Formal living room speakers

[thejck]

I am helping a friend choose speakers for his formal living room. This will be a 5.1 or 7.1 system.
He wants to them to blend into the room and not be very visible. In other words he wants his living room to stay as a formal living. He has a separate room as a home theater.
I do not have much experience in this as I have big tower speakers and never messed with in-wall stuff.

I was looking at some of Polk invisible line of wall speakers. Anyone have any experience with those? Any other recommendations or ideas at what to look at other than in-wall stuff.

[VSchneider]

Budget? Polk makes some very good in-walls, too, but prices vary a lot.

[anonymouse]

Any pictures of the layout? Is there a TV in the mix, or is this a 2 channel system?

From a decor standpoint, if it is 2 channel, and you go with speakers that match the real wood finish and architectural style of the rest of the furniture, that could be quite pleasing to the eye. You do not need to hide them in that case. I use Polk SDA CRS+ which I refinished in walnut veneer to match the room they are in and they blend in extremely well with a formal office.

In terms of in-walls, there are many options and many price ranges.

In all, you need to provide us with some guidance:
1) Budget?
2) 2 or 5.1 channel?
3) Completely stealth install or subtly tasteful?
4) Do you have space for the electronics and how far is it from the speakers?
5) Layout would help

[JimAckley]

Any pictures of the layout? Is there a TV in the mix, or is this a 2 channel system?

OP stated either 5.1 or 7.1.

If there's an open attic above the room, you could go with an in-ceiling system and make it a rather simple and straightforward install. If not, this is going to become a good bit more difficult IMO. Then again, I'm not a professional installer, so I could be wrong :)

[thejck]

probably just end up being 5.1.
no budget is set yet. i am looking at ideas for him. one of the ideas is small towers in the front and in the rear either bookshelf or in-wall.

ceiling is out of the question because ceiling is 2 floors tall. In-wall might work because there is a dropped ceiling below.

There will be a TV and he already has an onkyo 808 receiver to go with it. So speakers will be powered by receiver.

Not looking to get the best sound out of this because he has a separate theater room. He wants something that is functional and doesnt sound like crap or weak like small satellite speakers would.
i was looking at the rtia line bookshelf because the curved back end gives a nice touch to it.

the vanishing series of polk, how do you do the grill painting to get it to match ure walls?

[DSkip]

Possibly look at the VM series? The 20 is similar in stature to the Def Tech offerings and would have a solid theater sound without taking up too much eye or floor space.

[VSchneider]

the vanishing series of polk, how do you do the grill painting to get it to match ure walls?

The new Vanishing series is what I was going to recommend initially. They also should be timbre-matched to LSi and RTi depending on the model for mix and match. If specs are right, they all are 8-Ohm nominal and relatively efficient, unlike LSi's for example. Could that be true?

I thought a couple of folks here have already heard them, so they might chime in, too. Mark? Ken?

Usually you must spray paint the grills, no roller.

[skipf]

Might be a silly question, but why do you want 5.1 or 7.1 in a living room? A great two channel system will sound better if you aren't doing home theatre.

[Geoff4rfc]

Might be a silly question, but why do you want 5.1 or 7.1 in a living room? A great two channel system will sound better if you aren't doing home theatre.

There is some great information here, the only thing I could add would to be; buy camouflage paint or the new H.D. transparent paint from Hi-Def world.

[thejck]

one of the possibilities would be to stick with a 3 channel setup.

On the VM series..what do they sound like. From what I understood they are plastic cabs?