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[Jonas Akesson]

Hi! First post in this forum!

I would need speaker recommendations for an exhibition that I'm making the sound for. The thing is it has to be thin speakers mounted on the walls.

The room is about 16x5 meters and I'm thinking I will have eight small speakers (4"-6") on the two long walls, and two small subs (8"-10") hidden somewhere in the room. Anyone knows of some good sounding thin speakers suitable for this purpose?

(Preferably with a wide dispersion angle...)

[Lee Douglas]

I would need speaker recommendations for an exhibition that I'm making the sound for. The thing is it has to be thin speakers mounted on the walls.

With no indication of budget or expectation of performance given and because I think they're kind of cool (I've got one on my desk) how about something like this?

http://www.soliddrive.com/index.php/products/soliddrives/

Can be made to work with glass, drywall, wood or, as I mentioned above, a desk.  Could be all wrong for your application. 

[Jonas Akesson]

Thanks for the tip! I've tried those. I like them, but not for this purpose. It requires a more detailed sound, and there is different materials in the walls around the room so the sound wouldn't be equal from all directions with the solid drive.

Budget is around 5000-6000 euro for sound equipment including subs, amps and a small mixer.

[Ivan Beaver]

Thanks for the tip! I've tried those. I like them, but not for this purpose. It requires a more detailed sound, and there is different materials in the walls around the room so the sound wouldn't be equal from all directions with the solid drive.

Budget is around 5000-6000 euro for sound equipment including subs, amps and a small mixer.

Maybe if you gave more specific requirements-other than "think speakers"-it would help.

How loud does it need to go (be specific)-is there a particular coverage area (drawings would help).  How low does the sub need to go?

Does that budget include calbes-racks-mics-playback-install and so forth.

Without specifics-there is no way of giving useful suggestions.

Just like buying a car-saying you want a 6 cy car is going to give you all kinds of different answers-at very different price points.  But without knowing YOUR specific needs ( 2 seats or 8-gas mileage-2wh or 4wh drive-price-manual or automatic etc etc) suggestions really don't help much if it is not doing what you want-and if you don't say exactly what you want-wellllll----------

[Brad Weber]

I would need speaker recommendations for an exhibition that I'm making the sound for. The thing is it has to be thin speakers mounted on the walls.

The room is about 16x5 meters and I'm thinking I will have eight small speakers (4"-6") on the two long walls, and two small subs (8"-10") hidden somewhere in the room. Anyone knows of some good sounding thin speakers suitable for this purpose?

(Preferably with a wide dispersion angle...)

Maybe if you gave more specific requirements-other than "think speakers"-it would help.

How loud does it need to go (be specific)-is there a particular coverage area (drawings would help).  How low does the sub need to go?

Does that budget include calbes-racks-mics-playback-install and so forth.

Without specifics-there is no way of giving useful suggestions.

To add to Ivan's comments, what are you trying to do?  Is this just general background sound or is the sound part of the displays?  Does the content include speech that needs to be intelligible?
 
What are the room finishes?  Is there a reason you aren't considering ceiling speakers?  Can the speakers be in-wall or do they have to be surface mount and what are the maximum allowable dimensions in either case?
 
How did you come up with the relative quantity of four small, wide dispersion speakers and just one subwoofer for each wall?  And why speakers on both walls for a room that is 16m along the speaker walls but only 5m wide, are you offsetting the speaker rather than having the right across from each other?

[Jonas Akesson]

Brad and Ivan:
Ok, I will try to be more specific about this, appreciate your help!

Here's more about the scenario:

The sound that will be played is partly "small" sound effects coming from the areas around different spots/displays in the room, for example you will hear a horse riding by from the same direction where you see a horse on the wall, then some silence and then some other sound from another direction and so on. Thats one of the reasons for having speakers on both walls, so I have the possibility to address the sounds to specific places. The second part of the sound is a surround soundscape where you should feel like your'e inside a medieval battle, thats the second reason for speakers on both walls, to be able to get sound all around the listener. No intelligible speech, but sounds of swords, horses, screams etc. I guess I didn't think really when I wrote 4-6 inch cones in the speakers. More towards a maybe 8 inch? To get some bass in those speakers too.

The design of the room was already finished when I got into this project, that limits things. So the reason for two subs is that it's all there's room for hidden inside parts of the exhibition. That's also the reason why speakers can't be built inside walls either.

The alternatives for the surround speakers are:
-3,5 meters up, mounted on the walls, then they won't have to be "thin". But I'm afraid that the sound will feel distant and blurry and not surrounding in such small room.

- At ear-height behind printed cotton-cloth. That is where the limit in size comes in, It's no more than about 5 cm behind the cloth.

I don't know yet which of these alternatives would be best for the sound.

The budget is not really set, we have a technique-budget that should cover all AV-technique including projectors and so on. But this should be running for some years so quality has to be good. We haven't really decided how to play sound and picture yet so the parts of the budget are still open, it will be best to start with the needs when choosing speakers etc. and then see if it fits in the budget and what the others need.

Eight speakers will be placed right across from each other along the walls, and the subs should be placed a bit towards the middle and only play maybe under 70-80Hz and only during the "battle-scene".

What do you think? Let me know if you want more specs!

[Ivan Beaver]

Brad and Ivan:
Ok, I will try to be more specific about this, appreciate your help!

Here's more about the scenario:

The sound that will be played is partly "small" sound effects coming from the areas around different spots/displays in the room, for example you will hear a horse riding by from the same direction where you see a horse on the wall, then some silence and then some other sound from another direction and so on. Thats one of the reasons for having speakers on both walls, so I have the possibility to address the sounds to specific places. The second part of the sound is a surround soundscape where you should feel like your'e inside a medieval battle, thats the second reason for speakers on both walls, to be able to get sound all around the listener. No intelligible speech, but sounds of swords, horses, screams etc. I guess I didn't think really when I wrote 4-6 inch cones in the speakers. More towards a maybe 8 inch? To get some bass in those speakers too.

The design of the room was already finished when I got into this project, that limits things. So the reason for two subs is that it's all there's room for hidden inside parts of the exhibition. That's also the reason why speakers can't be built inside walls either.

The alternatives for the surround speakers are:
-3,5 meters up, mounted on the walls, then they won't have to be "thin". But I'm afraid that the sound will feel distant and blurry and not surrounding in such small room.

- At ear-height behind printed cotton-cloth. That is where the limit in size comes in, It's no more than about 5 cm behind the cloth.

I don't know yet which of these alternatives would be best for the sound.

The budget is not really set, we have a technique-budget that should cover all AV-technique including projectors and so on. But this should be running for some years so quality has to be good. We haven't really decided how to play sound and picture yet so the parts of the budget are still open, it will be best to start with the needs when choosing speakers etc. and then see if it fits in the budget and what the others need.

Eight speakers will be placed right across from each other along the walls, and the subs should be placed a bit towards the middle and only play maybe under 70-80Hz and only during the "battle-scene".

What do you think? Let me know if you want more specs!

I just LOVE (not) room that were built for a specific usage-yet that usage was never considered in the "design".   "We want sound to do this and that" yet no thought was put into how to deliver that sound--------------------------

Kinda of like building a baseball stadium-and not thinking about the field and how the game is played-then wanting to fit it into a shape that does not work well.

So now they can either rip out some of the walls and such to put speakers in that will do the job as intended or they can live with whatever sound they can get-for quite awhile.  Which is what I am sure they will do.

And never realize how much better it could have been-had it been done right with a LITTLE planning.

[g'bye, Dick Rees]

Thanks for the tip! I've tried those. I like them, but not for this purpose. It requires a more detailed sound, and there is different materials in the walls around the room so the sound wouldn't be equal from all directions with the solid drive.

Budget is around 5000-6000 euro for sound equipment including subs, amps and a small mixer.

Jonas...

Having followed your threads on this and other forums, your requirements for "surround"/"theater" sound will require much more than simply placing the speakers in the room.

You'll need to have your program material recorded in a surround format and have the system wired up to handle that.  There may well be some problems with time-aligning the subs depending on your sound design.

Finding the speakers themselves is likely the least of your problems.  I sent you a PM with a link to some very low-profile speakers that would handle getting the sound into the room, but designing the whole set-up is something for an on-site professional.

You've got enough budget to pay a sound designer/installer.  All you have to do is find some more money to pay for the hardware.  If you DIY, it's not going to cut it.  This is sophisticated stuff.

You need a local pro.

[Jonas Akesson]

Jonas...

Having followed your threads on this and other forums, your requirements for "surround"/"theater" sound will require much more than simply placing the speakers in the room.

You'll need to have your program material recorded in a surround format and have the system wired up to handle that.  There may well be some problems with time-aligning the subs depending on your sound design.

Finding the speakers themselves is likely the least of your problems.  I sent you a PM with a link to some very low-profile speakers that would handle getting the sound into the room, but designing the whole set-up is something for an on-site professional.

You've got enough budget to pay a sound designer/installer.  All you have to do is find some more money to pay for the hardware.  If you DIY, it's not going to cut it.  This is sophisticated stuff.

You need a local pro.

Dick,

Thanks for the suggested speakers.

I used the word surround here and in other places in lack of other words. But I really don't need material recorded in real surround for this (or at the theater). In these projects it's about addressing stereo and mono sounds to the right speakers to get sfx from some specific places. I have some alternatives on how to do that, have worked that way many times with good results. In both cases I need multichannel systems on which I can address the sounds however I want. A bit off topic now, but as you brought it up I use the setup at the theater not only with the speakers all around for "sound reproduction", but rather for creating very specific soundscapes and situations with different speaker combinations and placements.

As the sound is now, delaying the subs won't be necessary in this case.

And there are other people involved in choosing and installing this equipment together with me, so don't worry

[Brad Weber]

Perhaps I'm misunderstanding the goals but you seem to be talking about two quite different goals; in one case localization of sounds to specific locations while in the other case more 'immersive' soundscapes without locaization to specific sources.  Those seem to be potentially conflicting goals especially without a controlled acoustical environment.
 
I would really think about how you are going to playback, route and control all the audio as that could affect both the speaker system design and the speaker selection.  For example, your galloping horse moving across a wall would not only require a way to achieve the desired panning/routing between speakers, but it would probably also need sufficient low end output from each of those speakers to maintain the effect.
 
Adding to the challenge in this situation is that it sounds like the audience may be moving around.  Having the speakers above head level may be preferable to having them lower where people between other listeners and the speakers may cause varying interference.
 
Another aspect is that if this system will be installed for any period of time then it will probably be considered a permanent installation and will have to meet all code requirements.  That means everything from proper cabling to not penetrating fire rated walls without properly adressing the results to possibly even ADA and Assistive Listening compliance.

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