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Control4 didn’t think outside the box for its invisible speaker, it invented one

Caleb Denison
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Control4 Triad Designer Series
Caleb Denison/Digital Trends
Last February, home automation giant Control4 acquired Triad speakers, and a new custom home audio powerhouse was born. Until recently, however, it wasn’t clear what kind of fruit the partnership would bear. We now know that in addition to a slew of clever new pieces of multiroom audio gear, the team has created one of the most impressive in-wall/in-ceiling speaker and subwoofer solutions we’ve heard to date. What’s more, this new Triad Designer Series is all but invisible.

Designed with new construction in mind yet also suitable for some existing homes, the Triad Designer Series speaker packs two 3 x 6-inch woofers and a 2.5-inch “Ultra Broad Dispersion” tweeter into a cleverly ported box that disappears behind the wall, with only a tiny 4-inch speaker grill offering any visible evidence that a speaker is anywhere to be found.

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Part of the genius in this speaker design is the manner in which the the bass from the two 3 x 6-inch drivers is ported out and around the 2.5-inch tweeter which, as the name implies, spreads treble across a broad area within a room, making it even more difficult to pinpoint the source of the sound. The combined result is rich, room-filling sound with the kind of precision rarely found in in-ceiling and in-wall speakers.

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All that engineering comes at a princely price, however. The DS4-FR go for $1,400 each, so a pair will set you back $2,800, and that’s not counting installation costs. Still, the sound quality and mystically invisible nature of the speaker makes quite an impression and should delight high-end clients.

Control4 Triad Designer Series
Caleb Denison/Digital Trends

While the bass output of the DS4-FR speaker is more than adequate on its own, bass lovers will be pleased to know Control4 and Triad also make the $1,400 DS4-SUB, which features three 3 x 6-inch drivers within the same size box. With the subwoofer added to a two-channel demonstration system, we noticed a significant improvement in the heft and overall presence of the bass.

Perhaps the most impressive aspect of the new Triad Designer Speaker series is its ability to eliminate hot spots and dead zones in a room, ensuring that music is essentially the same loudness no matter where you are standing or sitting.

Control4 is showing off the Triad Designer Speaker series at CEDIA 2017 in San Diego from September 7 through September 10 and the speakers are available through dealers across the U.S. now.

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Caleb Denison
Caleb Denison
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Digital Trends Editor at Large Caleb Denison is a sought-after writer, speaker, and television correspondent with unmatched…
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