Walls of music: in-wall speakers go high-end

Custom Home, April, 2003 by Rebecca Day

If the hills of Santaluz, Calif., come alive with the sound of music that's because residents of the ColRich Collection at Santa Monica are joining the surging number of luxury-home owners who are opting into whole-house audio systems. Custom electronics company Advanced Electronic Solutions2 (AES2) is offering speakers and electronics for the roughly 400 $1 million-and-up homes in the Southern California gated development, and vice president Rich Apgar is confident there won't be a single home without some level of multi-room music.

"People are demanding whole-house music," Apgar says. "Even if they don't think they want it for themselves, they perceive a need for it when they entertain." At the basic level, AES customers choose a three-room system which typically includes a home theater, master bedroom, and kitchen. Five- and seven-room packages are common as well, with SpeakerCraft speakers starting at about $350 a pair and going up to $1,200 or more a pair. It doesn't stop there. AES2 sells speakers for bathrooms, hallways, and even outdoors.

In-wall and in-ceiling speakers are the primary enablers of the multi-room music movement. Speakers that mount in the wall or ceiling can be painted or even papered to blend in with room decor. Gone are the days when you had to devote floor space to have a high-quality music system.

It hasn't always been this way in custom audio. In-wall speakers used to be me-too products that were best suited to background listening rather than dynamic music passages. Now even high-end loudspeaker companies have attached their valued brand names to in-wall speakers. It's not unusual to see $1,000-, $3,000-, or even $5,000-a-pair speaker systems for listening rooms and home theaters. SpeakerCraft's $50,000-a-pair Rogue in-walls grab most-expensive honors with a 6-foot-tall ribbon speaker that's custom made, painted, and finished to customer specifications.

"In-walls have come to dominate the market" says David Smith, president and chief engineer of high-end speaker company Snell Acoustics. Shell's in-wall speakers range from $1,500 to $4,000 a pair. "The people selling the product and the person spending money have changed. We see fewer hobbyists coming in and wanting to listen to the latest tower speakers. Our customers are wealthy, have big houses and want multi-room audio and home theater. They have almost no interest in the equipment."

That's a big change for companies that built a business around audiophiles who would spend days auditioning speakers in audio salons and then set them up at home. Many of today's high-end speaker buyers want great sound without having to know what's under the hood. They don't have the time or patience to set up complicated sound systems themselves, and they want their sound to be heard, not seen.

"There's more and more call for in-wall speakers at the high end," says Andy Clark, vice president of marketing for Harman Specialty Group. Harman's reference brand, Revel Speakers--whose tower speakers sell for four and five figures--will bring out its first in-wall speaker this summer, a concept that company officials might have scoffed at three years ago. "People are looking for high-quality audio to integrate into their lifestyle and not vice versa," Clark says. "They want high-quality audio and not to have to dedicate an entire room to get it."

As with tower speakers, in-walls are distinguishable by the components used to make them: the crossovers that divide the audio signal, the driver construction, and other components. "Higher-end speakers stand apart by their build quality and sound quality," says Greg Williams, regional sales manager for B&W Loudspeakers. "People recognize us by our Kevlar drivers, for example" he says, which he says deliver a more open sound and more accurate bass.

As with tower speakers, the larger the drivers the greater volume of sound. B&W's Sig 8 NT speakers ($4,400 a pair) stand a yard tall and 10 inches wide. Still, they fit into standard 2x4 construction and 16-inch on-center studs. "We tried to come up with a speaker that was more exacting to give deep, deep response and high-end extension" Williams says. "Our goal was to build a speaker that didn't sound like an in-wall speaker."

Meridian Audio recently unveiled its first in-wall speaker, a powered speaker that requires AC and communications wiring. The speakers have to be wired at the same time the electrical wires are run. They also include a UL-approved box that acts as a back box for safety. The benefit of Meridian's Digital Signal Processing technology is that installers can control the sound of the speakers to overcome the acoustical anomalies of a room. "Our technology can tell the speakers how they're being used--whether they're in a corner or freestanding in a room--and then installers are able to re-equalize the sound to correct for room placement" says Norm Steinke, national sales manager. That kind of control comes at a price of $5,000 a pair for the speakers alone.