Big JBL 4320's in soffitts ???

Hi.. Greetings from Bulgaria... I have a pair of vintage JBL 4320's, or rather 4333's (as they also have the JBL bullet horn..) Can anyone advise me how to soffitt mount them properly please?? For example; Do I need to cut the top and bottom projecting lips off them, to get them to work properly as soffitt mounted, or could I maybe add strips at the sides?? Huh ( I hope I don't have to cut them :-( I have read so much contrary advice here and on other sites........... (eg. "Don't bother with soffitts, because to get it right is far too difficult for the average studio owner, so best freestanding..) to; If you do it properly, they can sound incredible... etc, and all in-between. One of the problems with free-standing is; The JBL's are big, and very heavy, and I also want to install 2 x pairs of alesis monitor two's (one above the other, on their sides) wired in series, in the front 60' walls.. So freestanding 6 x speakers on stands in front of the front wall is not really an option. I really need to get it right, because once I build the front walls ( all in stone) there's no going back, without an extreme ammount of labour..and probably hiring a Kango pneumatic drill, to take down all of my work. I intend to use cut stone for all of the front wall including the soffitts, and double glass at centre... I could make bass traps in the cavities, and slot -vent them above and below. I have high density rubber-foam (old and very heavy Judo mats) for all of the monitors to sit on.. The control room is to be 3.10 high; 5.02 wide; and 8.13 long (all measurements in metres , and following the golden mean) Concrete construction at the moment, and parallel walls, with bass traps , clouds and side absorbers as needed. maybe quadratic diffusers on the back wall, and sides as needed.. Any advice would be very very much appreciated.. many thanks richard bulgaria

Richard, soffit mounting speakers is not brain surgery - Those 4333 will sound much better soffit mounted than free standing. Just make sure the soffit structure is as solid as you can get - use 20mm plywood and glue and screw the structure together.

ritchie-x wrote:

I have read so much contrary advice here and on other sites........... (eg. "Don't bother with soffitts, because to get it right is far too difficult for the average studio owner, so best freestanding..)

I do not know where this got started. Flush mounting is, if anything, incredibly simple, because so many things are done right with it. +1 to John's advice. Andre

Andre - funnily enough I'm currently working on 4 studio designs and ALL have free standing Barefoots :) They are so popular at the moment, good on Thomas :thu:

John Sayers wrote:

Richard, soffit mounting speakers is not brain surgery - Those 4333 will sound much better soffit mounted than free standing. Just make sure the soffit structure is as solid as you can get - use 20mm plywood and glue and screw the structure together.

Thanks John and Andre... I intend to build all of the front walls in cut stone, so I'll probably build up to the right height for the monitors, and then box around the cabs with cardboard. Then put cut-up Judo mats underneath, and continue to build up slap lintels above them all to suit, and build them into the walls .. Then pull the monitors out, and take the cardboard off.. I might carpet the internal speaker cavities to ensure a tight gasket-like fit, and then cable up and re-fit.. Hey presto !! ( in theory :-) The reality has yet to be proven.. :-)) However, I did this once before with smaller speakers, and the vacuum was really hard to overcome, to get them out of the holes.. I might need a lot of people with ropes :-)) many thanks... richard bulgaria