Home Theater Geeks 497 Transcript
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Scott Wilkinson [00:00:00]:
In this episode of Home Theater Geeks, I answer a question from Arthur about on wall speakers. So stay tuned.
TWiT.tv [00:00:10]:
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Scott Wilkinson [00:00:26]:
Hey there, Scott Wilkinson here, the home theater geek. In this episode I answer a question from Arthur who writes I'm in the process of laying out a basic 5.1 home theater. Ideally I would like to have on wall speakers, though I've found the options are limited. There's the Monoprice MOW one which is out of stock. The Dolly Oberon which is pricey. The Revel S16 which is tough to find and maybe a few others is my best hope for a sub thousand dollar per pair. The Elac Muro. Also, is there a disadvantage of on wall over traditional bookshelf or floor standing speakers? Well, thanks for the question Arthur.
Scott Wilkinson [00:01:22]:
Yeah, this is a great question. I myself like on wall speakers and have them. In fact in my theater. The ones I have are from a company called Grimani Systems. The front, left and right are the Rixos S, the center is the Rixos H2 and the surrounds and overheads are the Rixos W. They're very very expensive, so they're not in your sub $1,000 repair price range at all. Rixos S is 4,500, 4,450 each. Now that includes amplification, but still.
Scott Wilkinson [00:02:09]:
And The W is $5,400. So this is not what you're looking for. I. I know, but I wanted to point that out because I too really like on wall speakers. A lot of people prefer in wall speakers where you actually cut a hole in the wall and recess the speaker into the wall so that it's flush, its front edge is flush with the wall. They're much less visible, but they require you to cut a big old hole in the wall, which I wasn't really happy about doing. So I like on wall for that reason. Now the only holes in the wall are those for the mounting hardware and also for the wire, the speaker cable which ideally you want to thread through the walls so that they're not visible.
Scott Wilkinson [00:03:05]:
This is one advantage that in walls have over on walls because their wires are going to be invisible anyway because the whole speaker is built into the wall. But if you put it on the wall, then you either have to live with wires going down the wall from the speaker to wherever your amplifier is, or you have to fiddle them through the wall and drill another hole near the bottom near where the amplifier is. And that I would hire somebody to do. Now Maybe you're handy enough to do it and more power to you if you are. I'm not. So that's a bit of a tricky situation that you want to be aware of when dealing with on wall speakers. And I don't really care if they're visible because I watch in the dark most of the time and as long as they're black, they're gone anyway. They're invisible in that sense anyway.
Scott Wilkinson [00:03:58]:
Now that's true. They are relatively thin, just like in walls are. And both of those styles require very careful design. With bookshelves and floor standing speakers. The box, the enclosure can be made any shape. The designer wants to optimize the sound. But with on walls and in walls they have to be thin. And so the designer has a much greater constraint and tougher time figuring out how to make that sound good.
Scott Wilkinson [00:04:33]:
But they don't take up any floor space. So I like that I have a small space, which is why I chose to go that route. But if you have kids or pets, you know, and there, there are speakers sitting on the floor, they could easily get knocked over. Not a good thing. So I took a look at some of the speakers you mentioned in your letter. The Monoprice MOW1 is out of stock on the company website. They sell for $500 each, 450 if you buy two or more. So that's in your price range and they look pretty interesting.
Scott Wilkinson [00:05:09]:
But I don't know if or when they will be back on the site and available for sale. The Dolly Oberon on Wall, which I actually got a graphic of to show you is eleven hundred dollars a pair at Crutchfield. And so it's over your budget a little bit, but it's undoubtedly excellent. The On Wall C, which is the matching center speaker. Crutchfield had it there for 499 bucks as an open box. Its list is 899. And it's a powered speaker that receives a wireless signal from something called a sound hub, which is sold separately. So it's probably a more expensive system than your budget will allow.
Scott Wilkinson [00:05:59]:
I also took a look at the Elac Muro OW V41S which is the next graphic. And this is the 41L so it's the larger version. You can see it's symmetrical tweeter in the center and mid range and woofer on the outer edges. They it's probably very good and you know it's within your price range. The debut 2.0 OW 4.2 is 3.99. A pair of but that's discontinued, so they say. Now ELAC also offers a few others, several models in their vertex 3 line, which is probably too expensive. They don't list their prices on the website, so that leads me to think they're probably more expensive.
Scott Wilkinson [00:06:55]:
They do list prices for the WS line. The WS 1425 is 400 bucks. And that's a nice little square speaker there. That's kind of nice looking. They also have the WS 1445 for 450 and the WS 1465 for 500 bucks. And that's what you see here. That's also a symmetrical driver layout. Now elac, the ELAC website doesn't seem to specify a center channel speaker for some of these models.
Scott Wilkinson [00:07:35]:
But they do say that the WS 1465 can be used vertically or horizontally. So Perhaps the Miro OW V41s can be as well. So I took a look quickly at some subs that would go with these Elacs and they would include the debut 2.0 10s, 10.2 which is only 329 bucks and the Varro V A R R O PS250 which is 699 bucks. And it has a much better low end response. So if you can afford that one, that's the way I'd go. I also found a few other options for you. A company called Sonance has a lot of on wall speakers starting with the OW42 for $495. It's only 1.7 inches deep.
Scott Wilkinson [00:08:33]:
Most of these other SPE are in the 3 to 4 inches deep range. And at only 1.7 inches deep, that's really thin. But I have to say Sonance is sort of more about design than performance. I mean, I'm sure they perform fine, but they are more concerned in my opinion, in my experience with how it looks on the wall or in the wall. They do a lot of architectural speakers. The PSB PWM1PSB is a great speaker manufacturer. Paul Barton is a friend of mine, excellent speaker designer. These are great, great on wall speakers that you can see that they're really long or tall in the case of being mounted vertically at like 28 inches.
Scott Wilkinson [00:09:31]:
But they're thin at 3.38 inches. They cost almost 900 bucks a piece. So they're kind of out of your range. However, the ones that I really think would do you well, other than the elacs, I think the ELACS would be a good choice. But also the company Golden Ear has had For a number of years. A model called the Super Sat. And they have three different models of supersat, the 3, the 50 and the 60. And they get bigger and bigger as you go up the the numbers.
Scott Wilkinson [00:10:06]:
The Supersat 3 is pretty small, meant to be mounted on the wall, 350 bucks each. And the 3C, which is a horizontally oriented one meant to be used as a center channel, is 300. They're very compact. In fact, if you put four supersat threes, one super sat 3C and one force field three subwoofer from Golden Ear or a force field 30, it would make a killer 5.1 system. Really, really good. The company in fact makes that or offers that package as the Super Cinema 3 package. And here's the picture of it. With four supersat threes, a Super Sat 3C and a Force Field 3 subwoofer.
Scott Wilkinson [00:11:06]:
The total cost for that package is on the order of 2,300 bucks, which is really good. And Golden Ear is, is a fine make of speaker, no question about it. Now, the ELAC system I would put together for you, I have two suggestions. One is the Muro OWV41S which is $479 times five is 23.95. And a Varo PS250 subwoofer, which is 699, gets you a total of just under 3,100 bucks. Still, I think that would be a hell of a system if you wanted to go lower than that. If you needed to keep your budget under that, I might say the WS 1425. Four of them for 400 bucks each.
Scott Wilkinson [00:12:03]:
1600 bucks, one WS 1465 for the center channel at 500 bucks and an S 10.2 subwoofer 329. Total price just under 2,500 bucks. Even in that case, I would probably recommend the Varo PS250 sub for 699 because it goes down so much lower. And that would be, I think, well worth the extra 300 and some bucks. Anyway, that's what I recommend for you. Good luck and I wish you all the best in your home theater adventures. Now, if you have a question for me, send it along to htgwit TV and I'll answer as many as I can right here on the show. And as you know, Twit now offers all of its programs on YouTube for free, but with ads.
Scott Wilkinson [00:13:05]:
If you want to go ad free, join the club. Go to Twit TV Club Twit to join today. Until next time, geek out.
