Hey, just so you know ... this post is now about 14 years and 11 months old. Please keep that in mind as it very well may contain broken links and/or outdated information.

The week before Easter we painted all of the central rooms in our house (kitchen, dining room, and family room) which had not been painted since we moved in about 8 years ago.

In the family room, where the home theater setup is, we now have much lighter walls, so my old, blocky, and black KLH 9900 satellite speakers (purchased 9 years ago along with my receiver) really stood out and looked … well, old.

I wanted something smaller, and nicer looking to replace those speakers, so I purchased the Pro Acoustics 2.5″ mini-cubes (ceiling mounted version). Installation was quick and simple: I just took down the old speakers and brackets and put up the new ones. Luckily the bracket holes lined up so I didn’t have to do any new drilling. The only minor problem I had was the screw that connects the speaker assembly to the mount pole wouldn’t screw in tightly. This was frustrating since the brackets and speakers come together and should connect seamlessly together.

Once I got them mounted and wired up I did a quick sound test with “The Matrix” DVD and liked what I heard. Our family room has a strange vaulted ceiling: looking at the TV, the ceiling on the left-hand side is about 14 feet tall and then slopes down to about 9 feet on the right-hand side. As a result, the front and rear left speakers are a few feet higher than the right side. Since each speaker consists of two swiveling cubes, I was able to configure the speakers to get the maximum audio coverage of the room despite the strange architecture. I still need to get out my sound pressure meter and Avia DVD to fine-tune the new setup, but for now at least it looks a lot nicer (and sounds about the same).