You can hide speakers in a living room in several different ways, such as placing them in cabinets or a bookshelf, putting cloth over them, mounting them in the wall, or staging furniture or plants to block them.
My name is Donovan, and I’m an audiophile, musician, and home studio enthusiast. I’ve set up many different listening rooms and home theaters over the years and have hidden speakers in lots of ways.
This post will show you how to hide speakers in a living room. I’ll provide you with several ways you can make this happen and highlight further instructions if needed. My goal is to help you get the ideal speaker setup while keeping your living room looking great.
Let’s get started.
Key Takeaways
- Some easy ways to hide speakers in a living room include stashing them in a cabinet or placing furniture in front of them.
- Building shelves or built-in speakers is a more complicated way to hide them, but this can be very effective.
- Covering speakers with a tablecloth or blanket can effectively hide them without altering the sound.
- Smaller speakers are much easier to hide than larger speakers.
How to Hide Speakers in Living Room
There really isn’t anything that special you need to know about hiding speakers in your living room. There are multiple ways to do this, and which method you choose will depend on your preferences and how your living room is set up.
There also isn’t a right or wrong way to hide speakers. You can do this in whatever way works best for you or is the most convenient. You can keep things simple and get creative with how you hide them or spend some money on built-in speakers.
I’ll provide several good ways to hide your speakers in a living room here. These methods aren’t ranked in any particular order, and there are other ways you could do it that aren’t spelled out here.
Read through the list first, then determine which method seems most convenient or applicable for your situation. Hiding speakers is not rocket science; with a little creativity and handiness, you’ll get things set up in no time.
1. Cover Speakers with Cloth, Blankets, or other Fabric
One of the most simple and straightforward ways to hide your speakers in a living room is to cover them with cloth, blankets, or other fabric. This will help your speakers blend in, and you can match the coverings to the decor of your room.
You don’t want to use anything too thick or heavy because this can negatively affect the audio quality of the speakers. But there will be minimal effect if you use a lightweight blanket or tablecloth.
This is an excellent method to hide larger speakers that might be challenging to mount or place inside of a cabinet or bookshelf. It’s also very cost-effective because you’ll likely have an extra piece of fabric lying around that you can use.
If you want to get really precise, you can visit a fabric store and get a pattern that you like or matches the vibe of your living room. Then you can use scissors to cut the fabric to the exact size you need to cover the speakers.
2. Hide Speakers in Cabinets or On Shelves
Another way to effectively hide speakers in your living room is to use cabinets or shelves. If you already have either of these set up in your living room, it’s worth considering because you won’t need to spend any money on buying or building them.
Cabinets can work well because you can shut the door when the speakers aren’t in use and open them up when you want to listen. You could also use cabinet drawers made of mesh or some other porous material that lets sound through.
Large speakers might not fit inside a cabinet, but you can always switch things up to smaller options or explore another method for hiding them. Always ensure the cabinets are installed correctly so they can hold the weight of the speakers.
Placing speakers on shelves is another way to hide them. This is essentially hiding them in plain sight, and you’ll still be able to see them unless you cover them. But getting the speakers off the ground will keep them from standing out as much as they would on the floor.
It’s pretty easy to build shelves if you don’t have any in your living room already. You can build long shelves to hold a variety of things or make special smaller speaker shelves that will hold a single speaker.
3. Built-In Speakers
Using built-in speakers is an excellent choice if you want to go with a more involved method. This will require some slight construction in the walls and/or ceiling of your living room but is one of the most effective ways to truly hide speakers.
Built-in speakers are often called invisible speakers, which gives you a good idea of how hidden they can be when installed correctly. You basically need to cut holes in the walls or ceiling where you want your speakers to be.
Then you mount the speakers within the holes, and they will sit flush with the surface. The speakers will look like they came with your house and won’t stand out at all, making this a very aesthetically pleasing way to hide them.
If you don’t have construction experience or tools, you’ll probably need to hire this project out. It shouldn’t be that expensive, but you need to know what you are doing whenever you start cutting into the walls of your house.
You must also consider how you will wire or power the speakers. You can also hide the wire in the walls or use some sort of covering that looks like trim. Or you can choose wireless speakers and run power to them somehow.
4. Hide Speakers with Plants or Furniture
An easy and less intrusive way of hiding speakers is to place plants or furniture in front of or around them. I like using plants or other types of furniture that don’t block the speaker entirely because this won’t affect the sound waves or audio quality.
If you want to ensure the audio is not altered or blocked, you can box your speakers in with the furniture or plants. Just place the items on either side or slightly behind the speakers but not directly in front of them.
If you place a large piece of furniture, like a cabinet or couch, directly in front of the speaker, it will block the sound waves and sound muffled. This is obviously something you want to avoid and consider when hiding them.
This approach will work with any size or shape of speaker. If you have larger floor speakers, you can use larger items to hide them. If you have smaller speakers on a shelf, you can use smaller plants or items to blend them into the room’s surroundings.
5. Wall Mount Speakers
Simply getting your speakers off the ground can make them feel out of the way and hidden, even if they are still easy to see. Mounting speakers on the wall is an easy way to make this happen.
You don’t want to mount speakers directly against a wall because they need room for air to escape during regular operation. You won’t get ideal sound quality unless there is open space behind the speakers.
Still, many people like to wall-mount speakers, and it’s relatively easy to do if you have some power tools and are handy. You can also use double-sided tape or other adhesives to avoid drilling into the wall.
Once the speakers are on the wall, you can blend them into the room using artwork, plants, or anything else you want to hide them.
6. Pay Attention to Speaker Placement
You don’t necessarily need to actively hide your speakers using mounts or objects. If you pay attention to where you place them, you can effectively hide them without doing anything at all. Or at least this is the effect placement can have.
If you place speakers near your TV or another audio source, they won’t stand out very much because your brain will expect them to be there. But you can also place them in the room’s corners where people don’t visit or sit as often.
Placing them directly next to a larger piece of furniture is another way to hide them without actually hiding them. Think of this as making the speakers blend in rather than stand out.
Experiment with several different speaker placements within your living room until you find one that makes them feel the most hidden.
7. Place Items On Top of Larger Speakers
If you use larger speakers in your living room, you can hide them by placing everyday items on top of them. You can put lamps, plants, or any other type of decoration on the speakers, and this will make them look more like furniture than speakers.
There is a slight risk that the items on top of the speakers could fall off due to sound vibrations if you choose this method. So don’t place anything fragile or valuable on top. Keep it simple, and this is another effective method.
FAQs
Here are a few short answers to some of the most commonly asked questions related to how to hide speakers in a living room.
How do you hide speakers in cabinets?
You can hide speakers in cabinets very easily by simply placing the speakers inside and then opening the doors when you want to listen. You can keep the cabinets shut when the speakers aren’t in use, and they will remain hidden.
How do you hide bookshelf speakers?
You can hide bookshelf speakers in many ways, and if you put them on a bookshelf, that’s one great way to go about it. You can also cover these speakers with a cloth or hide them behind or within existing decorations or furniture.
How do I set up speakers in my living room?
Your living room speaker setup can depend on how many speakers you have and the size of your space. A standard setup would use two speakers on either side of your audio source, such as a TV. Set up surround sound speakers behind your couch or chairs.
How does an invisible speaker work?
Invisible speakers work by being built into the walls or ceiling of a listening room. Since they sit flush with the wall, they are called invisible even though you can still see them. You’ll need to run wires through the wall if the speakers are not wireless.
Final Thoughts
There isn’t a best or worst way to hide speakers in your living room. Any of the methods described in this post will help you blend your speakers in without taking too much time or effort to accomplish.
Using built-in speakers is probably the most aesthetically pleasing method, but it’s also likely the most expensive. You don’t need to bust out the power tools to hide your speakers, and with a little creativity and exploration, you can get things set up as you want them.
Have you ever hidden speakers in your living room in a different way than mentioned here? Let me know in the comments below.
