Home Theater Hacks

Hack #43. Convert In-Wall Speakers to In-Ceiling Speakers

Sometimes that great set of in-wall speakers from your last house just won't work in your new house. However, it's easy to convert in-wall speakers to in-ceiling speakers, saving hundreds of bucks on a new set.

Have you ever set up the perfect home theater and then had to move? I've had this happen twice now, and both times I lugged my expensive in-wall speakers with me. However, at one home I owned, there was no room on the walls for these speakers, at least not where I wanted the sound to come from (see Figure 5-10 for what these looked like before modification). In these cases, many consumers would bail on the in-walls and buy a new set of speakers, or have expensive remodeling done to support the in-walls. That's awfully wasteful, though; with a little caution you can convert a good in-wall speaker to a good in-ceiling speaker. You usually can position these anywhere on a ceiling (short of where a fan is mounted), and angle them just as you want.

Figure 5-10. In-wall speakers from Dayton (8-inch, three-way speakers)

That said, you can't just pull the speakers out of the wall and mount them on the ceiling. There are three problems when using in-wall speakers for ceiling installation:

• The weight of the speakers can cause the ceiling drywall/Sheetrock to bow.

• Ceiling insulation, especially if it's the blown-in type, can actually ...