Originally Posted By TCat
Trouble is, best WAF I've run into ever was a sound bar. My massive towers with amps and boxes were second though, not because of discretion but because I put them in an impressive stack along with a Buttkicker amp and huge transducers in the sofa and under the floor... and she got addicted to showing it off. No kidding, the first time she really felt them, she said, "Wow! I wonder how these would feel with a movie that goes Bwam shakka wah wah!" We never watched those kind of movies.


There is certainly an evolving appreciation for the value, in every sense of the word, for more advanced sound tracks. In my own home the decision to upgrade the system that is most frequently used adjacent to our kitchen was driven by appreciation for the impact of what was in the "man cave". My wife is not really a "tech head" but she appreciates that listening to even more "family entertainment" type movies like the Harry Potter / Fantastic Beasts is more engrossing with immersive sound than getting by with the flat panel built in tiny speakers or even a sound bar. While we choose a combination of in-ceiling and surface mount speakers that had much to do with not wanting speaker cables lying about for pets or guests to trip over.

I suspect that the kinds of decorating that is more common these days is also a factor in what sorts of designs are offered from the nicer speaker firms -- the footprints and range of colors is such that folks need not worry about anything being overly intrusive.

I'd also suggest that with the explosion of things like Soul Cycle and other work-outs where music at a high volume is part of the experience there has been a shift in what is culturally acceptable -- it is not just freaks that wanna "hang out with the band" but a more gender balanced fan base for even the loudest music. The mix of consumers, from across all incomes / genders, who've come to understand that tiny little speakers connected to even the nicest cell phone are not as capable of good sound as something with more volume is shifting the "acceptance factor".

Of course there are other issues that also need to be considered -- people are generally renting longer in more areas, which makes in-wall/ceiling gear a harder sell. The average amount of space devoted to the TV itself has gone up quite a bit, with 50" now on the small side of things -- that leaves less floor space for tower or stand mounted bookshelf speakers (though either set-up can have very nice Atmos experience, that also typically means cable management issues...). More parents seem to worry about that sort of thing than anything else...