Monitor Audio has announced the Creator Series In-Ceiling C2L-A, an angled architectural speaker, which expands its C2L range. The new angled version offers more precise placement and improved performance in custom installed home audio and theater systems.

Architectural audio, specifically in-wall and in-ceiling, has quietly shifted from compromise to a legitimate high-performance category. The reasons are fairly obvious. Sound quality has improved dramatically over the past decade, closing the gap with traditional loudspeakers, while more listeners want superior audio performance without turning their living spaces into showrooms. You can hear it, you just don’t have to look at it. That alone has helped reduce a lot of the domestic pushback that tends to follow large speaker purchases.

The Creator Series itself is Monitor Audio’s fourth-generation architectural lineup, covering both in-wall and in-ceiling designs aimed at custom installation. Within the ceiling category, the range is structured into three performance tiers, giving installers and buyers flexibility depending on room size, budget, and how far down the rabbit hole they want to go.

Three Tiers from Background Audio to High Performance Home Theater

Tier 1: Small, medium, and large models built for cost-effective installs, focusing on straightforward design and dependable acoustic performance.

• Two-way configuration ​
• C-CAM mid-bass drivers​
• C-CAM tweeter with ​UD Waveguide ​
• Tri-Grip II ​
• Quik-Link

Tier 2: Small, medium, and large in-ceiling models that build on Tier 1 with upgraded acoustic performance and added flexibility, including features like boundary correction and a dual-stereo C2L-T2X option for more versatile placement.

• Two-way configuration
• RST II mid-bass drivers​
• C-CAM tweeter with UD Waveguide II​
• Controlled Performance​
• Tri-Grip II ​
• Quik-Link

Tier 3: High-performance medium and large in-ceiling models that build on Tier 2 with further acoustic refinement and advanced tuning options, including boundary compensation, mid/high-frequency cut and boost, and more sophisticated driver technologies for greater placement flexibility.

• Three-way configuration
• RDT III bass drivers​
• IDC II coaxial mid/tweeter drivers​ with UD Waveguide II​
• Controlled Performance​
• Tri-Grip II ​
• Quik-Link

Pro Tip: Monitor Audio brings angled in-ceiling design down to Tier 2, adding installation flexibility and performance value without stepping up to Tier 3.

Why the C2L-A Is a Smart In-Ceiling Option

The C2L-A is part of the Tier 2 in-ceiling line-up for situations where standard ceiling speakers lose focus. With its angled design, it brings better clarity and direction whether it’s handling height duties in a Dolby Atmos system or anchoring a more precise multi-channel music setup.

The Basics 

The C2L-A pairs a 9-inch C-CAM bass-mid driver with RST II cone geometry and a 1.25-inch C-CAM gold dome tweeter. The tweeter is mounted on a central bridge at the acoustic core of the driver and angled at 25 degrees, helping steer high frequencies toward the listening position instead of firing straight down into the carpet.

Acoustic Performance

The C2L-A provides a suite of intelligent installation features and advanced acoustic technologies, including High-frequency (HF) adjustment and boundary compensation. This enables added flexibility in speaker placement, as well as allowing it to be ‘tuned’ to the room to achieve the desired performance. This is optimal for rooms where desired placement might be difficult.

C-CAM 

At the core of the C2L-A is a 9-inch C-CAM (Ceramic-Coated Aluminium/Magnesium) driver. It’s light, rigid, and responsive, which translates into lower distortion and cleaner, more detailed sound without adding unnecessary weight or sluggishness.

RST II Cone Geometry 

This isn’t just cosmetic. The C2L-A uses RST (Rigid Surface Technology) II cone geometry—a hexagonal dimpled structure designed to increase stiffness and control flex across the driver. The goal is straightforward: reduce breakup and distortion so the driver stays more linear under load. In practice, that translates into tighter low-end control, cleaner midrange, and better overall clarity.

Gold Dome Tweeter

A newly designed bridge houses the angled C-CAM 1.25-inch gold dome tweeter, set at a precise 25-degree angle to focus high-frequency energy directly into the desired listening area with precise accuracy.

Installation 

Monitor Audio has engineered the C2L-A for easy installation. The speaker features Monitor Audio’s patent-pending Quik-Link speaker cable connector, which supports ease and speed of installation. The Tri-Grip II dog-leg fixings have been re-engineered for a more robust, reliable, and secure fit. The “dog-leg” mechanism allows the C2L-A to be easily secured to plasterboard or dry-lined walls and ceilings.

Design

The C2L-A requires a 248mm (9.76-inch) cut-out, keeping the visual footprint relatively low for its size. It uses near-flush magnetic grilles available in black or white, with an optional square grille for more flexibility in matching room design.

C2L-A Angled In-Ceiling Speaker Specifications

The Bottom Line

In-wall and in-ceiling speakers aren’t the compromise they used to be, and Monitor Audio clearly understands where the category is headed. The C2L-A stands out because it brings an angled, more directional approach down to a Tier 2 price point, something that used to require stepping into more expensive territory. That matters if you actually care about where the sound lands, not just that it exists somewhere above your head.

That said, this is not a category with a lack of options. Brands like DALI, Focal, Theory Audio Design, KEF, and Q Acoustics are all taking this space seriously, and in some cases, pushing it hard. You still need to treat this like any other speaker purchase because once it’s in the ceiling, it’s not exactly a quick swap.

The C2L-A makes the most sense for listeners building a clean, visually unobtrusive system who still want control over imaging and placement—whether that’s for Dolby Atmos height channels or a more refined multi-room setup. Just don’t wing the install. Cutting holes first and asking questions later is a great way to learn expensive lessons.

Price & Availability

The Monitor Audio Creator C2L-A will be available in September 2026 for $750 USD per piece (£550 / €675) from Authorized Dealers. All Creator Series in-ceiling speakers come with white grilles. For those who want to ‘hide’ or ‘blend’ their integrated speakers with darker décor, black grilles are also available as an optional accessory in round and square designs. For more information, visit: monitoraudio.com.

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In a time when almost everything is getting more expensive, this deal on the M5 MacBook Air has me hopeful about how laptop pricing will play out the rest of the year. The M5 MacBook Air has dropped back down to $949, which is $150 off its retail price. It’s only been at this price one other time since the product launched in early March and has more consistently sold for $1,049. As someone who’s reviewed every available MacBook and their strongest competitors, I can unequivocally say that this MacBook Air is one of the very best laptop deals right now.

Take the Surface Laptop 7th Edition, for example, which has been one of my favorite alternatives to the MacBook Air through all of 2025. It had been at competitive prices with the M4 MacBook Air all along, with both laptops sometimes dropping to as low as $799 during sales events like Prime Day throughout the year. But now, the Surface Laptop has gotten an official price hike due to the RAM shortage and is currently sitting at $1,200. It’s still a laptop I like quite a lot, but at $350 more than a similarly configured M5 MacBook Air, it’s very difficult to recommend.

Or consider the MacBook Neo, Apple’s new budget laptop that also launched in March. While it’s much cheaper overall, it’s only ever been sold for $10 off its full price. At this reduced price for the M5 MacBook Air of $949, that leaves only a dangerously small $260 gap between the Neo and the Air. It’s almost embarrassing how much better the Air is by comparison—in every way imaginable. If you’re curious how these two laptops stack up, I’ve done a comprehensive comparison between them that’s worth checking out. But to put it simply, despite all the excitement (and controversy) around the much cheaper MacBook Neo, the MacBook Air still has the most price flexibility in terms of deals.

Letterboxd has surged in popularity in recent years. Once a niche site for only the most fervent of film nerds, the site — which allows users to rate, review, and recommend movies to one another — has continued to add accounts by the tens of millions, thanks largely to interest from millennials and Gen Z. Now, the company’s controlling investor has apparently made it known that they are looking to cash out.

Semafor reported Sunday that Canadian holding company Tiny, which owns some 60% of Letterboxd, has been courting various potential buyers, including Versant, the parent company of CNBC and MS NOW (formerly MSNBC). Another potential buyer is The Ankler, a popular Hollywood newsletter, according to Semafor. Tiny bought the platform in 2023, valuing it at over $50 million. It’s unclear whether the company has neared any sort of deal.

Representatives for Letterboxd and Tiny did not immediately provide comment when reached by TechCrunch.

Founded in 2011, Letterboxd saw a jump in users in the past few years, climbing to about 26 million users this year, up from 1.7 million in 2020, according to The New York Times. In recent years, the site has seen interest from movie studios, which see it both as a vehicle for marketing films and a source of information about moviegoer trends, as well as from the Oscars, which teamed up with the social platform in a digital content partnership several years ago.

Saros Consulting’s research found that ‘scope creep’ is a significant cause of stress for IT and technical teams.

IT consultancy Saros Consulting has published the results of a new study that explores the issues of stress and mental health among IT employees, as well as the factors that drive them.

In partnership with Censuswide, Saros Consulting collected data from 200 IT decision-makers working out of large, Ireland-based organisations. What was discovered is that three out of every five participating organisations have noticed “stress or mental health issues among IT workers due to intensifying delivery pressures”.  

Saros’s research suggests that as more organisations continue to embrace AI, the pressure to roll out new products and systems is creating a fraught working environment for IT and technical teams. Only 58pc of IT leaders admitted that their leadership team has realistic expectations of how AI can benefit them.

Great expectations

Legacy systems were found to be slowing down progress for IT workers, with 59pc of contributors noting that they are running too many, while 57pc explained legacy systems are holding back innovation in their company. 

‘Scope creep’ – that is, the continuous or uncontrolled expansion of a person’s work – was also identified as a major issue. Six in 10 participating large organisations reported scope creep as a contributing factor to stress among IT and technical teams, while 61pc also admitted that these teams are working long hours because of talent shortages.

Saros’s research did find, however, that there may be a financial benefit to workers around talent shortages, in that almost 60pc of organisations taking part in the study said they gave an IT or technical team member a 50pc pay increase to discourage them from leaving. According to the report, this underlines the lengths large organisations are willing to go to if it means retaining skilled IT talent.

Fill the gap

A recent report published by the Employment and Recruitment Federation, and supported by Icon Accounting, found that temporary and contract roles are having an impact on the wider working landscape. 

Their research found that while Ireland’s jobs market is holding steady, “employer confidence is becoming more measured, with temporary and contract roles now overtaking permanent recruitment in a clear sign of growing caution across the market”.

This change in workplace needs and expectations was also evident in Saros’s data, which found that in order to ease the burden, the outsourcing of IT work is being utilised. Almost one-quarter of IT decision-makers in large organisations said outsourced project management helps reduce stress among technical team members.

Commenting on the findings, Ray Armstrong, the co-founder and co-CEO of Saros Consulting, said, “Our research shows that organisations in Ireland are struggling to address the issue of mental health among IT teams and the leadership team themselves could even be compounding the issue.

“The source of the issue lies in organisations not having a proper IT strategy in place. This means not only coming up with a strategy that is doable, but also one that works in tandem with the business and its goals. Putting a proper plan in place can help to alleviate pressure, provide clarity and lead to happier, more fulfilled workers.”

Justin van der Spuy, also a co-founder and co-CEO of Saros, added, “The sharp rise in cyber threats, coupled with the AI boom and severe staff shortages, have meant that IT teams are under a lot of pressure, to a point where it is becoming too much.

“IT has become the backbone of every organisation; if it ceases to function healthily, then so does the rest of the organisation. IT leaders must look holistically at how they can support their teams. Pay rises alone can’t cure sleep deprivation.”

AI – and ensuring that organisations are fully prepared to embrace future skills and security needs – is an important topic for most organisations in 2026. 

In response, the Irish Government recently launched AIReady.ie, a new national AI skilling platform designed to provide people across Ireland with the means to learn essential AI skills.

Developed by Solas, in partnership with the National Skills Council, the programme will aim to teach the fundamentals of AI, with a curriculum designed to support people as they work to develop the in‑demand skills needed for work, study and everyday life.

Don’t miss out on the knowledge you need to succeed. Sign up for the Daily Brief, Silicon Republic’s digest of need-to-know sci-tech news.

Govee, a leading smart light maker, on Monday launched what could be the most interesting ceiling light we’ve seen. The Govee Ceiling Light Ultra turns your entire ceiling into a glowing array of light, complete with AI-generated scenes. 

The 21-inch disk-shaped overhead light is filled with over 600 ultradense LEDs, featuring a screen-grade matrix layout, allowing you to do some very cool things with this light. The launch video shows an artist taking a photo of their painting of the Mona Lisa and then sending it directly to the light for display. It’s not digital picture frame quality, but you get the idea. 

The light also casts a wide array of light around the ceiling, showing off the power of that many LEDs and making it easy to set the right mood. And while the colorful effects may be the show stealer, you can also have the light follow sunrise and sunset times and adjust in real time. This isn’t a new feature for smart lights, but it’ll likely have a greater impact here given how large and bright this ceiling light is.

Since it’s 2026, you can also expect a healthy serving of AI with the light. Owners can create a colorful lighting scene with an AI prompt. The Ceiling Light Ultra also comes with more than 100 lighting effects and music-sync modes, so you can set the vibe just the way you like it.

Govee makes some of the best smart lighting solutions around, but it’s far from the only player. Philips Hue lights are largely considered superior, but cost significantly more. The Govee Ceiling Light Ultra will run you $250, which, in the grand scheme of things, isn’t a terrible deal for what you get. Now, factor in that Philips Hue has no comparable type of lighting solution, and Govee might have a winner on its hands. 

You can buy the Ceiling Light Ultra from Govee direct or at Amazon, with a shipping estimate of May 2. 

The developers are urging all developers who installed version 0.23.3 to take the following steps immediately:

1. Check your installed version:

pip show elementary-data | grep Version

2. If the version is 0.23.3, uninstall it and replace it with the safe version:

pip uninstall elementary-data

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pip install elementary-data==0.23.4

In your requirements and lockfiles, pin explicitly to elementary-data==0.23.4.

3. Delete your cache files to avoid any artifacts.

4. Check for the malware’s marker file on any machine where the CLI may have run: If this file is present, the payload executed on that machine.

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macOS / Linux: /tmp/.trinny-security-update

Windows: %TEMP%\\.trinny-security-update

5. Rotate any credentials that were accessible from the environment where 0.23.3 ran – dbt profiles, warehouse credentials, cloud provider keys, API tokens, SSH keys, and the contents of any .env files. CI/CD runners are especially exposed because they typically have broad sets of secrets mounted at runtime.

6. Contact your security team to hunt for unauthorized usage of exposed credentials. The relevant IOCs are at the bottom of this post.

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Over the past decade, supply-chain attacks on open source repositories have become increasingly common. In some cases, they have achieved a chain of compromises as the malicious package leads to breaches of users and, from there, breaches resulting from the compromise of the users’ environments.

HD Moore, a hacker with more than four decades of experience and the founder and CEO of runZero, said that user-developed repository workflows, such as GitHub actions, are notorious for hosting vulnerabilities.

It’s a “a major problem for open source projects with open repos,” he said. “It’s really hard to not accidentally create dangerous workflows that can be exploited by an attacker’s pull request.”

He said this package can be used to check for such vulnerabilities.

High-end audio brands have spent the past five years pushing deeper into the luxury car market, usually leaning on bigger speaker counts and brand-name partnerships. Dirac is taking a different route. In partnership with NIO, it has launched Dirac Spaces, a new software platform designed to model and reproduce the acoustic characteristics of real-world environments inside a vehicle. The system debuts in the NIO ES9 alongside the Lyra sound system, marking a shift toward software-defined acoustics rather than hardware-led upgrades.

From there, the through line becomes clearer. Dirac has been working this angle for a while. Its automotive push builds on earlier technologies like Reference Room Mode and Dirac Dimensions in the ES8, and traces back to the introduction of its Virtuo platform in 2022. The focus hasn’t changed: control the acoustics of the space, don’t just decorate it with DSP.

Some car audio systems still try to fake spaciousness by layering on reverb and calling it a day. Dirac’s approach is more precise. By modeling how sound reflects and decays in both the vehicle and a target environment, it uses the full speaker system to create a more coherent three-dimensional sound field.

Timing on this one was almost too convenient. The press release landed while I was out this morning driving the 2026 Mazda CX-50 Turbo and the 2026 Mazda CX-5 Premium—ended up ordering the CX-5. Both come with “premium” Bose systems. They’re competent, and the cabins are quiet enough, but spatial audio isn’t part of the equation.

Apple CarPlay integration matters more day-to-day anyway, especially in a house full of iPhones where Qobuz is non-negotiable and nobody else is touching the car stereo. But even in a well-insulated cabin, you can hear the limits. The sense of space is mostly surface-level.

That’s the gap Dirac is trying to close; less about adding features, more about fixing how sound actually behaves inside the car.

BMW also announced its first vehicle this week with Dolby Atmos, which is firmly in the “nice to hear about, not buying anytime soon” category — but it’s another sign of where this is headed in the luxury automobile segment.

Dirac Spaces and NIO Lyra: Software-Defined Acoustics Inside the Cabin

Working alongside the NIO Lyra sound system, Dirac is taking a system-level approach to in-car audio that goes beyond hardware tuning. The goal here is straightforward: control how sound behaves inside the cabin rather than simply pushing more of it through more speakers. That means combining the vehicle’s audio system, the physical space, and the source material into something that behaves in a more predictable and consistent way.

Dirac Spaces is the next step in that process. Instead of treating the car as a fixed listening environment, it uses acoustic modeling and real-time signal processing to reshape how sound is perceived inside the cabin. The system measures both the vehicle and a target acoustic space, then applies Dirac’s MIMO sound field control to approximate how that space would actually sound. The idea is not to layer on effects, but to replicate the acoustic behavior of different environments with a higher degree of accuracy than traditional DSP approaches.

“Today, cars are one of the most important listening environments, but they’ve traditionally been limited by the physical constraints of the cabin,” said Anders Storm. “With Dirac Spaces, we are redefining the in-car listening experience by recreating the acoustic signature of real-world environments inside the vehicle.”

Dirac is also giving automakers some flexibility in how this is deployed. “Signature Spaces” allows OEM partners like NIO to create branded environments tied to specific venues or experiences. “Designed Spaces” are Dirac’s own presets, based on measured real-world environments, with options like Balanced Room, Warm Stage, and Grand Hall that adjust both spatial cues and tonal balance.

The distinction from typical sound modes is important. This isn’t just reverb layered on top of the signal. Dirac Spaces maps how reflections and spatial cues should behave based on the car’s speaker layout and acoustic characteristics, which results in a more coherent sound field. In practice, that should translate into better depth, clearer imaging, and fewer of the phase and timing issues that tend to show up in complex cabin environments.

Implementation is also relatively clean. Dirac Spaces runs on top of an already optimized Dirac system, so it doesn’t require additional measurement beyond what’s used to tune the vehicle in the first place. It supports both stereo and multichannel content, which keeps things consistent regardless of source.

In the context of modern EV platforms, this is really about software. By integrating Dirac Spaces into vehicles like the ES9, NIO is using audio as another layer of differentiation—one that can be updated, refined, and potentially monetized over time without changing the underlying hardware.

“At NIO, we’re focused on creating a more immersive in-car experience that goes beyond traditional expectations,” said Ted Li. “With Dirac Spaces, the goal is to move the vehicle beyond a standard listening environment and closer to a space where sound behaves more like it would in the real world.”

Dirac will demonstrate Dirac Spaces publicly for the first time at Auto China 2026, running April 24 through May 3, in collaboration with NIO. The demonstrations will take place inside production vehicles, showing how the system adapts across different cabin designs and audio system configurations.

The Bottom Line

Dirac is attacking the real problem in car audio: the cabin itself. Dirac Spaces isn’t another sound mode—it’s an attempt to model and control how audio behaves in that space, which is a fundamentally different approach from the DSP presets and upmixing most systems rely on today.

North American availability is still an open question. With NIO as the launch partner and no U.S. presence, this rollout is likely tied to future OEM deals rather than anything immediate.

The rivalry is more complicated than a simple “they don’t need Dirac” narrative. NIO is leaning into Dirac as a core technology partner, while Tesla and Rivian continue to prioritize in-house control.

Meanwhile, Dirac is driving innovation. At CES 2025, Dirac and Denon showcased a prototype 22-speaker sound system in Tesla Model Y with height channels, headrest and headliner exciters, and Dirac’s spatial processing to create a far more coherent sound field than the stock system.

It wasn’t just louder or wider. It delivered noticeably better clarity, more stable imaging, and more natural bass response, while generating immersive spatial audio from standard stereo sources without relying on Atmos mixes. 

It also exposed the core difference in approach. Tesla’s system, like Rivian’s evolving in-house platform relies on upmixing and DSP layered on top of the cabin. Dirac’s approach focuses on getting all the speakers to work together, correcting timing, phase, and interaction so the cabin itself stops fighting the sound. 

That puts NIO in a different lane. By integrating Dirac at a deeper level with Spaces, it’s betting that software-defined acoustics can outperform even well-executed in-house systems. Tesla and Rivian are betting they can get there on their own.

Right now, both approaches work. But based on what we heard in that Model Y, Dirac has already shown it can raise the bar—if an automaker is willing to give it the keys.

For more information: https://www.dirac.com/b2b/automotive/spaces

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