My Wife Has Caused Me a Major Dilemma

[Dennisu]

My wife and I recently moved into a new house and our family room is significantly smaller than the one in our old house.The room is approximately 13' square. We used to have a large oak entertainment center on which all of our HT equipment sat. At the time, we had a 32" Sharp TV, an old Kenwood Prologic receiver, and just recently I had purchased some Energy speakers (more on that later). In the new place, the entertainment center would have just overwhelmed the room, so my wife proposed we look for a new TV and dump the entertainment center. Needless to say, I didn't take much convincing.

We went out and purchased new the following:

Samsung 56" DLP TV
Yamaha RX-V1400

In addition, I salvaged the following from our old setup:

Toshiba 5 Disc carousel DVD player
Sharp Hi-FI VCR
Energy XL-C center channel speaker
Energy XL-16 bookshelf speaker
Energy Take 2 satellites for the rears
Kenwood Subwoofer from an old HTIB
TIVO Series 2
Digital and HD Cable

Needless to say, with this setup I was starting to get very happy. With the exception of upgrading the subwoofer, I just about had my perfect system (at least for what I can afford).

Here's my problem..... the moment I went to go mount the XL-16's to the wall (the wife will not longer accept stands as she doesn't think they're stable enough for children), my wife said that the XL-16's were too big and ugly to go on the wall and asked me to come up with a better solution. So here I am trying to decide what to do. I could theoretically get another set of Take 2's, but my question is how well will they sound compared to the XL-16's ? I guess I could also consider a pair of Energy Encores. And then my final problem would be whether either of these two new speakers would properly match to my XL-C center channel, or am I going to have to replace that too ??

Any help or suggestions anyone can make would be appreciated.
Thanks

[Worf101]

WAF (Wife Acceptance Factor) is the bane of audio enthusiasts the world over. Seems you've a couple of choices, to me anyway.... If floorstanders are out and you can't mount your current mains for reasons discussed, you either have to go with smaller mains as you've considered or "in-wall" speakers. I'm not sure if the walls in the family room will accept them or not of if you're handy enough to install em... but that's something to consider. Others here can recommend some good in-walls to you. Me, I had to chuck my vintage Ohm Walsh F's in the basement and get "modern" slim-line Platinum Audio Studio 3's. Ah, such is domestic bliss.

Da Worfster

[Woochifer]

You're somewhat limited in your options there. I don't remember the Encores sounding too much like the XL series (largely because the Encores are not nearly as full range as the XLs are), so if you swap out the mains, you might have to toss the center speaker in with that.

However, if you're seeking out other wall-mounted options, a LOT of new thin speakers have come out in the past couple of years that are decor-friendly but don't sacrifice as much of the sound range as small satellite units do. B&W, Paradigm, Def Tech, Klipsch, Martin Logan, and Vienna Acoustics are some of the speaker companies that have recently entered the wall-mounted speaker market.


Paradigm wall-mounted Monitors


B&W FPM series


Martin Logan Fresco

[Geoffcin]

\Samsung 56" DLP TV
Yamaha RX-V1400

Any help or suggestions anyone can make would be appreciated.
Thanks

And I was amazed at the performance. They absolutly crank! We've just put an addition on, and I was able to design the room so that the rear surrounds will be about 5" behind the seating area.

Here's a link to my post on the project;

New theater room project

[hershon]

Before I go on, I admit my total ignorance on the subject. Anyway, Mr. Woochifer, won't speakers mounted on walls like your photos cause endless vibrations and/or mess with room accoustics? If not, then I'd love to get the system you show in your first photo if I could afford it. How much does the setup including TV cost if your taking a guess? Thanks

You're somewhat limited in your options there. I don't remember the Encores sounding too much like the XL series (largely because the Encores are not nearly as full range as the XLs are), so if you swap out the mains, you might have to toss the center speaker in with that.

However, if you're seeking out other wall-mounted options, a LOT of new thin speakers have come out in the past couple of years that are decor-friendly but don't sacrifice as much of the sound range as small satellite units do. B&W, Paradigm, Def Tech, Klipsch, Martin Logan, and Vienna Acoustics are some of the speaker companies that have recently entered the wall-mounted speaker market.


Paradigm wall-mounted Monitors


B&W FPM series


Martin Logan Fresco

[Woochifer]

Before I go on, I admit my total ignorance on the subject. Anyway, Mr. Woochifer, won't speakers mounted on walls like your photos cause endless vibrations and/or mess with room accoustics? If not, then I'd love to get the system you show in your first photo if I could afford it. How much does the setup including TV cost if your taking a guess? Thanks

Like center speakers in general, these things are compromises by necessity. People who buy them want something that will wall-mount and go with a flat panel TV. They have similar placement and acoustical issues as other speakers placed close to the wall, but the ones I've heard also have fuller range than a typical satellite setup, which makes them much better suited to use the typical 80 Hz subwoofer crossover point with most home theater receivers. The typical sub/sat systems have to push the bass unit well into the directional frequencies in order to minimize the gap between where the satellite unit drops off and the bass unit takes over. With a wall-mounted speaker, you're basically getting performance more similar to a normal bookshelf speaker, and that allows you to go with more of a true subwoofer rather than a bass module that has to also handle parts of the lower midrange. The acoustics won't be ideal in a wall-mounted config, but that's the compromise you make when wall mounting.

The vibrations on the wall can be reduced if the speaker cabinet does not create a lot of resonance, and supposedly these wall-mounted speakers were designed with that in mind. Most of them use a sealed design, which gives them a lot more placement flexibility than bookshelf speakers with rear-firing ports. It's not like these speakers are venting into the wall and making the hollow cavities a part of the speaker. The most audible vibrations will likely come from the subwoofer anyway.

The Paradigms I believe cost about $500-$800 a pair. Don't know about the B&W FPM series, but I think it's around that same price range. The Martin Logans are $1,000 each. The Viennas cost a little less than that.

[Bryan]

(the wife will not longer accept stands as she doesn't think they're stable enough for children)

I know this statement all too well. My niece and nephew as they were growing up had to deal with my ceramic nOrh 4.0s. They learned to stay away from them and I never had a problem. And yes, they were on stands.

An alternative to the Paradigms, etc., that Woochifer posted would be something from Magnepan. Those are designed to be wall mounted.