car speakers as ceiling speakers?

GeX

GeX

GeX

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Joined
17 Dec 2002
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Location
Manchester
I'm in the process of replacing my, frankly awful, ceiling speakers.

My amp will deliver 40W RMS per channel. In the master bedroom I have fitted a pair of Yamaha NS-IC400 speakers. They were about £100 for the pair. They sound ok, but they're a bit lacking in the bass department. Which I guess is unsurprising given their size and the fact they're 9ft up in the air.

I've noticed that similar spec'd car speakers are much cheaper. Other than the mounting mechanism, they look like they fit fine. Has anyone tried using them?

Or can anyone recommend any slightly punchier ceiling speakers?
 
Thank you for the comprehensive reply lucid.

With regards to fire rating, I'm not sure that is correct. I've not seen any fire rating mentioned on any speakers I've looked at - they require fire hoods to cover them to maintain the fire rating of the ceiling. However, my ceilings are 115 years old and I'm sure lack any rating anyway.

I was indeed looking at larger speakers, namely the Yamaha NS-IC600. I went with the IC400s for the bedroom as I concerned about trying to enlarge the cut out in the lathe and plaster ceiling without doing damage to it. The cutout was similar in size for the speakers I removed. I wasn't expecting punchy bass from them, but in other areas of the house I do want a bit more punch (and I can make more mess in those rooms they're not freshly decorated with new carpet in them!).

Do you think it's worth trying to add a backbox to the IC400s, or to look at doing that for the bigger speakers? I'll stick with ceiling speakers instead of car speakers.
 
OK, thanks again for the advice. If it were you, which 6.5" speakers would you pair with this amp?
 
Added to my list, thank you for the recommendation. I hadn't heard of Blucube before.

In the bathroom and one of the back bedrooms there is only one, centrally located speaker currently. Would you replace those with BCK65-SS's, or just a normal BCK65 and put that zone as bridged?
 
Sorry, I wasn't as clear as I could've been with that. In the rooms with one speaker, I'm considering if it'd be better to have the BCK65-SS with its twin voice coils using two channels on the amp (and 40W) or to use a BCK65 using two channels on the amp bridged (80W).

I have 5 zones, 2 of those have 2 speakers and the other 3 have 1 in each.
 
How do the Blucube CCL-650 compare? They're a bit cheaper, but do they still sound good? 49Hz-22KHz.
 
lucid said:
Given the choice I'd always go for 4x 65's over 2x 80's

The extra 5Hz bass extension of the 80 isn't going to make much difference to the sound. We do most of our listening at low volumes, so the sound spread from 4 speakers works better for that.

When you want to crank up the volume, the surface area of 4x 6.5" drivers gives you 33% more driver area than 2x 8", and since bass and volume often come down to how much air you can move, then more driver area means more air moved.
Click to expand...

Do you know if these are suitable for putting in a bathroom, can't see an IP rating listed :/

but it does say "Our most popular single-stereo speaker. Suitable for smaller rooms of the house, such as small studies. The Kevlar cones and titanium tweeters mean they are also ideal for moist rooms such as bathrooms"

What's your view on the BCK vs BCP range. Price wise it's £50 per speaker (which is significant), the frequency responses look the same but the BCK have kevlar woofers with titanium tweeters vs the polyprop woofer and silk dome tweeters on the BCPs
 
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