Thinking About Atmos

[1KW]

Yesterday I watched the begining of the movie , Unbreakable at a dealer near me with a Mcintosh MX160 and the new $60,000 Sony 4k projector. I was quite "blown away" by what I heard. The speakers were B&W . Having 4 speakers in the ceiling really made the battle scene come alive. I am thinking of upgrading from my MX120 to the 122. I am told the main difference between the MX122 and the MX160 is the lack of the room correction in the former. Anyone else here have atmos in the HT ? I have a MC207 and right now have 2 channels I am not using. I am considering just adding 2 speakers to my ceiling rather than 4, any thoughts ?

[Audiofan1]

I've been using Atmos for over a year with DTS X for a few months and find it worth it's salt. The really good thing is it's no one trick pony as you can use the DSU (Dolby Surround Upmixer for your legacy content and it will literally have you scrambling to watch just about anything in your existing collection. I went from 5.1 to the full 7.1.4 and if your space allows at a minimum wire for 4 and use two now but I highly recommend the 4 overheads. Its no gimmick as you heard for yourself, object based audio is the best thing that's happened to home theater in 20yrs +

[dentlfly]

i am in the process of converting to atmos in our home theater. currently 7.1. i am using def tech dipole/bipoles for side and rear surrounds. our second row of theater seats almost against back wall and on a riser so went with dipole design. picked up 4 thiel powerpoint in ceiling to match my mains. curious as to your comments on side and rear surrounds and where did you place 4 in ceiling? thanks.

ed

[thughes]

I seem to recall one of the recent AV magazines saying that a proper Atmos installation has four ceiling speakers, regardless of whether the other part is 5.1 or 7.1.

[PHC1]

I would imagine the rule of having all the speakers similarly voiced for best results would still be applicable here? If so, would be a bit difficult to come up with a solution.

[lem321]

I recently installed 4 ceiling speakers for ATMOS and was mightily impressed with the improvement in sound effects. Overhead effects (e.g. planes flying above) were much more palpable. What was an unexpected surprise was how much more bass I got from the ceiling speakers. The positioning of the 4 new speakers was based on information from the Dolby website about ATMOS (basically 35-55 degrees from the primary listening position).

FYI, I had also upgraded from a Marantz 8801 to the ATMOS-enabled Marantz 8802A processor, added a Parasound Halo 51 amp. Went from a 5.1 setup to 5.1.4. My front L+R, center and surrounds are Wilson Sashas and Watch speakers. I was a little hesitant about adding any ol' brand of ceiling speakers but took a flyer on the Golden Ear HTR 7000's which got great reviews. They can also be aimed toward the primary listening position. They integrate well with my other speakers.

[thxthx]

One thing I am not clear about is the type of ceiling speaker to install? Should they be direct down firing type configuration or more a surround/side speaker configuration?

[doggiehowser]

I have found that with the move to discrete surround channels and with 7 channels are ear-height, I have invariably preferred direct firing rather than dipole/bipole designs which diffuse the soundstage - something we might have preferred in the older days of mono surrounds

With Atmos you want even more directionality and care to keep the overhead speakers at the + and - 30 degrees from the vertical over the main listening position.

If you have the space, the 4 overhead speakers make a really nice surround effect.

Personally I'd use something like a Marantz AV7702/3 or wait for their 8802A replacement. Or an Anthem AVM60 (until they upgrade their D2)

I remember MasterLu mentioning Mac AVPs have a less than stellar record for firmware updates and IIRC one of them doesn't handle HDMI2.0/HDCP2.2 signals needed for the newest generation of UltraHD BluRays.

Marantz (and most conventional CE manufacturers) tend to have fewer HDMI handshaking problems. Anthem isn't a conventional CE manufacturer but they update their drivers at a tremendous pace to fix bugs - kinda like Oppo. The only reason I ruled out Anthem was cos it didn't do DSD over HDMI. To be fair, even Marantz (and Yamaha and Onkyo, Denon etc) convert DSD to PCM internally if you enable room EQ or bass management. But I like the ability for DSD Direct - I tend to disable room EQ when I listen to music.

[Madfonzy]

I added 2 front ceiling speakers and 2x rear height speakers about a month ago ending up with a 7.2.4 system. I used rear height as i was limited by my room plus i had spare pair of CM5s. My yamaha processor was also able to adjust for this configuration.

I can say that this was well worth the upgrade and adds a whole new dimension to movies. Watch the Conjuring 2... you can hear the footsteps in the ceiling!!!