I work at a school where it's my job to maintain the classroom stereo systems. Of course, none of these rooms have identical systems. The equipment in each room ranges from Perreaux amps and Spendor speakers to Yamaha amps and Cambridge Soundworks speakers!! Mind you, most of these rooms don't sound all that bad but age is starting to creap into the electronics in most rooms.

I've been assigned to find replacement, wall-mountable speakers for a number of these rooms. My supervisor is looking for a nice, warmer sounding speaker that can mainly excel with classical music. Easy enough...right??

Well, here's the catch. Our budget for each pair of speakers is only around $500. From my searching, I've found that that price mainly limits us to smaller bookshelf speakers that we can mount using brackets. Catch #2, security is an issue. Mainly, if I put a small bookshelf on the wall, some mean little student can rip it off and put it in their drum case to take home.

Ok, after all that set-up, here's what I'm up to and where an Outlaw can ride to my rescue. Does anybody know of any warmer sounding bookshelves that wouldn't mind living mounted to a wall and that can cover a room that's about 20' x 12' x 10'?

Thanks for any and all help.

I have two of the Infinity OWS (on the wall speakers) mounted for my surround backs on my walls, they vary in price from $200-$300, but the efficiency is 90 dB and they are rated to 125Watts. I have cranked these and sans the bass, they put out for their size.

Years back a did a Home Theatre install room in for my school TV lounge room and I used some Celestion bookshelfs mounted up near the ceiling and pointed down towards the audience. The speakers at the time were 100W, 94dB and driven with a 100W Onkyo receiver. Complemented by a sub, these speakers delivered a lot of sound for the room, but they were like $1000 for four at the time if I remember.

The infinities OWS's are sold at Circuit City, so you can test them out, or find them at Crutchfield. http://www.crutchfield.com/cgi-bin/S-rbF...a=0&cc=01&avf=N

[This message has been edited by alphanstein (edited July 22, 2003).]

Oh, and I forgot to mention, Infinity has a great warranty program, 5years. I have a center channel that the woofer was rattling on, so I called the warranty line to complain and they said, can you install a new woofer yourself, so I said yes, the sent me a new woofer three days later to replace.

But, when I took the old one out, all that was the matter was that a wire dropped out of the wiring harness and was rattling against the woofer, so now I have a spare woofer. But their expedited support was excellent.

I have heard a few great demos of B&W in-wall speakers...that would be more secure if you could get the work done at the school...if not, B&W also has a range of wall mount specific speakers...here are a couple of links:

http://www.bwspeakers.com/index.cfm?fuse...Submit=Continue

http://www.bwspeakers.com/index.cfm?fuse...Submit=Continue

Personally, I own a number of Energy speakers and they also make an affordable in wall speaker:

http://www.energy-speakers.com/custom_products/eas-65.html

Best of luck!

Thanks for the suggestions!

I'll look into the Infinity line. We have some older Infinities (??) mounted in some of the rooms so we are familiar with the brand. I forgot to mention that we want to demo the speakers here at the school but I'll see what I can do.

In-walls would make a great option if I had permission to do them. Problem is, I don't think the school wants us to do that and I don't really know if the walls would support them properly. Another good suggestion I should do more research on...

Thanks again for the ideas.

Buy the speakers from crutchfield, they have a money back guarantee so you can return them if you don't like them, all you pay is shipping and you get your demo. Of course now that I think of it Circuit City would be the same way.

$500 per pair of speakers per classroom? With kids who can't read, write or do simple math and know nothing about our history or government this is proof positive that schools are a royal sinkhole for our tax dollars.

KLH speakers for $40 a pair at Costco. Your principal should be ashamed for prioritizing the school's budget like this!

Those kids may not have mastered complex differential equations or Chaucer yet, but their hearing is very acute, on the average.

Give them sound provided by cheap speakers and they may never grow up to appreciate music and perhaps become audiophiles or home theater-aphiles.

Paul

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the 1derful1

Whoa!! Hold on there partner...

I probably should've mentioned in my first post that I work for a private, college and graduate level music conservatory. Our budget is mainly set through our students tuition and through private donors, not the government. A main part of the way our professors educate is through musical example. Admittedly, our students could probably survive with lesser speakers but as I stated in my first post, they're used to something a little better than that.

As a side note; I did like the sound of contractor grade JBLs, especially the way they mount securely to a wall, but my supervisor was correct in pointing out that they didn't present a clear enough treble for what we wanted. I currently have a pair of PSB's on route for our next demo.

alphanstein: The Infinity wall mounts look nice but I can't currently think of a way to mount them securely enough so that someone doesn't just slide them off the wall. Also, I would need a way to point them on a downwards angle because they would be mounted a good two feet above a normal listening height. Thanks for the Crutchfield idea, I may yet use that.