Ceiling speakers

[PeterT]

We have a large Bistro area at the College I work at which we use for end of term meetings for between 4-500 people. The space has pillars and also goes into another zone (in order to get everyone in) I currently use about 4 speakers to get the sound into these areas but the college want to have a properly installed system and have had a quote with lots of zoned ceiling speakers.

 

My first question is: are we going to get enough volume from these ceiling speakers to get 500 people to shut up and listen? and if we could what sort of size units is that going to need?

 

My gut feeling is that ceiling speakers are lightweight, with tiny drivers that are great for background but the moment you want to do PA and show music, forget it.

 

Would welcome some advice

 

Cheers

[the kid]

I installed a system in my last job, I dont remember the brand but we used a 100v line system I dont know the dimensions exactly, maybe about 20m square, with a 20x8 added section on it.

 

We installed 16 speakers in total breaking it in to 4 zones, we split it so the front row was a zone to avoid feedback with mics when used for talks etc, then the rest was split up as we needed for various other reasons.

 

We used it mainly for talks but when using for radio or the like it cut through 400 ish teenagers pretty well. Depends how clear and loud it needs to be.

 

If you are interested I can send you the number of the guy who installed it and provided all the kit.

[bruce]

As with any sort of speaker, you get good ones and bad ones. But don't give in to the preconception that "ceiling speakers are all bad".

 

We've built systems using things like JBL control 26, and they've been fine.

 

Remember, the inverse square law will work in your favour. The distance between listeners and the speakers will be relatively small, so you don't need huge volumes.

[david.elsbury]

One of the hotels I work in has a room fitted out with ceiling speakers. We regularly run lecturn, pc audio, radio mics through it. It works well though I do wish there was not a speaker directly above where the lecturn goes...

[stu00c]

There will be no problems with level as long as you select the correct speaker and apply the required power.

 

These days many manufacturers are making ceiling speakers that are as good as cabinet speakers, often using the same drivers. See what Community, Tannoy and JBL have to offer.

 

We are now seeing loud DJ driven bars being equipped with ceiling speakers, so no longer are they just the preserve of commercial paging and BGM systems.

 

The big benefit of using ceiling speakers is that if you space them sensibly, you can get extremely even coverage (very little SPL variation on the listening plane. There will often be benefits in intelligibility as you will have speakers closer to peoples ears so there is a high proportion of direct sound compared to reflections.

 

Another thing to be aware of is that if the ceiling speakers are part of a 100V system, this is not necessarily going to reduce system performance. The autoformers in Community's products (I work for their UK distributor so using them as an example that I know well) have a very flat frequency response and will only result in a fraction of a dB loss in output making them virtually transparent. You can then enjoy the benefits of simpler cabling you get with 100V line systems with no downsides on audio quality.

 

Final bit of info to share is my rule of thumb I use when specifying high quality ceiling speaker systems - the spacing between the speakers should be roughly the same as the distance between the floor and ceiling.

 

Stu

[Robin Pratt]

I agree with others here that carefully chosen and positioned ceiling speakers can work really well. In some cases though, I've found the ceiling itself to be a limiting factor, suspended grid ceilings can be very prone to rattling/vibrating at specific frequencies.....

[kerry davies]

Note that ceiling systems have come a long way since my day and now use floor mounted subs as part of the designed system in many cases. Pendants, flat wall-mounted, strange architectural speakers, the sector is a different world today. Get Stu to send you a brochure.

 

Then get some in from his competitors! :D

[smalljoshua]

We've successfully installed ceiling speaker systems in large rooms with no issues. The important thing is to choose good quality speakers, 100V line is able to do very well these days over a wide range of frequencies.

 

We're only down in Plymouth and work over the whole of the Southwest, if you want us to produce an alternative quote for you to compare options, email me on josh@nubsound.co.uk

 

Josh

[Bobbsy]

All the comments above about getting the right components to achieve the quality and SPLs you need are accurate.

 

However, just for the record, there's a psycho-acoustic issue to consider if you want the speakers to grab people to "shut up and listen". The human brain likes to know where a sound is coming from--that's why we're wired with binaural listening apparatus! :)

 

Ceiling mounted speakers give no sense of directionality to indicate who's speaking and therefore make it that much more difficult for the master of ceremonies or featured lecturer to "grab your attention". Instead of knowing it's that important guy up on the head table, it's just a disembodied voice that could just as easily be paging somebody that their cab has arrived or something. This is also why in theatres we often use delays so the Haas effect helps direct the listener to watch the stage, not the speakerer array.

 

In a smallish room where there's sufficient "direct" sound this isn't too bad--but as rooms get larger, the lack of focus can become an issue.

 

From the replies above, you can see that the ceiling speaker style of system is widely used...just be aware of this drawback.

[smalljoshua]

Just be aware of this drawback.

We generally overcome this by either placing a pair of wall mounted speakers at the position where the source will be as full range units giving a more prominent sound from the correct direction or where there is more than one configuration of the room having a soundweb or similar (an IDR normally as of late) configured to alter delays and EQ to give prominence from the correct direction.

 

Josh

[Bobbsy]

Yup. Things like that can help (though you have to be careful about intelligibility as multiple sources can quickly muddy the sound since it's pretty hard to get a situation where tables aren't hearing a bunch of different ceiling speakers with different delays.

 

Don't get me wrong...ceiling speakers are pretty common in large banquet hall/conference room set ups (lowish ceiling, large floor area) but it's not as easy to get it sounding good as just putting the speakers up and forgetting them.