If you are seriously considering using ceiling speakers for use in the outdoors, without a doubt you have to first and foremost make sure that they are designed for outdoor use. Not only should there be sturdy and strong materials, the design should be able to withstand a multitude of weather conditions. Usually if a manufacturer develops an outdoor model more likely than never it will state and advertise that, but in the case that they don’t I wanted to give you a few indicators to look for that may help you differentiate them from other ceiling speakers. First of the cone portion will likely have a rubber edge, which of course is more weather permitting than their typical materials.

Normally the subwoofer and tweeters are made from a fine paper, outdoor ceiling speakers would not be constructed this way, for obvious reasons that we know how paper will react if water came in contact. Another issue we know with humidity, water and weather is that what it can do to metal. Yes you guessed it, RUST! This for sure is a big no no on speakers so be sure to make sure that the grills of the speakers are made with alloys like aluminum, stainless steel or at least at the bare minimal powder coated.

So you followed these tips, yet at the end of the day you have to realize you are putting your ceiling speakers out there in the outdoors, and you cannot expect the same life expectancy with a normal speaker but in the comfort of your own home. So like I mentioned here, water, humidity is not your friend, you can do precautions, but try to avoid installing ceiling speakers in areas with high water traffic, and ideally not in a extremely humid country!

Ceiling Speakers in an outdoor setting

Like I mentioned before having wide sound dispersion is very important when it comes to ceiling speakers. So imagine the speakers having to perform in the outdoors where there is no wall to bounce off from!! The reverb here is extremely high! So without a doubt, you would lose a lot of bass and treble, so especially in outdoor situation make sure that your ceiling speakers have a high bass/treble or at least have switches to boost them.

One final point that you have to be aware of is that, depending on how big your yard is and how loud you want your ceiling speakers to play before your neighbors call the cops, you would need a high power supply. So what this means is that you have to be aware that all the components in your setup has to be well designed to sustain that much power to give your speakers the best performance possible.

The greatest appeal about ceiling speakers is the way they can be used around the house and seamless be incorporated into the ceiling. The beauty is that all the wiring would be hidden too, so of course this goes both ways, it’ll last longer because they are hidden, but if they are malfunctioning you would have to dig them out too.

On the sound quality side of things for ceiling speakers because of their unique placements and the way the human brain translates sound we need to be more aware about how the sound is dispersed around the listening area.

In order to have the maximum performance throughout the whole house you need to consider this. First and foremost I always recommend getting ceiling speakers that have tweeters. Why? For the simple reason that their designs give the full spectrum of sound and quality is very evident for those who have it and those don’t.

Ceiling Speakers in the House

Depending on your budget and with properly dispersing sound in mind, I usually aim for 5” and no more than 61/2” speakers, and also look for dome tweeters. Both the small size and dome material (very light and stiff construction) will provide wider dispersion of sound, and like mentioned before very crucial in ceiling speakers.

Speakers with higher bass levels or ability to switch on and off may come in handy at times. At normal listening levels, your ears are less sensitive to bass levels so especially for those who are heavier on the bass on their musical choices; these speakers would really make a difference. Although like I said before I would suggest a stand alone bass especially since ceiling subwoofers would be insanely small and using a ceiling as an enclosure does not usually yield the best performance. On the flip side, depending on your placement, you need to be aware of the treble levels on the ceiling speakers you choose. If placed directly above the listeners head, then a low treble would be ideal, and if not then high treble is preferred. The treble levels will dictate how the highs and mids would sound and if you follow that simple rule it would make a drastic difference.

Another note is that, likely people selecting ceiling speakers may want to paint the speaker grills to match the house or the room, so make sure that the speaker and grill is paint able.

Like I mentioned in my previous post, once again it is probably a good idea to go with ceiling speakers from the same brand, just for sake of electrical and receiver tweaking purposes, it just makes things a lot easier.

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