Mounting a speaker in a wall extends its critical listening distance substantially.

Evidence

This is a very short distance! If the speaker is mounted in the wall, the Q increases to 2, because the speaker can only radiate into 2 π steradians; so the critical distance increases to: r RQ critical distance m cm = = × = 0 141 0 141 18 75 2 0 86 86 . — David M. Howard, Jamie Angus, Acoustics and Psychoacoustics, 1801

Categorization

• QUESTION: Worth chasing: how does wall-mounting a loudspeaker change the perceived timbre in practice for domestic listeners?
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — David M. Howard, Jamie Angus, Acoustics and Psychoacoustics, 1801
• XREF: connects to: Loudspeakers perform best only free-standing or flush-mounted in a boundary

Related

• Loudspeakers perform best only free-standing or flush-mounted in a boundary (similarity 0.91)
• Critical distance is short for typical domestic listening rooms (similarity 0.88)
• Flush-mounting a speaker in a wall reduces the low-frequency rise to 6 dB (similarity 0.86)
• Greater loudspeaker-wall separation shifts the adjacent-boundary dip to lower frequencies (similarity 0.82)
• Reflections from a nearby hard wall can double the sound amplitude toward the listener (similarity 0.82)
• Operating a loudspeaker near three room boundaries imposes a 9 dB low-frequency rise (similarity 0.80)
• Critical distance is ill-defined in small rooms because short reverberation times fail steady state (similarity 0.80)
• Sitting close to a rear wall creates early strong reflections that corrupt perceived sound (similarity 0.79)
• Loudspeaker cabinet volume sets the lower frequency limit (similarity 0.79)
• Loudspeaker quality depends on off-axis radiation because rooms reflect it (similarity 0.79)
• Room boundaries alter loudspeaker output through reflected image sources (similarity 0.79)
• Boundary distances tuned to be unequal and non-multiples minimize frequency-response variations (similarity 0.79)
• Surround loudspeakers close to listeners become distractingly localizable. (similarity 0.79)
• Each added boundary surface boosts sound intensity by 3 dB up to three boundaries (similarity 0.79)
• Flush-mounting in a wall boosts bass output of a loudspeaker not designed for it. (similarity 0.79)