In wall surrounds.

I don't think that in ceiling speakers work all that well. Otherwise it is nice and clean looking. Paradigm make some very good inwalls - I teeny B&W's inwalls around the house - they are pretty good and convenient - good for the kitchen and house parties but not really big enough to be serious contenders.

I wouldn't have thought of doing it myself, but a friend of mine had rear speakers built into the ceiling and it worked really well. The speakers were behind the listening area and the surround effects were very apparent yet diffuse and non-localized, which is what I prefer. I don't think it would have worked as well if the speakers were directly overhead, but I really liked the way it worked in this situation.

My two cents.

I have rear in-ceiling speakers that work great for home theater. Sometimes I don't think they are on but it really depends on the sound and how the movie or concert was recorded. And they are wider in placement so the sound is not on top of you. Are they the best? No. But it's more for sound effects so IMO you don't need the best for that solution.

My Kitchen has expensive Monitor Audio in-wall speakers. I like to cook with music. The problem is once your in the Kitchen your making all kinds of noises (fans blowing, blenders turned on) once you start cooking your making all this noise and you cannot hear the music. Would I make that purchase again? Nope. I would go with a box speaker in the ceiling if I really wanted to hear the music.

Ive been wondering about this myself. I am very into high quality car audio even going as far as having butler audio tube amplifiers in my truck and I've heard some amazing sounding car audio speakers.I don't see why these couldn't be used mounted free air in a wall. You would have to use a Amplifier that could handle a 4ohm load but as far as sound quality, my car speakers( cdt audio eurosport 3way set with image tweeter) sound cleaner, clearer and every bit as musical as my sonus faber Home pianos in my home theater. A home theater set up with 7 of these I think would be incredible. Dynaudio, focal, and cdt audio all make great sets that would probaly work better than most of the in wall or on the wall speakers on the market.

When I moved into my new house, it had speakers in the ceiling for rear backs. They were some cheap speakers. I saw some B&W CCM-65 speakers (with adjustable pointing tweeter) for sale on AG for $250 new (they retail for $800/pr) and bought them. What a difference in sound! I put some fiberglass behind them as they was none before as B&W recommends.

As surround backs the CCM-65 are great in ceiling speakers especially since I have no room for 'free' rear backs. My surrounds are B&W DS8S which are mounted on the walls. They do put out more and fuller music which is to be expected.

I don't have nearly the experience or the budget of many on this forum, but my new HT will have in-wall speakers for the surround backs. I will be installing two Parasound C-265 speakers this summer, I found them heavily discounted on AudioAdvisor's website.

BTW, my front speakers will be in-wall as well, the left right and center will all be SpeakerCraft Cinema One's. Don't crucify me if these are bad choices, I'm learning as I go on this starter theater.

If you select any of the few THX certified in-walls/ceilings - they are sometimes adjustable to their placement/or recommend placement if not - to keep THX standards - one of the 7 THX rules for sound quality is the speakers ability at imaging correctly with the other speakers placed by this standard. Therefore THX demands that these speakers point source the image at precise positions in your space, so, these speakers can be depended upon to deliver the caliber of sound quality you are looking for. All other inwall/inceilings regardless of brand will be a shot in the dark.

Good luck/have fun/enjoy

I have the small B&W in-walls and they work great for surrounds. I bought them based on advise from Spearit Sound here in Boston. I am happy, the wife's happy the speakers are in the wall and I am glad I didn't spend more money on surrounds.

I've been using 4 in-wall Linn 2K 106 speakers in a
7.1 channel system. No down side. Works great for
movies. Using ultra expensive speakers for surround
information is silly unless you were really into
multi-channel music, which I am not. Besides sounding
great the flush mounted speakers almost disappear in the room visually.