Ceiling Speakers - Part 1

After a long time in the making, my whole house audio project is nearly complete. The first step along the final road was the installation of ceiling speakers into the kitchen ceiling. A long time ago, when I flood-wired the house during another decorating project, I ran speaker cables into the ceiling void above the kitchen.

Ever since then I’d been looking (on and off) for suitable speakers. Despite seeing some promising-looking units in Best Buy in the states on a couple of business trips, I eventually settled for some Russound “Atmosphere” speakers from CyberSelect in the UK.

Not being able to visit the store and listen, I took a gamble and ordered a pair of Russound Atmosphere SP-A5C’s to try out. Key to the decision to go for these units was their “ultra-flush appearance” as stated in the product description – I wanted them to blend in to the ceiling as much as possible. (I did briefly consider the plaster-in type speakers but the bass performance looked quite poor with them needing a sub to fill the complete frequency range).

The Russound units arrived promptly and well packed, and I can definitely recommend the service from CyberSelect.

Here’s what was in the box:
  • Two speaker units,
  • Two spring-fit grills,
  • User manual/installation guide.

    image1

    “Ultra flush”
    image1

    Russound appear to have expended quite a lot of effort in the design of the packaging. The speakers themselves come with clear plastic covers to limit the potential for damage right up to the point you fit them. The packaging also has push-out templates to draw around for a very quick way of marking out where to cut the ceiling.

    The following sequence of photos shows the installation process. While I had the foresight to pre-install cable to the kitchen ceiling I didn’t, unfortunately, mark-out where the centres of the ceiling joists were. The most time consuming part of the whole installation was re-lifting the carpet & floor in the room above to check I had enough clearance and the speakers would end up in the right place.

    The obligatory “before” shot…
    image1

    Pilot hole drilled through the plasterboard to double-check the speaker location between the ceiling joists, along with the cardboard template against the ceiling for marking the large hole, and the marked line.
    image1

    I also considered getting a hole-cutter tool – the type that fits into a power drill and has a clear plastic bowl to catch the mess. Some timely advice from the UKHA mailing list said not to bother and just to use a box cutter instead. Coupled with the correct size cardboard template the box cutter was definitely the best solution, so another £50 saved there (thanks Paul :) ). Each hole took less than 10 minutes to cut out and working slowly I got an accurate cut with very little break-out of the plasterboard. It’s a bit messier than the powered tool but nothing the hoover couldn’t cope with…

    Starter-holes for the box cutter.
    image1

    The finished hole! (with speaker cable dangling)
    image1

    The speakers finally installed:
    image1

    And how do they sound? actually pretty good :) There’s plenty of detail and the bass isn’t lost into the room above. However, I suspect the bass response could be further improved with some rockwool insulation in the void, and that’s the next job on the list. The ceiling is going to be skimmed-flat to get rid of the artex (urgh!) so that will be an ideal opportunity to drop the speakers out and stuff the insulation up there.

    They sound so good in fact, that I’ve ordered four more for the lounge ceiling. My cabinet speakers are “not liked” and moving the speakers to the ceiling will also reduce some of the clutter. More on that project when the new speakers arrive.







    Top of page


    © fircones.co.uk 2008