Atmos - front heights

mushtafa

mushtafa

mushtafa

Soldato
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West Sussex, UK
I'm looking to add an additional 2 speakers for 5.1.2.

My Onkyo receiver can be setup for front or rear heights.

What would be best?

1. Front heights, mounted on wall above front L&R

2. Rear/centre ceiling mounted above listening position?

The wall mounted option is quicker, easier and cheaper to fit, setup, and move if needs be.

Is it worth the extra cost and work to fit ceilings? I'm worried if we bought a new sofa and the listening position ever changed, it would need to be altered somehow.
 
Honestly I would not bother with atmos unless you are able to install in the ceiling. Having up-firing/bounce speakers just doesn't change the soundstage enough despite what any marketing might like you to believe.
 
The speakers that are wall mounted at ceiling height are not Dolby ATMOS speakers. Generally they're the extended surround speakers for DPLIIz. The amp decides where to place the additional audio feed; either the rear height or the front heights depending on program content. The sound field is a general extension of what's happening in the 5.1/7.1 surround mix. It's a sort of ambient cloud rather than specifically placed effects.

ATMOS is different to this. The way the sound is generated at the production and mixing stage means that the effects are placed with greater precision. This is the object based programming you might have read about. The intention is that the sound should emanate from above. This is why ATMOS uses speakers in the ceiling or ones that bounce the sound off the ceiling.

You can use ATMOS in-ceiling or ceiling-reflected speakers for DPL11z reasonably effectively. In a lot of cases they'll be powered from the same terminals that would have driven the front/rear heights, so it's just a question of signal assignment.

What is less effective is trying to make front/rear heights double-up as ATMOS speakers, which is what you're planning. You'll still hear some sound from them, but their angle means that they'll fire over your head rather than down to you, so you'll miss out on a lot of the effect placement that's the whole point of an object based surround effect such as ATMOS or DTS-X.

In the end it's your system and your house, but I know I wouldn't be happy to have gone through all the work of installing front/rear heights as a fudge for ATMOS and then end up disappointed with the result.
 
So the configurations that Onkyo specify aren't proper Atmos?

The front heights (if chosen) would be angled down towards listening position.
 
mushtafa said:
So the configurations that Onkyo specify aren't proper Atmos?

The front heights (if chosen) would be angled down towards listening position.
Click to expand...

No, that's not what I've said at all. I have explained that there's a difference between the wall mounted height speakers for DPLIIz and the in-ceiling/bounce-off-the-ceiling speakers for ATMOS. Your manual page shows that too. RTFM.
 
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