Micca M-CS Dual 5.25 Inch 2-Way in-Wall Center Channel Speaker for Home Theater, Whole House Audio, MTM LCR Design, 5.25" Poly Woofers, 1" Pivoting Silk Tweeter, White, Paintable, Each

My home burned down on December 31, 2010. After evaluating a lot of options, we decided we would rebuild the home ourselves. As part of the reconstruction effort, I wanted to install speakers in every room of my home (even the bathrooms), and wire my home with gigabit Ethernet. I had looked at a number of speakers before settling on these. In the end, I purchased and installed 35 of these speakers -- two each in three bedrooms, two baths, the kitchen, the dining room, and the sun room; five speakers in the master bedroom (5.1 surround sound); and seven speakers each in the family room and living room (7.2 surround sound). In the rooms where I support surround sound, I also have Polk Audio PSW10 powered subwoofers (excellent subwoofers).The sound from these speakers is simply amazing. I am a software engineer by profession, but I also have a music degree and I spent several years as a professional musician. My taste in music is varied -- from blues and hard rock, to new age, to classical, to electronica and beyond. As a result, I need speakers that will faithfully reproduce the sound I want to listen to -- these speakers do that. When I need lots of bass for electronica while listening to Deadmau5, Pendulum, or Cosmic Gate, these speakers deliver. If I want something to support hard rock with driving bass and screaming guitar like Jimmy Hendrix, Johnny Winter, or Led Zeppelin, these speakers do the job better than the ten-inch JBL's I used to use before my home burned down. If I just want to chill out and listen to Mozart, Greig, or Copland, these speakers faithfully reproduce the strings and woodwinds without any distortion. I have not found another speaker that demonstrate as much versatility as these speakers do.Another plus is that these speakers are very reasonable in price -- less expensive than Polk, Yamaha, Bose, and many other brands. If you are someone that likes to listen to music so loud that it actually hurts your ears, these speakers may not be for you -- in that case I would recommend JBL or Celeston speakers for extreme volume (although JBL's are terrible for classical music as they color the sound too much). However, I have pushed these speakers at 80 percent power using 105 watt receivers and they do not distort at all (and they are very loud). I normally listen to music at a level that allows me to still have a conservation with someone, so factor that into my review (I am not a fan of REALLY LOUD music).As far as mounting goes, these speakers are very easy to mount -- the speaker terminals have red and black push in buttons to feed 14 AWG speaker wire into, and there are four screws you turn to lock the speaker into the ceiling and mount it securely. The speakers come with white grills, and they look great when they are installed. The construction of these speakers is very sturdy, and the cones are reinforced. Also, while these are rated as eight inch speakers, they are actually almost ten inches in diameter when you mount them with the grills -- you will want to take that into account. I have ten-inch floor joists in my house that are mounted sixteen inches on center, which form really nice hollow boxes for mounting the speakers into the ceiling.If there was a slight negative to these speakers, I would say that they carry a lot of sound through walls and floors. Watching a movie with great theater sound late at night can be a problem if you don't want to wake people up, even when the speakers are at low volumes. If I decide to install speakers in my finished basement, I will buy more of these. Dollar for dollar, these speakers cannot be beat.

See the photos provided. Here are a few tips to make the installation easy.INSTALLATION TIPS1) use a small hook tool to remove the speaker grills, not a nail2) use painter's tape to hold the cut-out template to the ceiling; don't use the worthless little sticky tabs provided3) cut out 2'x2' sheet foam squares to hold the insulation in place above the speakers and to prevent any insulation from getting into the speaker cone, which will vibrate and drive you crazy4) pre-tap the screws before putting the speaker in place. This helps prevent stripping the phillips screw heads when screwing the speaker clamps in place5) use a *slightly* damp cloth to wipe dusty finger prints from the speaker cone and ring. be gentle.SPEAKER PROs* inexpensive but not 'cheap'. There's a difference.* they sound decent, maybe a tad mid-high heavy, but the mid-bass frequencies are balanced and clear* can't beat the price for performance factor* easy install - I installed 6 speakers in 4 hours, including set-up, tear-down and clean-up.SPEAKER CONs* they sound decent, maybe a tad mid-high heavy, but the mid-bass frequencies are balanced* they are power-hungry. be sure to use an amp around 75-100 watts. Under-powering these speakers will make them sound faint and will not give the bass, mids and trebles 'punch'.MY THOUGHTSKeep in mind these are in-ceiling/in-wall speakers and unless you encapsulate them in sound boxes (like in-wall speaker cabinets) that are perfectly tuned to the cubic volume to maximize the sound, you will get decent but not 'wow' factor sound. Most installations will be with insulation behind the speaker magnets, which absorb bass reflex sound, which is what my installation was. Despite not giving the speakers a good encapsulated and ported environment, they still sound surprisngly good.If I were to use these for theatre surround sound, I would build ported boxes behind each in the wall or ceiling, acting like a speaker cabinet. Although, surround sound speakers don't do a lot of sound work during movies and live programming, so installing these as true surround sound speakers, I don't think a built-in speaker box is necessary. If these were installed as primary sound driver, yes, I would install speaker boxes behind them.MY REFERENCE POINTS to judge the performance and sound of the MICCA M-8C* I use Sonos products to wirelessly connect the entire home, controlled by the Sonos app on my phone* I have a Sonos Arc, Sonos Sub and two Sonos Ones in our family room.* I have a 9.1 Mirage home theatre system in our media room. (two 5' towers, one center channel, six ceiling mounted surround speakers and one 12" subwoofer). It is powered by a Pioneer SC-61 amp. I use a Sonos Port to connect the home theatre system to the whole house sound solution.* I have two Polk Audio Atrium 6 speakers on the back deck, connected to a Sonos Amp inside, which also powers two of the six Micca in-ceiling speakers, located in our dining room.* I have two Polk Audio Atrium 4 speakers and two 10" passive Synergistic towers in the garage, powered by an old Denon stereo amp. Who doesn't like to listen to the game or rockin' music when working in the garage?* I use a Sonos Amp to power the remaining four Micca in-ceiling speakers in our downstairs bar area.* I have 17 guitars, 6 guitar amps and a plethora of sound gear.I share all this to suggest I have been around 'sound' for a long, long time. There's nothing like a well-mixed live sound, which is my ultimate reference for designing my whole-house sound solution. While I am not an expert, I do like clear, crisp, clean unmuddled sound and I think for the price and for the intended purpose (in-ceiling), the Micca speakers do the trick. I couldn't justify spending $500 on two Bose in-ceiling speakers, for example.