AB755: What Great In-wall Speakers!

[dhmac]

A friend is building a home theater system in his condo and I advised him to look at the Polk line of speakers. He decided to get two pairs of the AB755 In-wall speakers for his fronts and rears, so I helped him temporarily set them up for evaluation before installing them inside the walls. He also bought a CS245i center speaker and a PWS350 sub to go with them, and is powering them all with a Yamaha HTR-5460 A/V Receiver.

What great speakers the AB755 inwalls are! I had never heard Polk's In-walls before, but every audio signal we threw at them (pop, classical, DVD soundtracks) sounded good, clean and accurate. Well, almost everything: a Beethoven piano sonata CD caused some break-up in a single AB755 speakers, so I recommended he take that one back and exchange it at the store (which he did, although he also had to return a good speaker too because they came in pairs). But, despite that one problem, these are some great speakers that are virtually a steal at the $250/pair price Circuit City is selling them for.

BTW, because the AB755 speakers look like a regular speaker with the case stripped off, which regular Polk speaker do they roughly equate to in regarded to drivers and crossover?

[hoosier21]

RTi-35, close anyway.

[TrappedUnder Ice]

Take a look at the newer line... they have the ones like the those but with an 8" speaker and 1" trilam- may put those on my back deck

[Micah Cohen]

Thanks for the great post, dhmac. Always cool to hear nice things.

Which Beethoven sonata CD? :D

MC

[dhmac]

Originally posted by Micah
Which Beethoven sonata CD?

It was the first movement of the "Waldstein" Sonata (aka Sonata #21) as performed by Richard Goode in his complete cycle for Nonesuch. Classical piano music is, imo, one of the best ways to test a speaker.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/AS...768961-2645637

[aba4430]

Hello,
I just purchased a pair of AB755's for our new home. Have a question regarding insulation around and against the back of the speaker. Should I be worried about the paper backing of the insulation in contact with the back of the speakers, or should I remove the paper backing?
Thx,
aba4430

[Micah Cohen]

Ah, good'a question.

I originally thought it would be a bad idea to cut away the paper backing and expose the fiberglass batting to the back of the in-wall speaker, but Ken quickly corrected me.

Turns out, paper backing behind the in-wall speaker can reflect sound back out thru the speaker. You don't want this. You want the damping qualities of the fiberglass to absorb the rear-traveling sound waves. So, Ken advices wisely to cut out the paper backing, expose the soft fiberglass to the back of the in-wall, and then install the in-wall speaker.

This same principle, Ken taught me, holds for the composite cones in our speakers. With paper cones, sound tends to reflect back thru the cone from the front to the back. Dynamic Balance composite cones cut down on this sort of hoo-ha.

Okay. I've learned something new. Can I go home now?

MC