I've been installing ceiling speakers for clients for several years now, and I'm almost always just using some very inexpensive models (usually Monoprice). I'd like to try out some different models and compare their sound, but I'm not sure how to best compare them.

For example, I just received a Micca R-8C speaker and hooked it up to an old Sonos Amp product. Because I don't exactly feel like cutting various sizes of holes in my own ceiling, I thought I'd at least give it a shot while sitting it its own box. But I'm really unimpressed with the sound quality.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not expecting much from these things. Ceiling speakers aren't usually much to write home about, and the end use of 95% of these things will be for ambient music during cooking/entertaining. But still, I'm hoping for at least a little bit more.

One of the songs I use to test bass is "Baby You're a Rich Man" by The Beatles. This thing fails so terribly it's almost laughable. I know I shouldn't expect much - if any - bass from this thing, but still, this is so bad. It sounds so much worse than what I expected after reading user reviews.

Should I build some sort of test box? I have a bunch of plywood lying around. What would be the best way to test real-world sound quality?

This. Speakers work by making air vibrate so the air gets moved. If there's nothing behind the speaker to contain it, the sound will scatter al over the place. This is especially bad for low frequency sounds, so bass essentially. If you check the spec sheet of the speaker, it'll tell you what the volume of the box should be, usually in liters.

Create a small box for this speaker, and also pad it with some of that speaker cloth or mousse. It'll be a world of difference and make even the crappiest speakers sound acceptable.

I guess the sound quality will depend on whether the ceiling void is insulated or not, how much clear space is around the speaker etc...

We used KEF in ours (insulated ceiling void) and they're good, not brilliant. But as you say it's in the kitchen and you're not generally after the highest sound quality.

Adding to what others have already said:

Speakers will have poor bass response if they are not in a proper enclosure which (a) holds the speaker solidly still so that it doesn't just flap back and forth in the air, and, (b) cleanly separates the airmass in front of the speaker from the airmass behind the speaker (i.e., a good seal). Then, the size of the airmass behind the speaker will determine the bass response, for instance, if they are in a small box, the bass response will still be poor.

Sometimes you will see speaker boxes with a tuned "port" which controls the amount of bleed between the air masses. This redirects the backpressure waves into the narrow frequency range of that tuned port, allowing you to get away with a smaller enclosure at the expense of making the bass response only be good at that one frequency.

I seem to recall that we discussed this in the past here on the BBS. Here's also some links:
https://www.crutchfield.com/S-p2F4lEaHkIG/learn/car-subwoofer-boxes.html
http://education.lenardaudio.com/en/05_speakers_4.html

I still remember from back in the days when I was seriously into car stereo, if I took the smallest box that would hold two 10" speakers, I could get frequency response on the low-end equivalent to a 15" speaker (well, 14.5", actually) yet keep the tightness and response of the 10" at the upper end.

I was crossed over at an insanely high frequency for a subwoofer, (I forget now, maybe around 150Hz?) and won the Sound Quality section of every competition I entered, got totally beaten in Sound Pressure Level. Quality counted for more than noise, so I always won my power class overall. The lowest frequency a speaker cabinet will produce is proportional to the sum of the cone areas of all the speakers in the box.

The system was totally stealth, other than the funny-looking "radio" in the dash.


It was an amazing car stereo.

tanstaafl.

FWIW, my main home theater speakers all have ribbon tweeters. They were made by VMPS, which is defunct after its founder passed away. (Sigh.) When I was looking to get "matching" in-ceiling speakers for surround sound, I ended up settling on a pair of these:

https://bgradiadesign.com/product/pd-8ci-planar-in-wall-ceiling-speakers-pair/

The dealer I bought them from set them up for me to play with, freestanding in their audition room. Seems cheesy, but it was "good enough", and definitely "matches" the sound of my VMPS speakers. When streaming stereo audio from the internet as background music, I have my amp configured to one of its modes that spreads the stereo sound to all five primary speakers, and this works surprisingly well.

Fun fact: I did some web searching, and it seems that BG Radia was bought out and is now also effectively defunct. So all the loudspeakers in my house are now from defunct suppliers.