We wanted to maintain the clean lines in our open plan barn but also have great sound too. The floor standing speakers from our last house weren’t an option then, but was there still a way to get the audio we wanted in the room?
We talked it over with our Smart Home partners on the project, Epitome Living and they suggested we take a look at the Amina range of ‘invisible’ speakers.
Fitting the Speakers
We went with a pair of these Amina Mobius5i units. These are high quality in-wall drivers, manufactured in Cambridgeshire. They get plastered over and so completely disappear once installed. The 5i is a 450mm x 345mm x 33mm unit and uses a proprietary high frequency 4 Ohm transducer.
The Mobius5i incorporates OptiDamping, OptiDrive and Reduced-Resonance Exciter technology to give the smooth high frequency extension and low frequency performance, with medium power-handling capabilities.
We sited these in our vaulted ceiling, covering the kitchen and dining area of the barn. Installing them required careful planning and coordination of trades during first fix by Epitome Living
They need a minimum cavity depth of 75mm and once the plasterboard is cut the next step is to install their ‘BackboxCV300’ custom enclosures. These slide into the void and are fixed in place with screws.
The speakers were then connected up and tested with frequency generator sweep. This is to check there are no rattles in the walls, from something like a washer or other debris left behind the plaster board for example.
Once this test was completed joint filler was added around the edge and allowed to dry. Then scrim tape was applied before they were finally covered over with just 2mm of plaster. The speakers replace a piece of plasterboard and are lightweight so won’t weigh down the board, plus the vibrations are so small so they should never crack the plaster.
Finally, the APUi50 in-line protection modules were installed back at the amplifier in our rack. They feature a High Pass Filter (HPF) and self-resetting thermal fuse to prevent damage in the event of excess current delivery.
‘Invisible’
So here they are (or aren’t) in all their glory. As you can see once the process is completed there really is nothing to see. Perfect.
Next Time
The Mobius5i drivers get down to around 75 Hz so for a full frequency range you need to add a sub. In part 2 we’ll do just that with a look at our novel subwoofer installation as we finally get to hear how the whole system sounds.
To learn more, visit aminasound.com.
Remember to check out our Instagram to follow the project and read the rest of the Automated Home 2.0 blog posts.
