DynaBox (6 inch Ceiling kit) – Enhance Your in-Home Speaker Ceiling System with Dynamat’s Speaker Insulation Kit – Improve Sound Quality of Your Home Surround Sound System

Allows you to retrofit backing boxes for in-wall speakers in a finished wall/ceiling!
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 this article on The Soundproofing Company’s website.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).

They really do work!
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 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. 🙁