Hi All, I have small living room in my house that I am renovating and thought I would experiment with a space-saving idea for my home cinema using a redundant fireplace I found (chimney has been deconstructed down to ceiling level and sealed off). This option also allows me to have the subwoofer centered between the speakers and sat on a solid concrete pad instead of the suspended wooden floor.
Having opened out the fireplace and tidied it up a bit I realised I could repurpose some of the holes left from the old heating system to hide cables and run them into the chimney:
Iâm planning to line everything with black felt to protect the paintwork of the cabinets then fill the gaps with some decorative logs so that the cabling and acoustic foam isnât visible from the listening position:
However I have encountered a problem, the centre speaker brackets I fitted are sagging, even though they are meant to be able to support the weight of the speaker I am using so I am wondering if anyone has better solution apart from simply reinforcing the brackets and refitting? Would a old turntable wall-mount be better perhaps? Maybe microwave brackets if doesnât look terrible?
I suppose another option might be to place the centre speaker on the subwoofer on some acoustic foam but might look a bit naff. If anyone has any thoughts on how to best mount the centre and finish it off I would love to here any suggestions as Iâm left scratching my head at the moment.
I thought this thread was going show a DIY speaker utilising the fireplace and chimney cavity!
Regardless, in answer to the support problem, you could fit a full width shelf supported by a battens screwed to the sides and rear? May need sound deadening of the shelf, whils shelf material could be timber or composite board which could also be screwed to the battens, or aluminium sheet, or glass sheet, whatever is available/affordable.
Whatâs the purpose of the wooden bar across above the opening?
If you want to disguise looks, you could fix a piece of very thin fabric across the hole, rather like a grills cloth, whether black, same colour as wall, of anything else.
Nice idea. The subwoofer on the concrete will make a big difference.
I like the idea of the centre speaker suspended by the bracket, so I would be strengthening it or changing it, rather adding than any shelf. Definitely donât put it on the sub.
I would have tested the sound before adding the foam behind.
I think adding materials on the inside would look tacky. I would be lining it with some sort of natural black/charcoal wood paneling. It needs to look professional and part of the room, not some sort of velvet material.
Ideally, I think the inside of the fireplace should be plastered just like your wall.
You could install a light behind the sub and that could look good.
As I say, nice idea and it could look very slick. Donât ruin it with a cheap diy finish.
The wooden bar is just a decorative mantelpiece. I have already plastered & painted to match the room the inside of the chimney but Iâve just stuck the acoustic foam to the rear to prevent it being an echo chamber as the centre speaker is rear ported. I did consider switching the subwoofer out for a build-in one, not a completely custom one but an âin-wallâ type with a back-box as I donât know much about designing a speaker cavity.
I experimented last night with the centre speaker on a speaker stand (Dynaudio SF1) on felt on the subwoofer which allowed good clearance and the centre speaker to be angled up towards the listening position. The subwoofer (DB4S) weighs 26 kg (57.3 lb) and seems to be a pretty solid platform - what are the problems with placing the centre speaker on a stand on the subwoofer?
It sort of works, you cannot see the felt in the evening when the room is dimmer but I think the whole setup it sort of looks weird at the moment, back to the drawing board!
I shall give some of the suggestions a go, thank you! I might simply put in a sturdy shelf, remove the logs and hide the cables some other way - Monitor Audio say they will sell me a glass shelf that matches my Blok Stax hifi stand, maybe that would look better.
I appreciate the honest opinion! The logs are a bit of an experiment but donât work in reality like I thought they would in my head, too many odd gaps etc.
A proper shelf that looks smart I think is the option, Iâm leaning towards installing some much heavier duty brackets then adding a tempered glass shelf.
Question is how to make this look clean and professional like you suggest (I agree), might move the cabling and socket around to the back so it is hidden behind the subwoofer, tidy up the brickwork and paint with black masonry paint. Iâve got plenty of plasterboard offcuts and matching paint for the room left over to play with:
Just looking at one of those pic references I posted, yours could look a little like this. Obviously Iâve just stuck any old panelling behind with some brightness added for a light, but it gives you something to think about.
I think the not quite mantlepiece and the logs create an odd impression, a sort of imitation fireplace. I would have thought better not looking like a fireplace at all, otherwise perhaps if thereâs enough space put in a metal fire basket cut shallow with a couple of logs in it front of sub if thereâs space, a hearth stone in front (which to look right I think would need to be deeper than the one you have) bearing a basket with logs one side and a set of fire irons the other. Oh, and in my view a more realistic mantlepiece(sorry!).
One of my sons has used a fireplace of similar size for AV electronics, which looks fine just appearing as an open inset cupboard in the wall, painted matt black to sides and behind so you only really see the fascia of the electronics. He also has the TV lower, actually slightly overlapping the top of the opening, making for more comfortable viewing.
Thanks. I do like the idea of the log basket or something fireplace themed for aesthetics. Iâll probably keep the pretend floating mantelpiece, I tried it without but I thought it looked odd because I didnât remove the hearth. I was wondering whether to remove the mantle and move TV down a bit. I mounted it on a tiling bracket so it is angled down slightly to avoid reflection and is viewed âsquare-onâ from the listening position. All useful ideas/feeback thank you.
Like another member of the Naim community, I thought you were proposing to put a subwoofer on a baffle in the fireplace.
Not sure how the subwoofer-in-a-box would work, but the idea of putting a speaker driver onto a baffle and back-loading it with the chimney has been tackled before. Hifi News published an article on just that subject in 1970 or 1971. The short version of it was that a big bass driver was fitted onto a baffle and rolls of BAF wadding pushed up the chimney with a draw-cord attached so it could be pulled back down until the best sound could be achieved. I am assuming that the chimney had either not been in use for many years of had been well cleaned to ensure that soot and dust didnât damage the speaker drivers.
I was living at home with my parents at the time. Our house was less than 10 years old and had been all-electric from day one, so the chimney was âready to goâ. My parents, who were otherwise indulgent of my hifi, said NO, so the idea stopped there and then except in my memory.
If the baffle and BAF idea appeals, look out a copy of the article, which must be around somewhere, or write to Hifi News and ask for a copy of the article.
As a follow-up, I did a spot of googling. AI said there was no such thing as speakers in chimneys / fireplaces. Sâfunny that a little bit more searching showed that the article appeared in January 1970, which is only a couple of months after I started buying hifi magazines. A copy of the magazine is now for sale on eBay. The front page quite clearly says in black and yellow âMounting speakers in the chimneyâ. Without seeing the magazine to check, I canât say if this is the one which described how it was done but it probably is as Hifi News at that time used to publish articles of DIY builds and gave details of how it was done.
Thought I would do a screenshot of the January 1970 Hifi News front cover from the eBay listing. Might be helpful, as well as showing that my memory still works (a bit).
Indeed, AI is totally unreliable in terms of getting facts right - hardly surprising, yet it is amazing how many people seem to blindly believe what it says. Presumably the same people believe everything they read or see on the internetâŚ!
Remove the grill from the sub and center speaker. Then you make another cover the size of the fireplace like a picture frame with black speaker cloth over it.
It will look visually much cleaner.
