A little of both. I have 11 ft ceilings in a roughly 20x20 great room with 6.5 inchs. The outdoor ceilings with the 8 inch was more like 14 feet ceilings and then there is more background noise outside - and it is nice to help transmit even further since I haven't put deck or patio speakers in yet. I bet 12 feet is roughly the switch over in common practice to 8 inch. There are no absolutes and size is certainly not all that matters. But an 8 inch on 9 foot ceilings would be out of place. It is a bit like recessed cans - 6 inch on 8 foot ceilings is a bit big. I absolutely think you will be fine with 6.5 inch in your great room. You can always go bigger but going smaller would be a mess. You might think that 8 inch speakers are visuallly intrusive.

Success! I love you people! Spent the past hour or two checking out your recommendations and printing out each step/window so I'd know where I'd been! DayLily, Frankly I don't know if I have a sound card or on-board sound. I can't find any reference to answer those questions (that I can interpret anyway) from running Belarc Advisor. I'd rather buy another computer than open up mine! Moths and dust would undoubtedly fly out! :) I appreciate your input. Thank you. Luis, My speakers are connected directly to my monitor. Since I didn't want to unplug a bunch of things and lug either my monitor and speakers into the other room or disconnect my husband's computer and bring it in here, I decided to check out the Control Panel's Sounds and Audio Devices. The first tab (Volume) had 'Mute' checked! Couldn't believe it. I thought I'd gone into every nook and cranny by now! I unchecked 'Mute' and really did look everywhere in that window this time. Also, under Advanced Audio Properties > Speakers, I changed the Speaker Setup from 'Monitor stereo speakers' to 'Desktop stereo speakers.' (Wouldn't have done that except the latter had pictures that shows my setup. Ha.) One or more of those actions must have done the trick. 'Thanks' is not adequate enough! But I do thank you so much Owbist, I went everywhere you suggested. I had been in some of those 'places' before, but I guess just not where to fix the problem. I'd seen those yellow exclamation marks, (...System Properties > Device Manager > Sound...), but when I'd click on one of the yellow jobbers > Unknown device Properties > DRIVER TAB > Driver Details or Update Driver, I'd get some kind of error message when I'd try to update a driver. It wasn't until I went to the GENERAL TAB and then REINSTALL DRIVER that worked to banish the yellows! Wow! Thanks! Raven, If you've read this novel this far, you were probably right about the sound being muted and I just hadn't seen that particular window before, although I'd seen the volume window somewhere in my earlier travels and no mute boxes were checked and I'd raised the volume sliders up higher. Several times prior, I'd moved the couch, gotten out my flashlight and trusty magnifying glass and unplugged, re-plugged, and deciphered the almost invisible icons on my monitor, speakers, and computer backside. :) Thank you. Well, folks, before I posted this, I listened to 3 songs and did a Hallelujah! I'm thrilled. And it's all because of you. I'm going to bed now. Hope I never have to travel in this particular labyrinth again! Good night. Kat

Zep516, Thanks for all your help. I've tried to follow all your instructions. I downloaded the file from the link you provided, unzipped it, and re-booted the computer. Then did the uninstall of the realtek audio driver from the device manager, and again re-booted - and it gave me a 'fouund new hardware' message. Plus I then went back to the device manager and the driver was listed, but still no sound. I think I'm about ready to give up trying. Might try getting a sound card - or may just take this thing to a local computer shop that does free diagnostic with a quote on repair cost. They seem nice. My stepdaughter bought a lenovo laptop from them about a year and half ago. I considered doing that but instead thought I'd just give her some money for her old computer (this one)as it had the power supply, and mother board replaced under warranty. Thought I'd be saving some $$. WRONG! This was of course before I knew about the sound prob. My husband then surprised me with a nice new monitor. Very sweet of him, but now I'm wishing that I had just let him put that money towards a new laptop instead of a monitor. If you were not able to do a lot yourself to computers, would you invest anymore in this one (it seems fine except the sound) or just bite the bullet and get a new one? Tough question I know, but just curious your opinion and not really asking you to make the decision for me. Whatever I do, it won't be anytime soon - a little short on $$ right now. What brand of computer (lower end $$) do you think is most dependable? I've been told Toshiba is o.k., but to stay away from Compaq and HP. What do you think, or do you care to say? Thanks, Frances

We have a drawer we call the owners manual drawer---All in one place--so encase of fire we can grab the drawer on the way out---sometime down the road want to put all--info on disks to be stored away from home (ie sisters house)-- I work retail and I reccommend to all the folks who come in not knowing what brand say of weedeater they have to look in their owners manual drawer for the information they need---I always get that blank eyed look like what am I talking about--- Reccommend that all receipts be scanned and printed and stapled to front of owners manual (because the thermal imaging fades quickly)