Atmos heights position ?

[Walter Sobchak]

Morning all

Have a spare pair of speakers that I would like to use to dip my feet into Atmos. Now I cannot place them directly on the ceiling but I could have them high up above my fronts, high up on side walls in the middle of the room or even high up on rear wall.

Currently have 5.1 setup with seating position just off back wall.

What position do you guys think would be best for the spare pair of direct firing speakers is?

 

[simonlewis]

Atmos height speakers will not work if hung on the wall, you need to either have them cieling mounted or have upward firing speakers as close to your FL and FR speakers so they bounce sound off the cieling.

 

[simonlewis]

Here you go this is what dolby have to say.

http://www.dolby.com/us/en/guide/dolby-atmos-speaker-setup/5-1-2-setups.html

 

[Walter Sobchak]

Atmos height speakers will not work if hung on the wall, you need to either have them cieling mounted or have upward firing speakers as close to your FL and FR speakers so they bounce sound off the cieling.

That's not what I've been hearing, Simon. There's a svs-prime speaker review on the US av forum where height speakers are reported to be better than upward firing speakers.

 

[Walter Sobchak]

Here you go this is what dolby have to say.

http://www.dolby.com/us/en/guide/dolby-atmos-speaker-setup/5-1-2-setups.html

Thanks I know what the ideal configurations are, I just don't believe positioning is set in stone from what I've read. I think even the dts-x demo at CES was done with front heights and no on ceiling speakers.

 

[abacus]

Ceiling speakers are the optimum, however upward firing are a good substitute where ceiling speakers are not possible. (In a normal lounge for example)

Bill

 

[bigboss]

Dolby suggests front heights and rear heights as well which can be used for Atmos.

I've got 7.1.4 setup with ceiling speakers. I see no reason why you cannot place the speakers high up in the wall as close to ceiling as possible and point it towards the listening position.

Are you looking for a 5.1.2 setup or 5.1.4?

 

[Walter Sobchak]

5.1.2 for now.

 

[bigboss]

Ok, you can place them on the side walls nearer the ceiling, slightly ahead of your seating position. Check the link posted by simonlewis.

The most important thing is that there needs to be a difference in height between your 5 speakers and these 2 speakers, otherwise Atmos will not work well.

 

[Walter Sobchak]

Thanks big boss, there will be a difference in height as my rears are only slightly higher than my mains and I will mount the atmos right below the ceiling.

 

[bigboss]

*good*

 

[Series1boy]

Here you go this is what dolby have to say.

http://www.dolby.com/us/en/guide/dolby-atmos-speaker-setup/5-1-2-setups.html

front and rear heights will work as good as up or down firing speakers

 

[Benedict_Arnold]

It's my understanding that an "Atmos enabled" surround speaker has an extra driver pointed upwards at an angle to bounce the sound off the ceiling, thus simulating the effect of having speakers in the ceiling - a compromise for people whose homes, or wives, won't permit in-ceiling speakers. I believe such speakers typically have an extra pair of terminals for the upward firing driver. How good they work depends on the nature of your celing, the angle of the extra drivers and the width of your room - I can see that if the room is narrow and you use the half-way-down-the-rooms to bounce the sound off the ceiling the signals could cross mid-air, for example). Some experimentation might be needed, therefore.

If you're going from x.0.y* to x.2.y*, or x.4.y*, i.e. adding two or four height / overhead channels, you can either use Atmos enabled speakers to emulate overheads (and I believe these can be fronts, rears and / or half-way-along-the-rooms) or you can use dedicated speakers - placed in / on the ceiling or high up on the walls pointing downwards and inwards towards the centre of the room - kind of like the old Tannoys you used to see (hear) in offices donkeys years ago.

Front and rear highs pointing straight outwards into the room probably don't work as well as true overheads, not sure how they would compare to speakers that bounce the signals off the ceiling from ground level - get a demo if you can.

An interesting alternative to oddly shaped speaker brackets would be to use something like Klipsch's RP140SA speakers, which are designed to fit in the corners where the walls meet the celings. The cones are already angled downwards and all you have to do is figure out whether you can live with the speaker cables running up the walls or want to conceal / bury them some how.

I'm in the proces of upgrading my home theatre room (15 x 19 - so not exactly your local Odeon, believe me) from 7.0.2* to 7.4.2 (well, 9.6.2 if you count the redundant in-ceilings the builders put in and the use of my "proper stereo" speakers as well as the in-wall fronts - just call it "future proofing" and the wife might believe you) and I'm lucky enough to have the room upstairs where I can cut holes in the plasterboard ceiling and run wires in the attic above. If I wasn't able to do that (and I didn't want to nail regular speakers to the ceiling) I'd go for the Klipsch units I mentioned above or something very like them.

* In Atmos terminology the first number represents the number of ear level speakers, the second the number of overheads - simulated or real, and the third number the number of subwoofers.