3 mistakes when choosing speakers

Are you looking to set up a home theatre system? Or are you renovating your retail or corporate space but stressing about speakers that might ruin your aesthetic? Or maybe you’ve just decided to upgrade from your existing system?

 

This might be a good time for you to review what you have planned for your space. 

 

Do you have a pretty good idea of what you are looking for?

 

Before hiring your contractors, it might be a good time to mull over some advice on how to avoid some common mistakes we feel were made all too often by designers and consumers when it comes to invisible speakers.

 

Let’s face it, planning for your speaker system can be a daunting experience. But it doesn’t have to be. So here’s a checklist of everything you will need to ensure a smooth decision making. 3 mistakes when choosing speakers

 

The most common mistakes are:

1. Not familiarizing yourself with your room and its unique architectural features
2. Wrong speaker size for your room
3. Wrongly allocating your entire remodelling budget, leaving very little for your speaker system

 

If you don’t want to end up busting your budget, be sure to check our tips below before making any devastating mistakes.

The first and foremost thing you need to do is to familiarise yourself with your room and make a note if they have any unique architectural features.

 

This is important because
1- you want to make sure your speakers are not in the way of your features and
2- you’ll want to make sure your room is also properly treated acoustically.

 

Let’s dive in on these two points.

 

Firstly, an empty room without treatment will produce “weird echoes”. So if part of your room’s interior design does not include some form of treatment, you may want to look into adding curtains or a couple of sofas just to reduce them. You won’t want poor sound quality in your beautiful room.

 

Secondly, if you have not already, make a list of your room’s unique architectural features. Then, decide alongside your interior design choices if you want your speakers to be a part of your architectural features. Conventional speakers are boxy style and often come only in black. If your budget permits consider line arrays from K-array or Amina Invisible Speakers.

 

 

So, when you are planning your furnishings and interior design for your space, you need to keep these two things in mind. If you can plan for your interior, you’ll need to be able to plan for your speakers too and where they will be positioned in your room. 

 

Which brings us to our next tip:-

So say now you have your speakers, where are you going to place them?

 

There may be no true way to place your speakers, but you will want them to perform at their best. And positioning them where you’re not experiencing their best performance is just going to be a waste of your time.

 

Don’t you agree?

 

The rule of thumb is: you will want to make sure your speakers are placed at your average listening height. This will depend on the function of your room. Here are three questions to get you started:

 

Will your speakers be in a boardroom or a lobby? Is it an entertainment center? What is the maximum number of people who will be in this room at any given time?

 

So, for example, for boardrooms, you will want your speakers to be placed at your sitting level. Boardrooms are used for meetings & presentations anyway, so it makes more sense to have them parallel to your ears.

 

For the lobby, often the speakers are just there to play background music, so it’s alright to place them a bit higher than your usual listening level. For a more immersive effect, having invisible speakers in your ceiling is the ideal choice.

 

So, don’t skip out on deciding your speaker placements when you’re planning for your room.

 

A quick bonus tip: other than your speaker placements, you will also want to choose the right speaker size relative to the size of your room.

 

You don’t want to choose small speakers for a big room, neither do you want speakers that are too big and out of place.

 

This one is not going to be easy to figure out on your own, but it helps when you know what the speakers are for. Going back about the function of your rooms, you also need to decide the function for your speakers.

 

Asking yourself questions like: who are the listeners, what time of media are you playing back, how much volume do you need etc.can help you figure the right speaker size.

 

In retrospect, you will want a system that delivers ample volume for your listeners with still a little bit more headroom to drive the volume so you can have the flexibility to turn it up whenever you need to.

Finally, the 3rd mistake people make is wrongly allocating your entire remodelling budget because you prioritise the visual over the audio.

 

Truth be told, that’s totally normal to want to prioritise different things. On top of that, because we see before we hear, it’s only human nature to notice the things we see first.

 

But, hear us out. You should think about the whole experience! You would not want speakers that are poor quality just because you care more about your video more than your audio.

 

So, instead of just putting all of your costing into getting the best visual system, pair it with a decent speaker system as well. That way, you will get an overall wholesome experience.

Bottomline, when planning for your speaker system, look at your space, think about the functions, and finally ensure that you have allocated sufficiently in your remodelling budget. In our years of consulting and conducting demos for our clients, these are the three tips we advise on the regular.

 

We hope you find our tips helpful. We’d love to hear more from you should you have any other questions related to this blog or our service.

 

You can email us at [email protected] with your enquiries or WhatsApp us at 012 325 6513 for an immediate response!

 

Alternatively, you can also book a demo session at the office with us. Our showroom/office is located in Ampang. Directions are easily accessible on our contact page here. 3 mistakes when choosing speakers