I must be true to you and admit I never gave too much thought to in-ceiling or in-wall speakers; but the latest months have brought with them a very serious avalanche of such news in both the production/manufacturers field as well as in the way people have actually used such pieces of technology in their homes, offices and so on.

I guess that for most of you, in-ceiling speakers are those speakers mounted throughout large office rooms, airports and other places like that and through which announcements or music are being sent for many people at a time. Well, it's time (once more) to meet a brand of the elite of in-ceiling speakers, namely Paradigm and their new products. Paradigm have released two new speakers which promise they'll somehow revolutionize the way we think about in-ceiling sound.

First of all, the SA 15R-30. Proud member of the Guided Soundfield speakers' family, this new unit sports the proprietary Phase Arm system, allowing the high frequencies to better fill in the audible space and have an improved phase response in on-axis and off-axis positions as well. Destined for placement in larger rooms where more speakers are due to be mounted, this new gear can mean the big difference between "sound" and "awesome sound".

The second (and most intriguing) new release from Paradigm is the SA 15R-SM speaker. The SM in the codename stands for "StereoMono" - meaning that this new speaker can be utilized in both stereo and mono applications. Mono as in "normal" conditions, when a multiple of 2 speakers is used for Left and Right sound-separation.

Now comes the tricky part: The new Paradigm SA-15R-SM can act as a stereo sound-source by itself! The center of the speaker houses a very special type of HF driver, made of two separate units, oriented differently so the sound would spread accordingly.

The (also proprietary) Dual-Directional Soundfield system is nothing but the previous system used in the 15R-30 but at a double: destined for small enclosures where the use of two (L-R) speakers would seem rather inappropriate, the new driver is said to produce rich-stereo sound. Quite amazing, truly: I guess such a sound behavior like stereo from a single speaker is one thing to be tested! Of course, very serious prospecting is required before actually installing the SA-15R-SM to best results.

While both new speakers sport precision crossovers and the best Paradigm PosiGrip binding posts, the drivers themselves are truly special: gold-anodized pure-aluminum domes, anodized pure-aluminum bass/midrange cones, gold-anodized solid-aluminum phase plugs, aluminum or copper-clad aluminum-wire voice coils; all of them to give you the best possible sound coming from above.