I cannot begin to understand those people for whom actual visible speaker cabinets – enclosures with loudspeaker drivers in them – are anathema. Personally, I love huge veneered boxes, shiny piano black monoliths and tweeters in sexy tapering tubes stuck on the top.
But sadly, there is the issue of sharing a film with others. It's like love-making versus self abuse; the former is far more fulfilling and one tries to please one's partner. Well, so I was told…
WAF (Wife Acceptance Factor) therefore remains of huge importance in the speaker industry. So, while any Trekker worth his salt knows the 'laws of physics never take a holiday, Jim!', and that really superbly potent and sexy speakers require the lebensraum of cavernous boxes, we also find whole categories of speakers that try not to obtrude.
There are funny little things with a cross-section no bigger than a slice of Battenberg cake; skinny towers to match sylph-like tellies; blade-shaped stumps on wall brackets; and flattened speakers hidden behind prettily printed canvas, so they don't appear to be speakers at all.
The Image Audio IA 8/5/C set here fall into the latter category: wall-mountable flat panel speakers covered in a designer grille. You choose the images you want from the company's wannabee Ikea selection, or you can pay an extra £25 per frame to use your own image.
Easy to hang
Called the 5, 8 and C, Image Audio's speakers have simple two-way designs and are ported cunningly. The boxes look basic yet are as clever as weasels.
For one, they have two-piece, spring-steel wall brackets. One bit goes on the wall, the other is well-fixed to the rear and as the two marry up when you hang them, they use the weight of the speaker itself to secure the box really firmly onto the rear Neoprene gaskets that isolate them from the walls.
Inside, they are well braced, and have some splodgy secret that absorbs the massive back wave from the driver (where it is so very close to the woodwork) and stops any bad effects from there. |
