Building TV cabinet; should I use wall speakers or bookshelf type speakers behind fabric?

get the monitor height right before you cut wood!

i'm 6' tall, Donna is 5' tall.

I made a riser to lift the monitor up to a height that was comfortable for both our necks/viewing, and the relationship of my progressive lenses so I don't need to lift/lower my chin to see everything, including small sub-title/credits text clearly.

kept messing with piles of books until we got it right.

that determines the bottom of your monitor, then go from there.

1. front L and front R SEPARATE! adjust spacing, adjust toe-in, future changes.

2. center channel, tricky, you want the speaker as close to the monitor as possible, I find just below the monitor best, dialog will be anchored to the image.

a. You could build a center channel recess in the front/top of the cabinet, then raise the monitor up to finish just above it, i.e. the speaker does not move. The face of the Monitor would be 'behind' the face of the center speaker which needs to be considered. Cloth panel, put speaker in from behind.

b. Center Speaker goes up/dn with the Monitor.

I don't like rear ports, thus I chose this Klipsch center with front ports

they make a wireless version

klipsch has some refurbished, you can find them for less on eBay etc ....

In the old days, to verify if a fabric was ok in front of speakers, we would blow cigarette smoke thru the fabric, see and feel the resistance.

a sample corner, the fabric would get stained from the smoke quite easily, sure glad I quit.

You just breathe thru it, easy? OK. no visual help from smoke these days unless my friend David is around, I just realized, happily he is the only friend I have who still smokes (happily meaning myself and all other friends quit).

btw, Smoking Money became good 4 me.

I quit when I was 40 (73 now). Decided to give myself a treat with my tobacco money, spent that amount on music and/or music equipment: carton a week was $700./year in 1988.

I wasn’t thinking long, just encouragement not to go back to smoking as I had so many times before. Never imagined how it might add up.

Gave myself a rise in pay along the way, each year, whatever a carton a week cost, up to $4,200/yr now.

Any insurance actuary here who can approximate what these 33 years has added up to $ _____?

Somewhere around $80,000. ?