s phenomenally profitable.  It’s definitely in their best interest to make you believe that their magical cables sound better.

It’s a bitter pill to swallow, but no amount of pseudo-scientific features like oxygen-free copper, skin effect, vacuums, dielectric biasing, or cable resonance make any difference at all.  A $50 spool of 12-gauge zip-cord will perform like a $15,000 run of space-age laser wire. If you need a shoulder to cry on or a buddy to talk to, we’re here for you.

So why would I want expensive speaker wire?

Well, expensive speaker wire is typically of excellent quality, it (usually) will make your speakers sound fantastic, and it has the added benefit of being extremely aesthetically pleasing.  If your entertainment center is a showpiece in your home, attractive cabling and wire can be that extra touch that makes your home theater truly shine.

What DO I need to consider?

Well, just because we think you shouldn’t spend too much on speaker wire doesn’t mean there aren’t some things you should consider.  What you’ll want to pay attention to is the one thing most likely to make a difference: electrical resistance.*  Lower resistance is better and three things affect it: the wire’s conductivity, length, and thickness.

Conductivity

Copper is cheap and a great conductor, so almost all speaker cables are made from it. Any advantage gained by using a better conductor can easily be compensated for with slightly thicker wire.  So fortunately, we can ignore this and concentrate on length and thickness.

Length

Twice the wire length gives you twice the resistance.   This means that you’ll need either more amplification or a wire with better resistance to get the same sound as a shorter run of wire.  That’s all there is to it.

Thickness

Thicker wire results in lower resistance. This is good.  A wire’s thickness is measured in gauge (AWG), with a thinner wire having a bigger gauge number.  When the wire’s gauge increases by three, its cross-sectional area will be halved and its resistance doubled.  As an example, 12-gauge wire will have ¼ the resistance per foot of 18-gauge wire.  So lower gauge wire tends to be better.

OK, I think I understand – now which gauge wire should I use?

The first thing to know is that getting heavier wire than you need won’t hurt anything, but because it costs more and is harder to hide, you probably want to know what the thinnest wire you can get without compromising your sound.

Here’s our step-by-step guide to calculate your wire gauge. Calculate the length of the wire run.  Try to keep it as short as you reasonably can, but don’t forget to include all the up, overs, arounds and unders you’ll need to get the wire from your receiver to your speakers. Determine the “nominal impedance” of your speakers.  If you can’t find this number on the speaker, in the owner’s manual or on a website, you can measure the resistance with an ohm meter and multiply the reading by 1.3 to get a good estimate. Now, ask yourself how important the sound is to you.  If you are an extreme audiophile and these are your main speakers, assign this wire run a score of 100.  If you care a lot about the sound quality but don’t feel like obsessing over tiny differences, then a 200 will do.  If the speaker is for a less critical situation like background sound or distributed audio, try 300 to 400.  Of course, you can estimate for shades in between.  This rating will become your own personal “pickiness index”. Now multiply your pickiness index by your speaker’s nominal impedance – then divide this by the feet of wire needed for the speaker run.  Say you are a picky but non-obsessive listener with 8 ohm speakers and your wire run needs to be 32 feet. You’d multiply 8 by your “pickiness index” of 200, which equals 1600.  Then divide 1600 by your 32 feet of wire, and the resulting score is 50.  See where your score falls on the chart below to determine the speaker gauge we recommend.

Other Considerations

• For critical applications, it’s a good idea to limit the length of wire runs to 50 ft.  This is because speaker wire has two other electrical properties in addition to resistance – capacitance and inductance – that can start to cause trouble with long runs of wire.  These are special kinds of resistance that vary with frequency.  Speaker wire inductance can slightly attenuate the highest treble while capacitance can make your receiver work harder.  However, runs of up to 100 ft are fine for whole-house background audio.
• Check to make sure the cables are well made, especially if the wires are terminated with some kind of connector.  The connector should be soldered or connected securely.
• Bare wires, by the way, are every bit is good as fancy connectors.  Over time, the connector-to-wire and wire-to-speaker interfaces can develop “contact resistance” that can be many times greater than the wire itself.  Gold, with its inability to oxidize, makes a good contact surface.
• Make sure that the wire has a designation to indicate which side is which.  This way, you can easily connect the “positive” from your amp to the positive of your speaker without trying to figure out what’s at the other end of the wire you’re holding.  This will make your life a lot easier if you’re far away from the amplifier.
• Stranded wire is more flexible and easier to route than solid wire.
• As long as you have an adequate gauge of wire, don’t worry too much about wire runs being different distances for the left and right speakers.

In Conclusion

Wire and Cable are an essential part of your home entertainment system, without them, your speakers are nothing more than gigantic paperweights.  With a little thought, consideration and preparation – you can achieve affordable performance that rivals the most expensive speaker systems.

* If you know a thing or two about electrical theory, you might be curious why a wire’s resistance even makes a difference.  Why wouldn’t it just attenuate the speaker’s output a little bit?  The reason is that most speakers have impedance that fluctuates greatly with frequency.  The amount that wire attenuates a speaker’s output depends on its resistance compared to the speaker’s.  Whatever resistance the wire has will be relatively greater at 200 Hz (for the speaker represented by the graph to the left) than it will at 2000 Hz.  The result is that a speaker’s frequency response will start to morph into its impedance response as the resistance placed in-line (like speaker wire) increases.  If you have a speaker with a flatter impedance response – and some speakers do have much flatter impedances than others – then the resistance of the speaker wire becomes increasingly unimportant.  Isn’t science wonderful?

** This method will get your speaker wire resistance to <3% of your speaker’s nominal impedance for audiophile listening, <4½% for critical listening and <9% for average listening.

By: Ken Humphreys
Speaker Engineer

What’s A Subwoofer To Do?

A subwoofer’s calling in life is simply to bring deep, awe-inspiring bass to your movies and music. “All right, cool” you say, “Which one should I get?” Allow us to assist.

Your Comparison Checklist

Please use this checklist as you shop for your new speakers

Some of the questions below ask you to assign a number on a scale. Go ahead and estimate for in-between situations.

Your Room:

____ Room volume. 0 point for 1000 cu ft; 1 point for 2000 cu ft; 2 points for 4000 cu ft; 3 points for 8000 cu ft; 4 points for 12,000 cu ft.

____ 0 points for a reflective room; 1 point for an absorptive room.

____ 0 points for subwoofer placement in a corner & on the floor (near three room boundaries); 1 point if near two room boundaries; 2 points if near only one (usually the floor); 4 points if outdoors.

____ 0 points of room is enclosed; 1 if open doors and hallways; 3 if room is very open (or if outdoors.)

____ Room score. Sum of above four scores.

Your listening style:

____ How loud will the bass be at its loudest? 0 point if comfortable; 3 points if your wife tells you to turn it down; 6 points if you keep saying ”What did you say?”; 10 points if you know the cops on a first-name basis.

____ How demanding is whatever you listen to? 0 point for string quartets; 3 points for jazz; 6 points for rock & roll; 10 points for hip-hop.

____ Listening style score. Sum of the above two scores.

Subwoofer style (Get from spec sheet of woofer under consideration):

____ How low is it rated to go (-3dB or cut-off frequency)? 0 points for 40 Hz; 1 point for 30 Hz; 2 points for <20 Hz

____ How big is it? (You can measure the outside in inches, multiply H x W x D, divide by 1728). 0 point for >4 cu ft; 1 point for 2 to 4 cu ft; 2 points for < 2 cu ft.

____ How many powered woofers are their in the enclosure? 0 point for two; 1 points for one.

____ How many subwoofers will you be using? 0 point for three; 1 point for two; 3 points for just one.

____ How would you rate the subwoofers overall quality? 0 point for great; 1 point for pretty good; 2 points for OK I guess.

____ Does it have a passive radiator or air vent? 0 points if yes; 1 point if no.

____ Subwoofer score: Sum of above five scores.

____ TOTAL SCORE: Add up the room, listening style and subwoofer scores

Total Score Suggested Size (woofer size, in inches)

Less than 22 points – 8” subwoofer(s) is all you probably need

22 to 24 points – 10” sub(s) should do

24 to 26 points – 12” sub(s) is recommended

26 to 28 points – 15” sub(s) is what you’ll probably need

Over 28 points – 18” or more for you!