Beale Street Audio ICS6-MB/ICS8-MB In-Ceiling Subwoofer Preview

When audiophiles and home theater enthusiasts think about subs, they dream of incredible, musical, and earth-shattering bass.  All too often, that blissful dream becomes a nightmare.  Physical room constraints and WAF (wife-acceptance factor) soon dash those aspirations.  Architectural speakers are a much easier selling point but when it comes to bass response, there have only been a small handful of in-wall options; and forget any conversation about an in-ceiling subwoofers…until now. 

Beale Street Audio, who manufactures architectural speakers has just announced two in-ceiling subwoofer models.  The ICS6-MB features a 6.5” woofer and the ICS8-MB sports an 8” woofer.  What’s even more interesting is that the in-ceiling subs don’t require any heavy bracing or backbones.  In other words, you’ll feel depth charge explosions in movie scenes without having the ceiling pieces fall on your head. 

If you’ve ever dealt with in-wall subs you know that there have been two dominant problems.  The first is acoustic performance and bass response.  The second is wall damage.

Beale Street Audio claims to have overcome these two obstacles through their patented Sonic Vortex technology.  Sonic Vortex is Beale Street’s answer to maintaining high-quality audio in a small enclosure.  According to Beale Street Audio, when compared to sealed models, the Sonic Vortex design provides a 6 to 9 db boost in the mid-lower bass ranges and a flatter frequency response across the audio spectrum.

Beale Street Audio's Sonic Vortex within a speaker enclosure

In simple terms, it appears that their Sonic Vortex provides three benefits:

1.  Size:  Whereas traditional speaker designs would need a long port, The sonic vortex design wraps the port around the internal cavity of the enclosure in what looks like (you guessed it) a vortex-like design.  Beale Street says that it took years to develop this design and that it produces a bass response far greater than you could traditionally get in such a small cavity. 
2. Maximizing Enclosure Response: As part of their design, the main port is actually split up into multiple ports that have what Beale Street calls “fins”. Fins work by compression and move air at a high rate of speed without port noise.  Beale Street Audio says that the fins can be tuned to ideal listening specifications. The fins have two benefits.  First, the fins can be adjusted to get the most out of the enclosure’s size; and second, the fins actually help make the cabinet more rigid to address any vibration and resonance issues.
3. Manufacturing Cost: Because the Sonic Vortex design can use conventional drivers manufacturing costs about the same as a traditional enclosure. 

The ICS6-MB and ICS8-MB in-ceiling subs are designed with a rigid Kevlar woofer material and a butyl rubber surround that Beale Street Audio says delivers balanced performance—even when listeners are off-axis.

View of the ICS6-MB rear port and gold push terminals

The ICS6-MB features an 6.5” woven kevlar woofer with a frequency response down to 42Hz.  The sub has a rated sensitivity of 90db and has a paintable grill with magnetic bezel and push-sprint terminals.  The sub is only 7.10 lbs and only takes up an astonishingly thin 6.8” of ceiling depth.

The ICS8-MB features an 8” woven kevlar woofer with a frequency response down to 35Hz.  The sub has a rated sensitivity of 90db and has a paintable grill with magnetic bezel and push-sprint terminals.  The sub is only 8.38lbs and only takes up 8.6” of ceiling depth. 

The ICS6-MB retails for $229 and the ICS8 retails for $319.  For more details on the new Beale Street Audio subwoofers, visit www.bealestreetaudio.com or email info@getbeale.com.

Unless otherwise indicated, this is a preview article for the featured product. A formal review may or may not follow in the future.