Thursday 31 March 2011

How to - Mounting Speakers on the wall or the ceiling

Mounting speakers is becoming a very popular way of claiming back floor space.

At The Cable Connection we have a large range of speaker wall mount brackets available for online and in store purchase.

By taking your speakers and mounting them somewhere other than on the floor or on stands not only are you claiming back the space that they took up but also the risk of damage if they were to fall over (either to the speakers or a small child)

In this how to we will cover the 3 main types of speaker mounting:
  • Wall mounting
  • Ceiling mounting
  • In wall / In Ceiling mounting
To begin with we will start with the easiest method.

 
Wall mounting

Wall mounting a small bookshelf speaker is not dissimilar to mounting a large TV.

The same principles apply.

You must find a stud (or in the examples case a brick wall to mount to).  

The weight of the speaker combined with the high and low frequencies will eventually cause the speaker to fall down if not correctly mounted.

It is also important that the mount you recommend is able to handle the weight and size of the speaker you are installing on it.  A mount that is not strong enough will not have the ability to hold the speaker in the desired position and may even lead to the speaker falling to the floor.

Once you have chosen the wall mount type and located a stud it is time to decide on the height.   

With most rear speakers the height should mainly be driven by the aesthetics of the room.  Although the placement is important to a degree there is little point in sacrificing the look of a room for an extra 1-2% gain in sound (unless it is a dedicated theatre room)

Using the supplied screws mount the bracket to the wall at the desired height.  (see figure 1)

Once the bracket is fitted to the wall slide the plastic cover (see figure 2) over to hide the screws.

After the plastic cover is inserted it is time to put the rest of the bracket together (see figures 3 & 4) and mount your speaker on to it.

When the bracket is completely put together test the brackets holding ability by applying a fair amount of downwards pressure to the end of the bracket.

By doing this you will ensure that the speaker that is about to be placed on it will sit there without any issues.

Once you are satisfied that all is well go ahead and place your speaker on the bracket and tighten in place.

This method of mounting applies to all brackets including the ones pictured below:


Ceiling  mounting

Whilst mounting a bracket to the ceiling is slightly harder than mounting to a wall the principles are exactly the same.

When mounting to a ceiling you must locate a truss (the triangle part the holds up the roof) or a joist (the part that holds up the second storey of a house)

All the remaining steps are exactly the same as the installation of the wall mount.

  1. Find the wood above the plaster
  2. Fix the bracket to the ceiling
  3. Fit any parts and test for integrity of fixing
  4. Fit speaker (see figure 6)

Fig.1
  A wall mounted speaker

Fig.2 
Mount to stud wall

 Fig.3 
 Slide plastic cover over

Fig.4
 Putting together the bracket

Fig.5 
 Bracket mounted to wall

Fig.6
A ceiling mounted speaker

No comments:

Post a Comment