CEDIA 2015

You can’t walk too far through the aisles of CEDIA without running into an in-wall/ceiling speaker—and nearly all of them look alike. James Loudspeaker takes a different approach with its Small Aperture architectural speakers—like the $1,500 63SA-4—which produces full-range sound from a 3 x 3-inch square (or round) cutout in the wall (or ceiling). The cutout is, of course, neatly concealed by an inconspicuous flush-mount grille.

Remove the grille and you see a 0.75-inch tweeter surrounded by a ring with holes, which provides a way out for sound from the 2-inch midrange driver mounted concentrically behind the tweeter, both in a cylindrical enclosure. What you don’t see is the speaker’s 6.5-inch aluminum PowerPipe woofer (rated down to 40 Hz), which is tucked away in a 26 x 11 enclosure that hides behind the drywall in a standard 2 x 4 stud bay. The aluminum box is only 3.4 inches deep and has an integral telescoping bracket system to accommodate irregularly spaced studs. In case you’re wondering, the woofer vents through a space around the tweeter ring.