GreenHighlighter,

It would be good to know what kind of budget you are working with, and what kind of equipment that you are dealing with; for example, what amplifier are you using for the ceiling speakers and how many zones that this amp can run, and how many sources can you draw from with this amp.

I agree with the statement that ceiling speakers are good for background music and not for movies.
I like main speakers into the room (left and right mains) for movies with a sub-woofer and wall mounted surround speakers.

I would treat listening to background music and watching movies differently.

hth

I've learned that "good" to "better" ceiling speakers are better for surround sound than for music. We are waiting until we can afford the right speakers to do both. Ceiling speakers in this range are $250 + each, not per pair. A little steep for us at the moment, so our Polk bookshelf speakers are filling in.

I would suggest that for surround sound speakers that on-wall speakers are best instead of in-ceiling, they move the sound around the room much better by handing off the sound of one speaker to the next.

you can buy purpose made speaker stands for home theater if you don't like them on the wall.
everyone's right in that there's a big difference between music and a h/t source.

The LCR speakers for theater should always be at or near the same plane as the screen, you can get away with ceiling for surrounds as it is meant to be a diffuse sound field for ambient and special effects.

In the toilet as far as I am concerned. There is already so much noise coming from the TV that it is hard to hear the words. :-)

I'm sure you were being facetious Emma but in all seriousness, if you're listening to the tiny 1" speakers inside the TV (and many TV's don't even point them toward you), no wonder it's hard to hear. External speakers can be as big as they need to be to sound a lot better.

It depends on the placement of the speakers. If you prewired correctly, there should be some options. A few manufacturers make directionalized speakers that work well for imaging and TV/Movies for left, center & right front applications. If you just placed them in the center and sides of the room, you goofed. They're setup for low level background music, not imaging. Who wants to hear voices coming from above your head? If that's the case, use a 2 or 3 channel non-amplified sound bar for front channel, and surround channels the ceiling speaker with an affordable 5.1 A/V Receiver