[Roo]

Hi. I thought that some of the forum members might be interested in seeing how I've mounted my Mission M7DS rear speakers to the ceiling. I'm not a DIYer and I've found looking at what other people have done has aided me in planning my home cinema. Hopefully this might help some people.

You're probably wondering why I would want to mount the speakers to the ceiling in the first place. The home cinema is in the lounge which also doubles as the dining area, so we wanted to keep clutter to a minimum. Although ceiling mounting does compromise performance, it suits us.

I had already purchased a pair of AVF Vector P6199 home cinema mounts during last year. They look like this:

The mounts are designed to screw into a small hole that some home cinema speakers have in the back. For a better idea of how the these mounts are put together here are the instructions. Click on the picture for a bigger image which is easier to read.

There's nothing like this on the back of M7DS speakers, only four keyhole cut-outs so that they can be hung on screwheads - not much use for hanging from the ceiling.

The job is going to be to take apart the speaker, drill a hole through the back and bring one of the mounting screws out from inside the speaker. This screw is then attached to the rest of the mount.

Time to take the speakers apart and make a mounting hole. 14 screws have to be removed before you can start to ease the back off. Care must be taken not to stretch the thin cover material. Inside there are some very sticky pads, which I assume is some sort of sound deadening material. The following picture shows the front of the speaker on the left and the back on the right. The top side of the two speakers halves is on the outside of the picture. The spade connectors that joins the wire from the speakers to the binding posts has been disconnected.

I'm going to put a large metal washer on the inside of the back to help strengthen it. The back of the speaker has additional runs of plastic to reinforce it and one of these is where the washer has to go. I remove the two sticky pads on the right hand side of the picture, and then sharpen my chisel. I place the washer where I want it, then mark out how much of the reinforcing strip needs to be cut out.

The following picture shows the washer with screw placed through it, attached to the mount. The picture does not show that there are also two rubber washers, one between the metal washer and speaker, and the other between the speaker and the mount on the outside. The M4 screw that comes with the mount is not long enough to go through everything, so another screw has to be found. The new screw is too long and does not give the ball and socket full movement so it must be cut down. The nut which is used to hold everything on the screw together is threaded onto the screw before the screw is cut, this helps clean the thread when the nut is removed.

After this photo was taken then the two sticky pads were fitted again, partly covering the washer.

The spade connectors are reconnected to the binding posts and the back of the speaker is screwed back on.

A stud detector is used to find the joists in the ceiling. A small drill bit is used to drill through the ceiling plasterboard to double-check for the joist. The bit easily drills through the plasterboard and starts biting when it hits the joist - the hole is in the correct location. The hole through the plasterboard is made larger to reduce the amount of damage the screw will do to the plasterboard. A long screw is used to fasten the mount to the ceiling.

View to the rear of the room over the settee.

That just leaves the wiring to the speakers to sort out. If anyone has any questions then please feel free to post.

Cheers, Roo.

[shahedz]

Roo that is real nice work , it has turned out really well. the speakers look really good up there as well. a brilliant well explained post

[stripe]

Nice bit of DIY there.