In-Wall Front Cinema Speakers - Small Screening Room

[Darin Steffl]

We're starting to review gear for our very small second screen with 9 to 12 seats. 10 ft wide x 24 ft long

We're planning on getting a Severtson fixed frame screen that is acoustic so we can put the front 3 channels behind the screen. We don't have room to build a baffle wall so we are considering in-wall speakers. This rules out the main cinema speakers like QSC due to size and they're not designed for in-wall.

What would you recommend in this case? I've looked at Crutchfield and started reviewing in-wall speakers for those front channels and maybe the subwoofer. We don't need the sub in-wall as there is floor space to put it in the open if we want. Polk and Klipsch have some with many good reviews for home use but their power ratings are low with 50 watt RMS and 200 watt peaks for the Klipsch. This is a small room but I don't want to be underpowered. They'll be powered by QSC DCA 1644

For surrounds, our tech recommended one of these two JBL speakers.

https://jblpro.com/en/products/control-hst
https://jblpro.com/en/products/crv-white

[Frank Cox]

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Those are my stage speakers before we put the screen in front of them.

[Darin Steffl]

We are unable do that in this small room. The entry door is within an inch of the wall that the screen will be mounted to. We have no room for large speakers so we have to make do with the room layout we have. I wish it were different but it's not.

Any attempt to modify the room or renovate by removing/adding walls will require us to bring us up to current fire code which means $200k just for sprinklers and fire alarm which isn't happening. The footprint we have is what we have to work with.

[Frank Cox]

You're going to have trouble with people putting their greasy hands on the screen if it's that close to where the customers are. That's the reason for the fence in front of my screen -- it's set back about four feet from the screen wall.

The very first day that I opened my theatre there were kids running right up to the screen so the following morning I built that fence.

[Darin Steffl]

I agree that people want to touch the screen. We'll try to think of something to discourage that behavior.

[Frank Cox]

Tom_and_Jerry_-_Episode_74_-_Jerry_and_Jumbo_(1951).jpg

[Stefan Scholz]

First part of a recommendation is to determine the required acoustical power, the speakers have to deliver at reference point, add a 6 dB safety margin for EQing and so. And then look onto the possible hardware projectthat matches your in wall requirement. Even at 24 ft depth of the room, these will not be really small. So the other option is to use a compressor driven sound system, get rid of dynamics, cut the low and high end for tonal balance (lower frequency limit multiplied with high frequency limit to be within 360.000 to 800.000), and use small "TV" style speakers. This will end in an acceptable system, offering ok sound quality, you will get the least complaints from your patrons.
To use the full dynamic potential LPCM 24 bit offers, your room is anything, but adequate.
I have seen such installations using a home style A/V receiver, set to "Night mode". The connection to the cinema LPCM was done using SPDIF to RCA analog converters of the "$ 4 at ebay" type.
Still one of the rooms featured a 3D system, at a time this was costly to do.
The surround receiver also featured the required power amps to feed the small speakers he used behind the screen. The remote control was done using GPO relay outputs soldered to the respective remote control buttons, with the remote control hung upfront the IR receiver window.
Don't get me wrong, I am not in favor of such installations, nor would I do those. Sound systems we design meet all specs regarding frequency response, dynamic capability and headroom, as well as bass managed surround playback with ample size and number of cabinets.
As this is the size of a mid sized home screening room, you could actually follow this line, and look into home theatre components. They are often better suited, as they keep size restrictions in mind, and the control electronics could handle requirements for use in multi tenant buildings, in respect to dynamics, voice channel treatment and frequency response, to still give an overall, pleasing result.

[Steve Guttag]

Did you look at the QSC SC-1120 or SC-1150? They are under 12" deep. If you think you truly need in-wall speakers (need to fit within a 4-6" stud bay in order to be behind a screen, you should think bass-management and just get the HF section behind the screen and blister out the subwoofer, which will need to also be the bass for the "screen speakers." You'll never get a really good in-wall speaker that has decent bass. JBL has a couple of in-wall speakers (in white). As for surrounds, I've used JBL's Control 1s and Control 25s as well a QSC's AD-S series.

[Marcel Birgelen]

That Control HST speaker seems to use a wall-facing speaker to do some "noise cancellation". I'm not sure if I'm a fan of this...

Also, it seems to be a bi-polar design. I'm also not a big fan of bi-polar surround speakers. I'd rather go for something simple, cheap and proven, like Control 1s, but add a few more to be able to cover the room.

[Emmanuel Nwokafor]

You can consider MAG-210A , this speaker is very small in size

[Dave Macaulay]

The JBL C222 is nice.