In-Wall Speaker Advice

[WAID]

Here I am again asking for more help, but this forum has been a real plus so a big "Thanks" to all of you who like to help and offer opinions.

The situation is this: My lower floor flooded and we are having to replace the floor and some drywall, which absorbed some of the water. Before the flood I had a pair of decent surround speakers placed on stands behind the theater recliners in the living room/home theater. My wife hated this arrangement because of the look of the stands in the room (the room is a large room which flows from the theater area to another seating area with fireplace, etc), and the wires showing up to drive the speakers.

This seems like an obvious excuse/opportunity to make changes. I understand that this is NOT an ideal home theater setting but is still respectable for our needs (at least for now). We are replacing hardwood floor to stone tiles, which again, may not be home theater ideal. My other thought is to either mount the surrounds to the ceiling or, more likely, replace them with in-wall speakers that would blend better and help hide speaker wire.

So the questions are: Are there opinions on a better set-up? What is the best "bang for the buck" for in-wall speakers, considering that I would like the best quality I can reasonably get for a far-from-THX theater? And, what considerations should I make for insulating around in-walls (the master bedroom would be directly above the speakers, and I either would have to watch movies just through the TV if watching after my wife goes to bed or get it insulated to the point where she wouldn't be disrupted)? And where should I go to find the best prices for speakers and wire (I found the other thread on speaker wire helpful too )

Thanks again for the help!

[Dogg]

Since you have to remove drywall, you can use this opportunity to run you speaker wires in the wall. I would also wall-mount the rear speakers. This will allow you to change/upgrade whenever the need/urge arrises. Some speakers come with mounting kits or you could use shelves. Either way, the speaker wire is mostly unnoticable as only a few inches is visible.

Building in-wall speakers would be a matter of trial and error and it would be a completely custom job. You will basically be building speakers from scratch in the wall. Just putting a single speaker in the wall won't sound very good.