# Advice on Surround speaker mounts.



## denzilr (Jul 8, 2013)

Hey folks, I am setting up my new media room and need some advice on speaker mounts. I am new to this forum 

System :
Onkyo TX-NR709, Blu Ray Player, Xbox
I have as my Fronts Martin Logan Motion 12's, center of Motion 8 and was thinking of 2 surrounds with Motion 4's.

Now the quandary is that the room was pre-wired for 5.1 and am trying to make the existing wiring work for the surrounds partly given it is done.

The issue I am struggling with a bit is that the pre-wired surround locations are on the ceiling and have a round ceiling box and is capped with one of these caps ( Arlington CP 3540) 


Given that I wanted suggestions in terms of
a. What type of ceiling speaker mounts Could be mounted on that box - seems like all that I find won't necessarily cover up that box if I remove the cap.
b. From a speaker placement perspective, I have always had my surrounds on the side in a 5.1 setting, will them on the ceiling totally mess up the setup?
c. Instead of the Motion 4's as surrounds do I look at in-wall type Say Helos 22's or Helos 12's?

If mounting the Motion 12's other thing I thought is just buy a regular ceiling mount , not mess with trying to mount it on the box itself, but then aesthetically I would possibly expose some speaker wire.

Any advice would be appreciated

Thanks in advance,
-Denzil


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## cavchameleon (Jan 7, 2008)

Welcome to the Shack!!!

Did you remove one of the caps to see what was behing it? Sometimes is just a break-out box which you can remove (and it's fairly small) just to hold the wire, then you just cut the hole to your speaker size (careful not to cut the wire). Also, if the hole is alread cut round and you want to mount a square speaker - it will work fine as long as the speaker you want to install is larger then the pre-made cutout.

If you can post a pic and the size of the opening under the cap, that would help us a lot in determing what you can place in that postion keeping asthetics in mind.


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## denzilr (Jul 8, 2013)

Thanks a bunch for the quick assist, attaching the pic under the cap.

So my big question is -- will In-wall be the best way to go? Or do I have any option whatsoever to use the motion 4's that I had ( Can return them otherwise  )

I would personally prefer to use the Motion 4's if I can more direct them or mount them on some sort of mount that I can swivel /position - but for some reason am not able to see a way to have it look great at the same time .


-Denzil


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## denzilr (Jul 8, 2013)

Am also posting the room pics they are on the ceiling towards the back of the room.


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## cubiclecrusher (May 21, 2013)

That looks like an interesting room. Many angles and slopes. Speaker placement is probably difficult an so the previous owner opted for in-ceiling. I don't like in-ceiling speakers, but it's perhaps because I've never heard good ones. They always sound a bit intercom-ish to me. 

I would stick with trying to find a new mounting location and either jump the wire from these boxes to your new location or do a completely new wire-run.

You can hang speakers from the ceiling using various plant-hanger-type suspension devices too. These can look odd, for sure, but can also be done quite well. It's an option for difficult rooms, if you want to "go there".

P.S. - here is a DIY option for the "Speaker Hanger":
http://www.free-macrame-patterns.com/speaker-hanger.html


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## cavchameleon (Jan 7, 2008)

Well, it looks like they are made for standard type of in-ceiling speakers (you have to cut the hole bigger to fit though. Martin Logan does make some in-ceillings (they can sound fine, I've installed quite a few of them at family and friend's houses).

If you want to use your Motion 4's, you can use the Omnimount. I'm not sure if the Motion 4's have a mounting insert in the back, but if they do it's very easy. You can mount it in front of the cap in the ceiling, and just drill a hole big enough to pass the wire through to your speaker. There are different Omnimounts, you need to get the one that will fit your speaker's insert if it has one.

http://www.amazon.com/OmniMount-Boo...UTF8&qid=1373298108&sr=8-8&keywords=omnimount









Larger one:

http://www.amazon.com/OmniMount-Boo...qid=1373298385&sr=1-1&keywords=omnimount+20.0










They look the same, but the larger one is twice as large in diamater. I'm using this for my Height speakers in my setup.

As another thought, looking at your 'cap' you can install some binding posts to them and hook the internal wires to the inner part and then other speaker wires from the binding post to your speakers if using the Omnimount.

http://www.amazon.com/Systems-Compa...373298527&sr=1-13&keywords=5+way+binding+post










Im not sure how secure the cap is, you may have to make it mount stronger by adding a center screw.


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## cavchameleon (Jan 7, 2008)

Forgot to mention, the cheaper way to buy the binding post is to get a 'plate' and just remove them. You can check at monoprice.com for this.

http://www.monoprice.com/products/p...d=1042503&p_id=3640&seq=1&format=1#largeimage










This way you get 2 pairs of red/black.


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## phillihp23 (Mar 14, 2012)

"round ceiling box and is capped with one of these caps ( Arlington CP 3540) "
If you don't mount speakers in this location you can always paint the caps the same color as the ceiling and they will blend in. That's what I did when i removed the center room light in my theater build.


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## denzilr (Jul 8, 2013)

Thank you all for the suggestions - greatly appreciate it. I think I will use the Omni mounts or if there is enough slack perhaps run the speaker wire down to some lower point.- not thrilled about having to use in wall speakers , so will stick to the Motion 4's.


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## cavchameleon (Jan 7, 2008)

Keep us posted on how you dealt with it, will be curious. You can paint the caps as suggested and run the wire down. You can also mount the speakers next to the cap and run the wire right through as suggested earlier w/o the binding posts, either way will work fine.


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