Atlantic Technology AZURE In-Ceiling Speakers Overview
When you are designing a home theater, you often are concerned about timbre-matching. This is ensuring that all the speakers sound relatively the same. The easiest way to do this is to have identical speakers for all positions. Unfortunately, this is rarely practical. Different locations require different form factors and capabilities. The alternative? Buy speakers that are all designed to sound the same. Atlantic Technology has done that with their AZURE In-Ceiling Speakers. The AZURE line is designed to timbre-match all the in-room and in-wall speakers in the Atlantic Technology. Now, you can mix and match in-wall, in-room, and in-ceiling speakers to optimize performance, placement, and aesthetics.
Atlantic Technology AZURE In-Ceiling Speakers Offerings
The new AZURE In-Ceiling Speakers from Atlantic Technology is comprised of three speakers with 6.5″ woofers and two with 8″ woofers. The woofers utilize the same lightweight and low resonance fiberglass cones found in the AT-3 H-PAS towers and other speakers. These are paired with one or two (depending on the model) silk dome tweeters. This two-way design utilizes a lower crossover point than normal at around 2.7 or 3kHz depending on the model. The tweeters are mounted on a bridge designed to reduce interaction with the woofer and 30° orbital pivoting allows aiming if needed. Let’s take a closer look:
AZURE Line Breakdown
There are basically three different “lines” in the new AZURE range of in-ceiling speakers from Atlantic Technology. They are delineated by their model numbers. The AZ obviously stands for AZURE, followed by the size of the woofer (6 or 8), followed by the number of tweeters (1 or 2) followed by a zero to make them sound impressive. Only the entry-level breaks that mode.
While you can read about the differences in the chart above, the main thing to notice is that the entry-level AZ600 does not have the tweeter boundary reinforcement control switch of the AZ610 and AZ810. The AZ620 and AZ820 have dual tweeters and can be wired up as either a mono speaker, single-point stereo (this means two channels playing out of the same speaker), or dipole configuration. The prices of the speakers are:
- AZ600 – $330 each
- AZ610 – $389 each
- AZ810 – $599 each
- AZ620 – $439 each
- AZ820 – $709 each
Our Take
In most home theater applications, we’d suggest either the AZ600 or AZ610. The dual tweeters really don’t bring much to the party in an Atmos setup and the larger 8″ woofers really aren’t needed. All of the speakers have very thin bezels with optional square bezels and paintable grilles. The only thing we wish these had was integrated backer boxes. Atlantic Technology has informed us that backer boxes are available for these speakers which is a good option for those worried about sound transmission to other rooms or protecting the backs of the speakers.
If you are looking for Atmos speakers to timbre-match your existing (or soon-to-be-purchased) Atlantic Technology speakers, the AZURE line of in-ceiling speakers is a good choice. They are pricy (and we don’t really think you need pricy Atmos speakers), but they will timbre-match. And that is something you really can’t find anywhere else.
For more information, check out AtlanticTechnology.com.
