Evil wife banishes speakers

[admin_exported]

I knew marriage was made up of compromises, but this is ridiculus! As normal she's right though. We have a reasonable size living room (5m x 4m). However the layout - big fireplace, big patio doors, two sets of double internal doors means that there just isn't room for a nice pair of speakers. I also have young children who love to push things over or stick their fingers in things.

I'm therefore going to have to admit that the wife is right and will have to commit the cardinal sin of mounting some speakers on some wall brackets. I need some advice on an appropriate pair of speakers that will still sound great on wall brackets rather than on a decent set of speaker stands.

I've probably got about £400 to spend at the moment so the Award winning B&W 685s are attracting my attentions at the moment. Are these going to be ok on wall brackets fairly close to the wall? Are there alternatives that would be better suited? What kind of brackets are going to get the best from this set up?

To start with the speakers are going to run off my 10 year old Yamaha CDX493 CD player and Yamaha 386AX stereo amplifier until I've saved some more to upgrade these as well.

Thanks

Steve

 

[Anonymous]

Id move out and buy big speakers! or you could maybe get a good sub sat system??????

 

[chebby]

Rega R1

They even make brackets for them....

http://www.rega.co.uk/html/stands.htm

A review....

http://www.stereotimes.com/speak121305.shtml

The Rega RS1's have just been launched so R1's may be a bargain right now if your dealer has any. If not, the new RS1's are £398.

 

[Anonymous]

The B&W 685's will be fine. There's a pair for sale on E-Bay at the moment - apparently mint, and it will cost a lot less than £400.00.

 

[Clare Newsome]

I'd second the B&Ws - designed with wall-mounting as an option.

 

[John Duncan]

But they're kind of huge and will be fairly imposing stucjk on a wall. Might I suggest the 686 or CM1 as alternatives, or the AVI Neutron V?

 

[Clare Newsome]

I think any of those would get kinda lost in a 5x4m room...

 

[Anonymous]

I think the 685 are quite large and sound weighty, so doubt they'd work on the wall.

The 686 might be better but I don't know how much it uses its rear port.

Neutrons are small and elegant and a better speaker all round.

Something like Kef iQ1, although generally not as good as those above, may actually work well as they're leaner in sound and front ported?

CM1s use the rear port quite a bit.

MA BR1 may be ok?

Or those Dali Lektor are nice and clear, although perhaps slightly over-rated.

 

[Clare Newsome]

As mentioned, the 685s were designed with wall-mounting as a very real option - with a solid bracket they'll be fine.

 

[Anonymous]

Clare ~ can you recommend any brackets to go with the 685's?

 

[Clare Newsome]

Well, as mentioned above, it'd need to be a sturdy pair!

I've put a call into B&W to find out if they have any specific recommendations (they don't do their own stands or brackets for the 600 series) - i'll get back to you ASAP.

 

[John Duncan]

Clare Newsome:I think any of those would get kinda lost in a 5x4m room...

Ah yeah ok. Not exactly nearfield monitor territory.

 

[jase fox]

Steve Hall:
I knew marriage was made up of compromises, but this is ridiculus! As normal she's right though. We have a reasonable size living room (5m x 4m). However the layout - big fireplace, big patio doors, two sets of double internal doors means that there just isn't room for a nice pair of speakers. I also have young children who love to push things over or stick their fingers in things.

I'm therefore going to have to admit that the wife is right and will have to commit the cardinal sin of mounting some speakers on some wall brackets. I need some advice on an appropriate pair of speakers that will still sound great on wall brackets rather than on a decent set of speaker stands.

I've probably got about £400 to spend at the moment so the Award winning B&W 685s are attracting my attentions at the moment. Are these going to be ok on wall brackets fairly close to the wall? Are there alternatives that would be better suited? What kind of brackets are going to get the best from this set up?

To start with the speakers are going to run off my 10 year old Yamaha CDX493 CD player and Yamaha 386AX stereo amplifier until I've saved some more to upgrade these as well.

Thanks

Steve
You start of by saying your wife is evil then you say shes right? lolyour wife would be right as shes suggested it, id say get rid of the wife lol thats just my opinion ha

 

[Clare Newsome]

OK, here's what I got from B&W:

"The 685's come with a keyhole type bracket on the rear to allow the use of a single screw in the wall, the speaker would sit flat against the wall.

Wall brackets from third party companies would need to take the weight of the speakers into consideration, we make no recommendations on what to use as it's down to the customers choice on budget and suitability."

So, not the most detailed answer, but I guess they're not wanting to endorse a particular brand. Your local B&W dealer should be more helpful!

 

[Anonymous]

Wow "a single screw in the wall" ~ that suits my budget

 

[goodmar]

Since divorce is probably out of the question, have you considered a pair of Spendor SR5's, purposely designed and built for wall mounting. They come with their own wall brackets. I use a pair in my surround system and the wall brackets are solid and the sound is great. But I would say that. Depending on how far you are going to be sitting from them, then I suspect these will do the job and they have had very good reviews in the past.

 

[Anonymous]

Fortunately, on the civilized world we have divorce!

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks for advice all.

Not sure a single screw in my plasterboard walls is going to be strong enough? Definately going to have to go for a more dedicated bracket that will be strong enough to hold the weight and rigid enough to hold the speakers solidly.

Going to try and avoid the divorce option, but thanks for the suggestion?!?

 

[Anonymous]

Wallboard eh? A newer home lends itself to in-walls. There are some thumping good in-walls out there. But I'm not a big fan of them as they don't make my livingroom look as cool as my hideous home-made stands and not matching speakers. And, being a not big fan of, I honestly don't know which ones are good. But they do exist I assure you!

The benefits would be:

They won't rip themselves free of your wall as I'm positive 685's on "a single screw" would.
They have the old "infinite baffle" trick.
They're super wife-friendly.
They're an excuse to put on an old Boz Scaggs T-shirt, don your toolbelt and make an awful mess. Ideally over a few lagers with your handiest mate who, if you time your toilet breaks correctly, will do all of the tricky bits for you.

 

[Anonymous]

Steve Hall:
Thanks for advice all.

Not sure a single screw in my plasterboard walls is going to be strong enough? Definitely going to have to go for a more dedicated bracket that will be strong enough to hold the weight and rigid enough to hold the speakers solidly.

Going to try and avoid the divorce option, but thanks for the suggestion?!?

No problem, use butterfly fixings.
You drill a hole, push them through, then two halves spring out giving a wide purchase inside the wall. Strong enough to hang really heavy things off it.

Will look much neater than brackets and give the speaker more solid support. (for tighter sound)

 

[Anonymous]

Steve Hall:
Thanks for advice all.

Not sure a single screw in my plasterboard walls is going to be strong enough? Definately going to have to go for a more dedicated bracket that will be strong enough to hold the weight and rigid enough to hold the speakers solidly.

Going to try and avoid the divorce option, but thanks for the suggestion?!?

Steve, I think you had better apologise profusely to your wife if you want to avoid divorce, especially since she is right!

Good choice on the B&W 685 speakers. I'm also eyeing a pair of those but like you, I have a space/design constraint and I'm still considering options on where to put them. Let us know how your speakers look once you've mounted them.

 

[Anonymous]

I had a look at the 685's ~ I don't think that they will sit flush against the wall. The bracket sticks out a little and you also have the cables to consider.

I'd be interested to hear if anybody has actually mounted these.

 

[Anonymous]

Hi Steve,

hope I haven't chipped in too late but I have my B&W 685's mouted onto the wall with the very best ball joint wall brackets I could find.

They are B-Tech BT38 "AVIBALL" wall brackets and were £45 (delivered) for the pair from AV4Home (check the pics out on the website). They come in black, silver or white and they use the bracket that comes already fixed to the back of the B&W's perfectly. They mount the speakers at about 100mm away from the wall and can be adusted and tilted for pefect positioning and will hold the position when let go. They can take a load of up to 15kgs each.

I wouldn't recommend mounting them flush to the wall in any way though because they're best "toed-in" at an angle slightly and placing speakers in front of a plaster boarded type wall gives a horrible bass resonance effect, and since the 685's weigh 7kgs each and are quite deep at around 13 inches, it would be asking for a disaster to mount them to anything other than a solid real wall anyway!

I looked long and hard for the very best brackets I could possibly find and I think If B&W had packaged the 685's with wall brackets themselves, I really can't see how they'd be any different or better than these.

B&W themselves recommend in the owners instruction manual to use ball joint type brackets if they're to be wall mounted. And you also get the benefit of this type of mount not having ugly side or front clamps. They just look suspended in the air a few inches from the wall and it really does look rather good!

 

[d4v3pum4]

I'm going to fit some in-walls to my bedroom setup (replacing wallmounted tangent evos). I've gone for Speakercraft AIM's that were highly recommended by an installer. There are obvioulsy plenty of in-walls to choose from but these weren't too dear and are narrow and look easy to fit. Hopefully I will have them fitted this week.

I had my rears wall mounted using ball-joint brackets. They didn't sit straight. I bought floating shelves. They fell down. I gave up and went with 1m Atacama stands (they're out of the way behind the sofa).

 

[Tony_R]

You need proper "hollow wall" (also known as 'drywall') fasteners such as these (click the link for a fulll description).