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I am renovating my kitchen, new everything. I will be wanting some good sound in the kitchen since I do all the cooking and spend a lot of time in there, and I like my sound to sound good

I am debating between in-ceiling, or in wall speakers. I am considering a pair of W22s. They would not be near any high temperature areas ie: no where near the gas range.

I'm looking for opinions, advice etc.. anyone has experience with in wall / in ceiling / W22s in a small space ? The speakers would be about 6 feet apart, just between the granite countertop and the upper cabinets. They will most likely be powered by a Sonos 50W per channel ZP100.

The room is approximately 11' x 13' x 8'

Thanks!

I am not a fan of recessed speakers but if I had to choose, I'd take in-wall. With in-wall, you stand a chance of developing a stereo image. An in-ceiling installation on the other hand would, in my opinion, sound like two distinct point sources rather than a cohesive sound-stage. Best of luck with your reno and don't forget to leave room in your kitchen for an EP600

LOL !! Too funny Mojo.. I could put the EP600 in "dedicated acoustically transparent pots and pan drawer" !!

That seems like too much work.

Two EP600s and a nice granite countertop would make a fine kitchen island. Just keep the grills on so you don't end up with kitchen waste in the ports.

That really is a good island idea. If someone actually does that, I'll give them $10.

Now you guys are altering my design plans.. but in a good way !!... The granite is a given and on order, Black Cambrian, so it would match nicely with a pair of Black wood veneered EP600s.. and I could coat my home made battered chicken fingers right on the granite wile cranking up some death speed metal !! COOL !!!.. oh ya, the wife "might" not agree..Ummm... I'll let you know how it turns out..

back to topic, I'm thinking maybe W3s would be more appropriate size wise for the kitchen.

I'd go with vertical W3s, myself, for a tad more oomph in the bass area. If it's possible, I'd mount them upside down so that the tweeters are further from the ceiling. But, since you're not going ot be doing any critical listening in the kitchen -- or are you?

-- the imaging isn't so much of an issue as much as clean sound is.

I agree with the W3 idea, for stand alone bookshelves (with no sub) the W3 is the best choice. And its smaller too, which will add a cleaner look.

I think I read in the new products section that axiom is coming out with a new model in-wall that only sticks out an inch or so. They did a bunch of testing to see how close to flush they could get without sacrificing sq. That might be an even better option if you can wait that long.

Quote:

The granite is a given and on order, Black Cambrian, so it would match nicely with a pair of Black wood veneered EP600s.. and I could coat my home made battered chicken fingers right on the granite wile cranking up some death speed metal !! COOL !!!..

With the above configuration, it sounds like the chicken would batter itself!

Could be a good thing.

My impression is that the inwall W3's would work perfectly.

Just my .02...

Looking for self battering chicken,

WhatFurrer

Thanks guys for your advice..so the W3 with it's single 6.5 inch driver has more bass than the dual 5.25 driver of the W22 ? that's a good thing if that's the case because like you said, the W3 is smaller and size does matter in the kitchen !, just look at my knives for instance

Seriously, I just need some clean sound with decent bass output, not subwoofer bass output, but not shelf radio output, which is what my wife said "why can't we just keep the radio we have now ? " Because it distorts like hell when I play my Supper Club Flacs on it !! that's why !!! anymore questions ??..I did not think so.

Yes, you are correct, imaging is not prime and no I do not do critical listening in the kitchen, I do it in EVERY ROOM.

Just kidding, but good sound is what I am after.
Interesting about the "new" soon to come out thinner W V2s !. Anyone has a time frame on that one ? As this is a kitchen, it would be good to have speakers on the ceramic wall between the counter and upper cabinets that does not protrude to much, if they made 3.5 inch into 1.5inch, I'm going with that for sure.. just a question of when ? According to my current project schedule, I would be ordering at the end of July.

I'm going build a mock up in carboard of the current W3s to see what it would look like.

Stay tuned for that dual EP600 powered self battering chicken project

Based on the specs, the W22 will sound marginally louder. Since the W22 has two smaller drivers, I would expect it to sound more dynamic as it is easier to move a smaller driver than a larger one with same amount of power. In terms of frequency response, they are both rated the same. The W22's cross-over is a little higher. The higher the crossover frequency, the less audible the crossover is, since it is out of the range where human hearing is most sensitive.

Stephane, there's doesn't appear to be any good reason for the M3 to have an actual bass advantage over the M22. The real capabilities appear to be nearly identical, but the M3 has a bit of a hump in the 100-150Hz area which gives an impression of more bass, even much farther down, by making the second harmonic of those lower frequencies louder.

Axiom T series 4th pic down. I wonder if Axiom would send you the wall insert before the speakers are released so as to not delay the rest of the project.

>> but the M3 has a bit of a hump in the 100-150Hz area which gives an impression of more bass

Yep. The M3 sounds much fuller than you would expect given its size and driver complement. The M3 (and presumably the W3) is a nice design -- the bass bump is big enough to make the speaker sound much larger than it is, but not enough to distract from the sound.

But they don't sound like the mids are overemphasized right ?

In any case, it seems that the W3s are the better choice. I'm not going to need the extra loudness capabilities of the W22 and the smaller size of the W3 is more desirable.

Or maybe the T- Series if they come out in the reasonably close future.. like within the next 4 to 6 months would be good for me.

I am planning on powering them with a 50W per channel Sonos zoneplayer, anyone see any issues with that ? I would think 50W should be plenty for this application ?

The M3 is an excellent speaker and will no doubt play loud enough for you in that room size. Any Axiom speaker really is quite flat in their response, like others have noted, the M3 has a slight bump in the lower range provide a deeper response. The mids sound excellent and still contain the "Axiom" sound due to the same tweeter that is used in the M22.

The main difference is that you will get a warmer sound from the M3 than a "brutally honest" sound from the M22. IMHO this is perfect for a kitchen, because really, if you want to listen to MP3s, or less than stellar quality recordings in your kitchen, the W3 will sound better than the W22.

Exactly. When I did a direct comparison of M2, M3 and M60 I was surprised how small the difference was across most of the frequency range. What I like about the M3 as a standalone speaker is that it sounds full but you don't really hear the bass bump. My Paradigm Atoms, on the other hand, have a much greater bass bump to the point where it noticeably changes the sound of instruments in the upper bass range.

Thanks guys, that's exactly what I was hoping to hear.

Now if I can just get a time frame on the new in wall T series M3 that would seal the deal as it where. Also, I will want to get a pair of the new exterior model as well.

P.S. Allmost all of my digital music is on lossless format like FLAC or APE. I have very very little MP3s. It might be hard to tell the difference between a 320bps mp3 and a Flac, but the fact is there is a difference none the less. I'll go with the non compressed format and just get more disk space.