Must your eyes suffer for the sake of your ears? Must a truly great speaker sit on the floor like an ugly statue carved just for you by a beloved but untalented sibling? Most audio enthusiasts would answer “yes.” Triad Speakers disagrees.

Triad’s InCeiling Silver/6 Monitor represents the second generation of the in-ceiling home theater concept—a surround-sound speaker system concealed entirely within your ceiling. With these systems, your floors are free of speakers, your walls are cleared for artwork, and your eyes see nothing more than a smattering of speaker grilles flush-mounted in the ceiling.

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The InCeiling Silver/6 Monitor and InWall Silver/4 Surround have conventional in-wall grilles, but because the grilles were designed for in-wall speakers instead of ceiling speakers, they can sag a bit.  (Click image to enlarge)

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Most of these products are made largely of plastic and pivot up to 15 degrees so they can be pointed in the direction of the listener. The Silver/6, though, is an upscale model that improves on its molded, stamped-out competitors. It is a true high-performance speaker built from sturdy medium-density fiberboard (MDF) instead of plastic. The MDF box completely encloses the back of the speaker, preventing sound emitted by the rear of the speaker drivers from echoing unpredictably inside your ceiling. The Silver/6 employs extremely high-quality parts; its woofers and tweeter would not be out of place on a $10,000 pair of conventional speakers.

Click here to see the lab measurements.

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Instead of pivoting, the Silver/6 mounts its drivers at a permanent 45-degree angle—a sharper, more useful angle than those achieved by most pivoting ceiling speakers, which can be pointed toward the listener but not directly at the listener. Normally, recessing the drivers into a box and angling them at 45 degrees would cause troublesome sound reflections inside the recessed area, but Triad has lined the face of the Silver/6 with foam to help absorb these reflections.

I mount three Silver/6s in my ceiling, a couple of feet in front of my projection screen; these reproduce the front left, center and right channels in my surround-sound system. However, I still need surround speakers to fill the back of the room and a subwoofer to supply the bass notes that the small Silver/6 cannot reproduce. Fortunately, Triad has also loaned me the InWall Silver/4 Surround and the InWall Bronze/10 PowerSub.

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The InWall Silver/4 Surround is a dipole design that works in a wall or ceiling. (Click image to enlarge)

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The Silver/4 Surround is a surround speaker with two midrange/tweeter drivers and a single woofer. It is a dipole design, which means it is wired to produce a diffused, enveloping sound. The Bronze/10 PowerSub houses a single woofer and comes with a separate amplifier to provide 250 watts of power for the subwoofer. Both speakers can be mounted in a wall or ceiling.
I have enjoyed my time with other in-ceiling home theater speaker systems, but with the first note of music, the Triad puts its less exclusive competitors in their places. What grabs me right away, as cymbals, bells, acoustic guitars, violins and other high-frequency sounds dance across my ceiling, is the treble quality. I attribute it purely to the Silver/6’s excellent tweeter, a dramatically more costly unit than those specified for pivoting ceiling speakers.

Soon, the midrange seduces me as well—voices sound significantly clearer than those produced by the pivoting ceiling speakers I have heard. Pivoting speakers have plastic “mouths” through which their drivers voice sounds, and the mouths tend to color dialogue and vocals. With the Silver/6, though, I seldom notice such an effect. The coloration is not eliminated—I still notice it on perhaps one DVD or CD in five—but with most of the movies and music I play, it is unnoticeable. The sound is far closer to that of a high-end conventional speaker than that of a typical ceiling speaker. I find I can relax with this speaker because its sound is so natural.

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The In/Ceiling Silver/6 Monitor has two 5.25-inch woofers and a 1-inch tweeter, all mounted at a 45-degree angle.  (Click image to enlarge)

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The Silver/6 even hints at stereo imaging. Sounds seem to float between the speakers and wrap around behind me, although not as convincingly as they would with even a modest conventional speaker. However, achieving any imaging at all in a speaker like this is remarkable. When I play stereo music, I find myself rooting for the Silver/6 as I would for a teenage pop singer trying to act—I know she cannot deliver, but I applaud her effort and savor even a brief flicker of success here and there.
To my surprise, I find the Silver/4 Surround is the first in-ceiling surround speaker I can love. Whether I play blockbuster action flicks or delicate surround-sound music, it produces a pleasing and appropriate effect. Every other in-ceiling surround speaker I have tried is too directional; I have a difficult time forgetting that surround speakers are sunken into the ceiling over my head. I cannot completely forget that the Silver/4 hangs above me instead of sitting to my side, but it never distracts me as most of its competitors can.

Likewise, the Bronze/10 PowerSub mingles happily with the Silver/6 Monitor, which does not yield enough bass to be used on its own. The Bronze/10 produces what one might call “baby bear” bass—it leans neither toward the full, sometimes sloppy sound of mass-market subwoofers, nor to the precise but sometimes thin sound of subs built for audio enthusiasts. Its designers compromised wisely because while the Bronze/10 never astonishes me with its fidelity, it always sounds good no matter what movies or music I play. Use two Bronze/10s, though, because a single unit is inadequate for anything larger than a bedroom. With two subs, the Triad system plays louder than I can stand—yet another hallmark for ceiling-speaker performance.

These speakers have one downside, which for some could be a deal breaker: Their aesthetics are not as appealing as those of their competitors. The Triad speakers are larger and more noticeable hovering above you than typical ceiling speakers. Also, the Silver/6’s grille tends to sag. Your installer can likely improvise a fix for this, but Triad should redesign the grille.

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Three InCeiling Silver/6 Monitor speakers installed in the ceiling of the author’s home theater. (Click image to enlarge)

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For those who can live with a few larger-than-average grilles above their heads, the Triad Silver/6 and its counterparts pro- duce sound quality that, in my experience, is not matched—or even approached—by another in-ceiling home theater speaker system. This is “high” fidelity in every sense of the word.

DESCRIPTION
In-ceiling home theater speaker system, comprising LCR (front left, center, right) speakers, surround speakers, subwoofer and 250-watt (into 4 ohms) subwoofer amplifier.

COMPONENTS
Silver/6 Monitor: Two 5.25-inch fiber-cone woofers, one 1-inch fabric-dome tweeter.
Silver/4 Surround: One 6.5-inch fiberglass-cone woofer, two 4-inch paper-cone midrange/tweeters.
Bronze/10 PowerSub: One 10-inch paper-cone woofer.

CONNECTIONS
Speakers: 5-way metal binding posts; accepts single and dual banana plugs, bare wire, pins and spade connectors.
Amplifier: 5-way plastic binding posts for amplifier output, stereo RCA-type line-level inputs and outputs, single RCA-type line-level input for filter bypass.

DIMENSIONS
Silver/6 Monitor: 12.2 x 20.3 inches (hw of grille), 6 inches (mounting depth).
Silver/4 Surround: 14.9 x 14.9 inches (hw of grille), 4 inches (mounting depth).
Bronze/10 PowerSub: 14.9 x 14.9 inches (hw of grille), 9 inches (mounting depth).
Amplifier: 3.5 x 18.3 x 13.5 inches (hwd).

PRICE/CONTACT
PRICE: Silver/6 Monitor, $2,400 each; Silver/4 Surround, $650 each; Bronze/10 PowerSub, $1,400 each (amp included)
CONTACT: 800.666.6316
www.triadspeakers.com