Once installed, most manufacturers recommend using self-adhesive nylon mesh or paper tape along the edges where the speaker panel meets the wallboard and then feathering the speaker face to the wall with standard drywall joint compound.
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This means that shims are often required during the installation to ensure the correct alignment. In addition, the face panel of the invisible speaker needs to be perfectly parallel with the wallboard but extend approximately 1/16 th of an inch above the surface. Flanges can conveniently hide off-kilter, crooked, or roughly cut edges in the drywall opening that the speaker is mounted in. Unlike a traditional-style architectural speaker, invisible in-wall or in-ceiling speakers don’t have flanges surrounding the speaker grille – indeed, they don’t use grilles at all. Of course, the entire process is much easier said than done. Although each company differs in the particulars of its product designs, the ones under discussion here utilize a similar fundamental concept that involves installing an independent vibrating flat panel (rather than the usual cone/dome-shaped transducers) flush with the wallboard and then applying paint or other type of covering over it so it completely blends in with the surrounding wall. Significant improvements have been made over the years, though, and there are now a considerable number of companies offering high-performance invisible speakers, including Amina, Nakymatone, Sonance, and Stealth Acoustics. Yet, short of some magic invisibility cloak straight out of Harry Potter (wand not included), how do you make a loudspeaker (or a 7.2.4-channel system of speakers) disappear? Making Speakers DisappearĪlthough the sound quality hasn’t always been that great, invisible speakers of the non-magical type have been around for quite a while.
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As a result, homeowners, designers, and decorators have dreamed of the ultimate architectural solution: the invisible loudspeaker. The problems quickly multiply when you start adding multiple channels for a home theater system. Furthermore, if the room’s layout or wall/ceiling construction prevents installing the speakers in a symmetrical or similar eye-pleasing pattern, one or more of those grilles will stick out like a painted sore thumb. Sure, such grilles can usually be painted to match the color of the wall, but they remain a visible distraction from what might otherwise be a beautifully designed décor. It does not, however, eliminate the visual presence of speakers in the room, as nearly all architectural speakers utilize round, square, or rectangular perforated grilles.
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This type of speaker not only offers the advantages of eliminating unwieldy or inconvenient boxes from the room, but it also gets rid of those ugly cables and wires that are so easy to trip over.
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One solution is to use architectural speakers that are installed either in-wall or in-ceiling. And that’s before accounting for the speaker cables and/or power cords running across the floor. There are other folks, though, for whom speakers are a necessary nuisance – at best considered an annoying piece of furniture that inevitably mucks up the ergonomics or décor-onomics (not a real word, but it gets the point across) of any room they’re located in. For the audiophile or merely the person who has an interest in the technology itself, this a beautiful thing. One of the amazing things about loudspeakers is the incredible variety of sizes, shapes, colors, and finishes.