Reinventing The Speaker Bracket - The Conductive Speaker Mounting System
From a professional installer’s point of view, mounting a pair of speakers to a wall can be a tricky proposition. Current speaker bracket designs require two pairs of hands to mount a speaker to a wall. The wire must reach the speaker being held by person ‘A’ while person ‘B’ inserts the positive and negative wires into the speaker connectors. (This often takes place high up on a ladder.) The excess wire then has to be fed back into the wall, out of the brackets way. Often the wire will hang up on the bracket or disconnect and fall back into the wall. And so the process starts over. Even if none of these complications arise, two people are still needed to complete the installation. After hanging a speaker with standard wall brackets, one can never be sure if the two pieces are seated properly and that the speaker won’t fall down with the slightest vibration. As an installer, I encountered these problems on a regular basis. As an inventor, I knew I could design a better speaker wall mounting system.
My first idea was to modify a metal bracket, isolating the positive and negative sides with a plastic divider. In this way the speaker wire coming from the amplifier, (through the wall) could be hooked directly to the contacts of the bracket mounted on the wall. Another set of short leads running from the terminals at the back of the speaker attached to the second half of the bracket. This was inverted and mounted to the back of the speaker. Thus, all the wiring could be done before the speaker was hung. When the two contacts were placed together, the connection to the amplifier was complete. This eliminated the stage where the wiring took place on top of a ladder. It also eliminated the need for a second set of hands to hold the speaker while the wires were attached. The concept was so simple, I wondered why nobody had thought of it before.
So I found myself a reliable attorney and a few years later, my Conductive Speaker Mounting System, Spracket® was patented.
Several refinements occurred along the way. The biggest change was from a metal and plastic bracket to a nylon and glass fiber mold with isolated contacts. The average speaker bracket is rated to support 8-10 pounds. My final design is capable of supporting a 50-pound speaker and the nylon/glass weave makes it weather resistant. Its gold plated copper contacts insure maximum conductivity. Higher fidelity speaker designs use denser material in their cabinets and larger driver magnets. This added weight necessitates the move towards safer, stronger and more efficient mounting systems.
There are many other benefits to my design. It is the unique marriage of a speaker bracket and connecting system, which eliminates the problems inherent to all previous speaker brackets. It vastly simplifies the process of mounting a speaker box to a wall. When the speaker is hung with this system, sound provides confirmation that the speaker is operational and is safely seated. I call this feature, “Hang And Hear®.” In addition, this system creates the flexibility to transport speakers to multiple locations. It can be wired and mounted to any wall inside or outside a home, office, mobile home or boat. Even areas of the home or business such as a guestroom, dining area, or a conference room where a speaker is occasionally needed, can easily be accommodated. Speakers can also be easily moved for cleaning purposes.
Multi-channel home theater’s use of wall-mounted speakers is fast becoming the norm. The weight, mounting height and quality of these speakers necessitates the move towards safer, stronger and more efficient mounting systems.
Ross Anderson
CEWL® Connections
http://www.cewlconnections.com
http://www.cewlconnections.com/spracket.html
