Dynabox

This is an amazing product. I built a theatre in my basement about two years ago and decided to go with 5.1 sound at the time because there wasn't enough width to accommodate side surrounds on the walls and I wasn't thrilled with the idea of doing in-wall speakers on the side wall locations. I have since had a change of heart and decided to expand to Atmos surround with speakers in the ceiling. The good news was that I know every inch of what is behind the drywall in this theatre. The bad news is that I don't have the ability to do any soundproofing (in this case, building backing boxes) on new in-wall speakers without cutting out large sections of drywall to get access to the cavities. An installation of speakers in my ceiling would severely compromise the work I did to soundproof the room. I looked into every manner of solving this problem, starting with methods for designing and building my own solution, but nothing was even close to satisfactory. I finally bit the bullet and bought two of these. They are the only thing I found (product or custom made solution) that satisfied both of my needs: mitigate sound transmission through the ceiling, and install without unnecessarily tearing apart (and then repairing) my theatre. I was originally balking at the $100/each price tag, but now that I've installed them I've come to see that they were more than worth the money. The quality of these materials is top notch. That you can roll these materials up tightly and stuff them up through the speaker-sized hole in your ceiling is a revelation. Installation is incredibly straight-forward and easy. You simply cut a hole in the box to match your speaker (and a small slice for the speaker wire to feed through), roll the box up and shove it through the speaker hole, adjust the placement of the box until it's just right, shove the absorption panels through the hole and push them into place, and then seal the boxes to the drywall with a thick line of caulk. Designing and building out my theatre was incredibly complex, and figuring out and installing this product was one of the easiest things I ever did for it. This product introduces two of the four soundproofing methods: absorption and mass. Damping and decoupling methods would need to be satisfied in some other way, which matches my expectations when I bought these. I see other reviews here that say that this product doesn't do a great job in soundproofing, and that's just bull. The reality is that the single greatest method for soundproofing is decoupling. If your drywall is not decoupled from your studs and the studs of the room you are soundproofing are not decoupled from the adjacent rooms then your ability to soundproof the room has already been severely compromised; utilizing absorption and mass alone will not bear great results. This is not the fault of this product. What I can say on this topic is that this product performs as well as one could ever hope. It does a great job, but they are not magic. If your room is not decoupled from the adjacent rooms then you will hear sound from speakers in the adjacent rooms even if they are in these boxes. Obviously, you can't decouple a room once it has been built, so the best thing that you can do to soundproof when retrofitting speakers in walls or ceilings is to use these boxes AND install a thick layer of fiberglass insulation into the cavities above/behind them (and the entire cavity, if possible). If you want to learn more about soundproofing, I recommend starting with <a href="https://www.soundproofingcompany.com/soundproofing_101/4-elements-of-soundproofing">this article on The Soundproofing Company's website</a>. Personally, I think that this product is amazing. I had high expectations and this more than satisfied them. My newly-installed speakers sound great, and the sound transmission into the adjacent rooms is just as quiet as it was before I installed the new speakers (I was actually expecting to lose some of the soundproofing once I installed the new speakers). If you will only be satisfied with a product that completely soundproofs your speakers then this product will not satisfy you. In fact, no product or custom solution will satisfy you because that level of soundproofing is impossible with just a single product or soundproofing method. Factor that in before dropping $100 per box on this product (really, factor that in before you decide to buy in-wall speakers in the first place).

I found this to be an excellent product. It is extremely tough and thick. The outer rubber itself is as tough and thick as an automobile tire. Lining it is some excellent acoustic pyramid style baffling. One of my speakers abutted a joist. Consequently I had to cut out the entire speaker width along the bottom face to one of the sides. Believe me cutting this stuff is really tough. I would be hesitant to use a utility knife. The hole comes with a circular dimension of I think 7 inches. So for each speaker I had to make a larger dimension for the hole. Again, I advise caution while cutting. This requires good sharp durable equipment unless you want to get injured When I had to do the off axis cut this removed a lot of the sound insulation. My solution was to buy some of the regular Dynamat surface stuff that you use in cars. I then cut this out and placed it directly on the attic side of the ceiling on the space that would not be covered by the sound baffle This works out better than it sounds. The speaker enclosure itself is quite pliable and will easily form over any additional sound insulation that you apply to the side of the ceiling that is towards the attic I had listened to the speakers without the enclosure for almost a year. My impression of the sound after putting up the speaker enclosures was that it was more focused. Plus since the attic is the same for other rooms you could easily hear this in the other rooms. The type of insulation I have is sprayed on the inside of the roof and not fiberglass insulation distributed right on top of the ceiling itself. So any sound in the attic goes throughout the house and directly into each room. This was definitely a very good solution. The price is about the same as each speaker but it is what is required

I purchased 5 of the DynaBox for my family room in-ceiling speakers. I have 5.1 surround system with directional in-ceiling speakers and the room sits directly below the upstairs master bedroom. There were two objectives in using these: 1) reduce audio sound in the upstairs bedroom and hallway that was coming through the upstairs floor that sits above the speakers and 2) improve sound quality in the family room itself by providing better backing to the speakers. The boxes definitely helped in both cases, probably more with the insulation of sound to the upstairs than a noticeable improvement of audio in the family room. With regard to the sound insulation, I ran a couple of subjective tests by playing the same movie scene and music at two different volume levels both before and after installing the boxes. I put the Denon receiver at a volume of 45 and then at 65 while playing the opening scene from The Dark Knight and then some rock music. Both my wife and I went upstairs and listened. After installing the boxes I'd say there was about a 30-40% reduction in sound coming through the floor to the upstairs. I can now play movies and music at higher volumes downstairs later at night and not have to worry about waking someone up. There was also a slight improvement in sound quality in the family room. My summary would be that these definitely provide some improvement but are not a silver bullet and will not completely eliminate sound coming through the backs of speakers to adjacent rooms/areas. They are also a bit expensive for what they do. Final thought, installation matters! Try to leave nothing more than minimal gaps and make sure the rubber part is flush with the drywall or whatever it is sitting against, and position that foam piece evenly in the back of the box to cover as much of the box as possible.

These boxes work! I had 5 in-ceiling speakers in a previous home, and we could clearly hear the sound in the bedroom above. Moved to a new place and installed 5 similar speakers in the ceiling -- but stumbled on these rubber/foam boxes on the internet, and they have made a big difference. There is a noticeable noise reduction in the upstairs room, even though we have hardwood floors (i.e. very little insulation) upstairs and I was very worried about sound transmission. It's not completely silent, but it is noticeably quieter than our previous setup (which even had the benefit of carpet). If doing a retrofit install, there aren't many options available, but these seem to work great. They accommodated 8 inch speakers well, but that is definitely the maximum size. Also, I was a little worried about the speakers getting hot inside, but in the one speaker-box I have access to, I cannot feel any warmth on the outer surface of the box, nor on the front surface of the speaker. Yes, they're a little pricey -- but there isn't really anything else on the market. They were easy to install, and they do make a difference. Just don't expect complete silence.

I installed these boxes around some speakers in the ceiling of my basement hoping to decrease the amount of sound that penetrates upward to the main floor above them. They do seem to have helped somewhat, but I'm not convinced that the difference these boxes made was worth their price. If you do decide to try these, keep in mind that they are MUCH easier to position if you have not yet installed your speakers! If your speakers are already in place, these boxes can still be installed, but doing so might require some finesse and wrangling depending on how closely your speakers are positioned to ceiling joists and other structures. If you have the option, make sure you install your speakers with several inches of clearance around them so you have room to fit this box around the speaker. These boxes will work for a wide range of speaker diameters: you simply cut the circular opening in the box to fit whatever size your speakers happen to be. The box is about 12 inches wide and you can cut the circular opening almost to that width, so I would say it can safely accommodate speakers that are up to 10 inches in diameter. I would not purchase these again given the modest (at best) difference they made.

If you’re on the fence due to the price (like I was) absolutely go for it. Cheaper speakers in these enclosures will sound better than nicer speakers without. I’ve got identical speakers in two locations in my house, one pair with these boxes, one in boxes I built out of foam board. The difference is nuts, these win every time. Super easy install too, no need to go in the attic is an enormous plus. Make sure you caulk them to the drywall, it helps.

Ceiling boxes work great. I used 4 for my 12” diameter ceiling speakers. I also used for rectangular in wall speakers in my basement workshop. The speakers were mounted in an area that dropped down so there was more room behind them to fit these deep rubber boxes. Before the speakers could be heard loudly throughout the first floor because they were wide open in the floor trusses. Now you cannot even hear them. Maybe a slight rumble if you are quiet. In my shop the speakers sound great. Again these would not fit in a normal 2x4 wall cavity but can be used if your space is different.

If your adding ceiling speakers to an existing ceiling, I know of no other product better. Heavy gauged rubber with quailty installation within covering all sides and top. I used these for 6.5 inch speakers, removed installation, rolled box and insert in cut hole. Unroll within space. Very easy to work with, I thought I would have problems with a very tight space filled with duck work. But, due to the flexibility of the boxes I was able to maneuver it in place and push in the installation. It did cut some installation out, but easy enough. Average box for me took about 20 min to install, place and caulk. Tightest fit box, maybe 30min. Oh.. resonating sound.. well, the floor above still hears the sounds of 11 speakers. But, in the room these boxes made the speaker sound soild and full, no vibrations from duck work can be heard or noticed. They easily compete with the floor speakers in sound quality.

I have 4 of these in my home theatre ceiling and I love them. Excellent heavy construction and they do the trick. Note, you will never eliminate sound bleed from a ceiling mounted speaker, but you can deaden it enough that it just sounds like a basement home theater vs 4 loud point source speakers under your feet. At moderate volume levels it deadens things enough to make activities on 2 levels possible. This cannot silence speaker noise, but it will make them perform better, eliminate rattles and prevent high frequencies from being localized on the floor beneath your feet. This is absolutely a must have imho. Just know what you are getting it for, and have a realistic understanding of what these will accomplish and you will be very happy with them. lovely product.

I do think, in the perfect situation, that these would work fine however if you have strapping attached to joists for drywall (most new homes do) you will need to build out a frame in between the straps to go on top of the drywall so that the "box" has a complete flat surface to stick to. The instructions are fairly limited in this regard. One other aspect that the instructions do not mention is the size of drywall cutout vs. size of cutout in box. If you have the strapping situation like I did then it is unlikely that the hold down mechanisms on your speakers will engage unless the strapping frame and box cutout are well away from the drywall hole. Take care that your speaker cutout location is perfectly lined up in the centre of the joist cavity. This will greatly increase the likelihood of a successful install. I would love for these to have worked out but unfortunately they did not. I ended up having to throw them out because by the time I figure out all of this I had done too much damage to the first box to use it or return it. I didn't think it was wise to use the other one I bought and have 2 different sounding speakers. I ended up filling the joist cavity with rockwool, sides and top then used the foam pieces supplied with this kit as they would have been used inside the rubber box. Not a total loss but not worth $200 each. :(

I definitely would recommend these, especially if you have a very efficient home theater with atmos speakers