★Carried & Installed

Triad speakers · Kansas City.

IntegrateIT carries and installs Triad across the Kansas City metro — the architectural speakers that go into the ceilings and walls of most of the houses we wire, and are never seen again. One precision first, because the trade is sloppy about this word: Triad is a line we carry and install under distribution, not one we hold our own dealer agreement on, so we do not call ourselves an authorized Triad dealer. What we are is the people who draw the zone map, cut the holes in the right places, aim the drivers at where people actually stand and tune the house after the furniture lands. Phone: (913) 804-7575 or office@integrateit.tech.

The thing worth knowing about this brand before any model number: Triad publishes that its speakers are hand-built to order by craftspeople at its factory in Portland, Oregon, and have been designed and built in the USA for more than four decades. That is not a romance detail — it is why a cabinet can be modified around a pipe in a wall, why a grille can be matched to the paint rather than to a colour chart, and why a soundbar can be built to the width of your television instead of the width of a box. We buy it through Snap One distribution, which is also how Control4 reaches us, and the two integrate accordingly.

What we carry and install from Triad

Triad’s current catalogue is deep — a few hundred entries once every finish and driver size is counted. These are the families we specify here, and what each is for:

Distributed Audio Series 1, 2 and 3. The multi-room in-ceiling and in-wall line, stepped in three levels — TS-IC61 and TS-IW61, then the TS-IC52 through TS-IC82 family, then TS-IC53 through TS-IC83 — so the hallway and the listening room can carry different speakers without carrying different brands. This is the backbone of most of what we build on whole-house audio.
PDX Series 4 and PDX Series 5. The newer architectural line, with a toolless Push Lock mount that meaningfully shortens a trim-out. Six- and eight-inch in-ceiling and in-wall models (TS-PDX-IC65, TS-PDX-IC85, TS-PDX-IW65 and the Series 4 equivalents), plus angled in-ceiling versions for aiming at a seating position and dedicated surround models.
InCeiling and InWall LCR — TS-ICLCR4/5/6 and TS-IWLCR4/5/6. Left, centre and right built into the plane, for a media room that wants a real front stage and no visible boxes.
Cinema Reference — TS-CREF-IWLCR and TS-CREF-IWSURR. The in-wall reference set for a dedicated room, with ready-to-ship variants of both.
InWall Surround — TS-IWSURR4/5/6. Switchable between bipole, for the wider dispersion a traditional surround wants, and monopole, which is what object-based formats need. That switch is the reason these suit a room being built for Dolby Atmos as well as one that is not.
Satellites, InRoom and OnWall models. InCeiling and InWall satellites (TS-ICSAT and TS-IWSAT, in four, five and six inch, with ready-to-ship versions), InRoom LCR and InRoom Center freestanding models including a high-gloss black finish, and OnWall Surrounds for a masonry wall that cannot be cut into.
Subwoofers — in-wall, in-ceiling, in-room, passive and powered. Passive InWall (TS-IW-PAS10 and 12) and InCeiling (TS-IC-PAS8 and 10) models for low end with no box on the floor; passive InRoom models from eight to fifteen inch; and powered InRoom dual-driver models (TS-PWRD8 through TS-PWRD15). Four- and eight-ohm versions exist where the amplifier design calls for one.
Passive soundbars, built to your television. TS-PSB models in one, two and three-channel configurations with three-, four-, five- or six-inch drivers, built to a custom length in eighth-of-an-inch increments and finished in a stock colourway, a custom veneer or a matched paint.
Amplification and switching. Rackmount subwoofer amplifiers (TS-SUBAMP300 through TS-SUBAMP2400 in 1U), multichannel power amplifiers (TS-PAMP1-200, TS-PAMP4 and TS-PAMP8 families), audio matrix switches (TS-AMS8-V2, TS-AMS16) and the TS-SA1-200 streaming amplifier, which Triad published as the replacement for the Triad One.
Outdoor — Stratus Series, Garden Array, OD25 and OD26. Landscape satellites with burial subwoofers and stake mounts, all-weather satellites and a subwoofer, and surface-mount boxes. See the FAQ below for when we specify these and when we do not.

We specify and install to order — we hold no shelf stock, and Triad builds to order anyway, which is the whole point. Finishes, custom sizes and any cabinet modification are settled on the drawing rather than on the install day.

How we design the line in

The zone map first, the speaker last. Almost every distributed system that disappoints its owner was designed as a speaker count. Where somebody stands, what they want to hear there and who else has to live with it decides the layout; the model is the easier problem and the smaller one.
Placement beats model in most rooms. Two speakers positioned for even coverage beat four better ones clustered in the middle of a ceiling. The money belongs in the two or three rooms where somebody will actually sit and listen — everywhere else, aiming and spacing do the work.
Cut once, at rough-in. Back boxes, bracket placement and the cable path are settled while the ceiling is open. Retrofitting an architectural speaker into finished drywall is possible and we do it, but it is a different job with a different budget — the cabling belongs in the pre-wire.
Finish decided with the designer. Paint match, veneer and grille are a design conversation held early. Left to trim-out, they get decided by whoever is on the ladder that week.
The open plan gets an honest answer. The kitchen, great room and hearth room running together under a two-story volume is one acoustic space with three activities in it. Either it is one zone laid out to be even everywhere, or it is split and you accept the bleed. We will say which we recommend and why rather than pretending there is a third option.
Tuned after the furniture. Hard floors, stone and large glass make bright rooms; rugs and upholstery pull them back. So levels are matched zone to zone, equalisation is set per room and maximum levels are sanity-checked once the house is finished — not on the day the speakers went in.

Where it sits beside the lines we also carry

Triad is the default architectural answer: a grille in the ceiling, painted to match, in every room of the house. Where the brief forbids a grille entirely, we are an authorized Sonance dealer and the Invisible Series gets skim-coated into the wall instead. In the one or two rooms built for listening, Wisdom Audio and JBL Synthesis are the reference choices, and outside it is normally Coastal Source. On the rack end, the amplification behind all of this is usually NAD or a Control4 or Crestron matrix. We carry the whole spread, so the recommendation can be about the room rather than about what we happen to stock.

Common questions

Who installs Triad speakers in Kansas City?

IntegrateIT (Overland Park, KS) carries and installs Triad across the Kansas City metro — specified room by room, cut in, aimed, painted to match and tuned after the furniture arrives. To be precise about the relationship, because the trade is sloppy about this word: Triad is a line we carry and install under distribution, not one we hold our own dealer agreement on, so we do not call ourselves an authorized Triad dealer. The brands we do hold dealer agreements on are listed on our site and include Control4, Crestron, Lutron HomeWorks and Sonance. Phone: (913) 804-7575 or office@integrateit.tech.

What makes Triad different from other in-ceiling speakers?

They are built to order rather than pulled from a bin, and that changes what is possible on a job. Triad publishes that its speakers are hand-built to order at its factory in Portland, Oregon, with dozens of stock finishes plus paint and wood matching, book-matched veneer on freestanding models, and purpose-built enclosures for in-wall and in-ceiling work. It also publishes that cabinets can be modified for a structural constraint — working around a pipe inside a wall, for instance — and that one-off designs can be built. On a remodel in a house that was not designed around audio, that flexibility is frequently the difference between a speaker in the right place and a speaker where the joists allowed.

Which Triad speakers go in a whole-house audio system?

The Distributed Audio Series and the PDX Series, in most houses. Distributed Audio is stepped as Series 1, 2 and 3 — TS-IC61 and TS-IW61 at the entry, through the TS-IC62 and TS-IC82 family, up to the TS-IC63 and TS-IC83 models — so a hallway, a laundry and a primary bath do not have to carry the same speaker as a room somebody actually sits and listens in. The PDX Series 4 and Series 5 are the newer architectural line with a toolless Push Lock mount, in six- and eight-inch in-ceiling and in-wall versions plus angled models. Placement matters more than model in most of those rooms, which is why the zone map comes before the speaker list.

Does Triad make speakers for a home theater?

Yes, at several levels. The Cinema Reference line — TS-CREF-IWLCR and TS-CREF-IWSURR — is the in-wall reference set. Below it, the InWall LCR and InCeiling LCR models (TS-IWLCR4 through 6, TS-ICLCR4 through 6) cover the front stage, and the InWall Surround models switch between bipole for wider dispersion and monopole for object-based formats. For the height layer, the PDX angled in-ceiling models are the ones we normally place. There are also InRoom LCR and InRoom Center models, OnWall Surrounds, and passive soundbars built to a custom length with a choice of driver size — useful under a television where a conventional centre channel will not fit.

What about subwoofers and amplification?

Triad covers both. Subwoofers come as passive InWall and InCeiling models, passive InRoom models in eight through fifteen inch, and powered InRoom dual-driver models, all in four- or eight-ohm versions where the design calls for it. The passive ones need an external amplifier, which is what Triad’s rackmount subwoofer amplifiers are for — the TS-SUBAMP range, 300 through 2400, in a 1U chassis. On the electronics side there are multichannel power amplifiers (TS-PAMP4, TS-PAMP8 and the single-channel TS-PAMP1-200), audio matrix switches (TS-AMS8-V2 and TS-AMS16) and the TS-SA1-200 streaming amplifier. Whether the rack ends up Triad or NAD depends on the zone count and what else is in it.

Can Triad speakers go outside?

There is a current outdoor line, yes — the Stratus Series landscape satellites in six, eight and ten inch with burial subwoofers and stake mounts, the Garden Array satellites and all-weather subwoofer, and the OD25 and OD26 surface-mount boxes. We will still usually specify Coastal Source for a Kansas City patio, and the reason is narrow rather than brand loyalty: the failures that actually happen outdoors here are connection failures, and the sealed connector system is what we have watched survive a Midwest freeze-thaw cycle. Where a landscape zone is a small extension of an existing Triad house rather than a project of its own, the Triad outdoor line is a sensible answer and we will say so.

Speakers are the last twenty percent. Let’s start with the zone map.

Walk your plans with us (913) 804-7575

Or read about how we design whole-house audio · what drives whole-home audio cost · invisible speakers vs in-ceiling speakers · what we put on the patio

Written by Daniel Alon, founder of IntegrateIT LLC, with twenty years in IT and AV integration — Control4 Platinum Dealer, Crestron Elite Partner, Lutron Certified Installer, CEDIA member. Overland Park, KS.