Help Needed: New Living Room AV Setup

[Pestilence]

Haaaaaaalp!

Alright... so I've got a bit of a hankering to update our audio setup after upgrading to a 4K TV and Blu-ray player, and rearranging the living room, but have hit a bit of a problem in terms of knowledge.

For the past, oh, 18 years, I've gotten by just fine with an old Sony STR AV receiver and analogue 5.1 Yamaha speaker set. Since we've rearranged the room, we now have no position for standing rear channel speakers.

This led to me toward looking into Dolby Atmos and potential soundbar setups to work with that.

However, I'm also drawn to both the Denon AVR-X2700H and Sony STR-DN1080 receivers so I can finally shift to the digital side with HDMI passthrough etc.

My question is... what would be recommended here from those in the know? Tweeters really aren't on the cards right now -- maybe down the line if we manage to get a wireless set.

I could hook up the existing Yamaha speakers in 3.1 setup (front L, R, centre, sub) -- but would either of those receivers then be able to do a decent simulation job of using those for spectre rears? Or would they just have a fit and start trying to output true 5.1 with no rears attached?

Would a 5.1 soundbar be something that might be worth connecting to a dedicated receiver, or are those only for folks who don't have the processing power of a receiver already to hand (just straight to TV with ARC)?

Is there perhaps an actual kit or set of newer "atmos-ready" (if you get my drift) speakers designed to be hooked to a receiver without using rear tweeters or roof speakers?

Just trying to figure out what might ultimately be the best choice. I'd really prefer to take the receiver route owing to the convenience of passthrough for multiple devices.

Thanks all!

 

[lucid]

Okay, a lot of questions, and some odd language. Here goes:

Sound bars have amplification built in. There's no need for an AV receiver such as the Denon or Sony. Basic sound bars are stereo only. As they get more sophisticated they come with more speakers. The step up from basic stereo then is a sound bar which includes a centre channel speaker. After that come the versions that include speakers in the sound bar to simulate the side and rear surround channels by using sound beaming to bounce audio off the walls/ceiling in the room. This virtual surround is not as effective as real speakers, but can be enjoyable if done well.

Dolby Atmos sound bars add further speakers, but this time pointing at the ceiling to play the Atmos effects channels.

This is why an AV receiver with just three speakers up front won't create a pseudo surround effect. The centre and front L&R speakers you have don't have the ability to beam additional sound, and an AV receiver doesn't include the sound processing tech to make those additional calculations to create the side/rear effect in a room with just three standard speakers. It expects to have real speakers in place for this to work. The amp will fold the side surround channels in to a 3.1 setup in a reduced way so that the sound field doesn't suddenly disappear when something should pan, but it won't simulate rear speaker positions for speakers that aren't there.

Atmos speakers are not referred to as tweeters. A tweeter is the small high-frequency driver in a typical speaker. Each of your main Yamaha speakers probably have a tweeter for the highs and a midrange driver. Bass will be handled by a subwoofer.

The speaker types for Atmos fall broadly in to two camps. They're either speakers that sit in- or on- the ceiling and point down in to the listening space. Or you have speakers designed to bounce the sound off the ceiling to reflect it down on to the listener. These are called up-firers or up-firing speakers because they send the sound up.

The audio sound field included in the Dolby Atmos and DTS-X sound tracks is designed with these real or virtual speaker positions in mind. Once the speaker set up has been done for distance and frequency, then all the sound bar or AV amp has to do is play the appropriate channel info to the correct speaker.


The main advantages with an AV receiver are the multiple inputs and the ability to tailor the speaker package to match the user's priorities. This could be anything from tiny satellites through to full sized floor standers. With amps such the Sony and Denon you listed, they also have dual HDMI outputs. This allow them to connect to both a main TV and either a projector or second zone TV without the need for additional splitters. Dual outputs is something you won't generally find on a sound bar.

However, high-end sound bars such as the Yamaha YSP5600 Atmos bar also include a lot of the source inputs and audio processing features you'd be more familiar with from a decent AV receiver.

You asked about wireless speakers. As you probably know, true wireless speakers don't really exist. All speakers need amplification, so that requires power, whether from the mains or from an internal rechargeable battery. There are AV receivers and sound bars that use the equivalent of a pair of smart speakers as either surrounds or as multiroom speakers. Denon and Marantz have their Heos range with certain AV receivers that provide this functionality. Denon also has some sound bar products that can use the Heos speakers for wireless side surrounds (5.1) as part of either a complete 5.1 system, or a complete Atmos-capable system with up-firers built in to the sound bar. Yamaha has the the same functionality in AV receivers and sound bars under its wireless multiroom range called Musicast.

What there isn't - or not yet, anyway - is a Heos-/Musicast-type system where all the surround and Atmos speakers can connect wirelessly.

The most effective surround experience is where there are real speakers attached to walls and ceilings. Within reason, it doesn't matter about the shape of the room and the listening positions. Such a system rewards the effort that goes in to installing and setting up by delivering the most immersive and enjoyable effect. This would be a system based around an AV receiver and a discrete multichannel speaker package.

The same sort of system but substituting up-firers in place of the in-ceiling speakers is the next most effective. Here though, room acoustics and seating positions become more critical to the final result. in some rooms it will work well. But in others it won't be as convincing. It could take a lot of fine tuning to get an acceptable result.

With an Atmos sound bar you're trading the one-off effort that goes in to the concealing of speaker wires of a conventional AV system for something simpler to install but a less effective surround/Atmos experience. The results will be very dependent upon the room and the type of sound bar used.

Those which just have speakers pointing up and out for the surround and height channels will be incredibly dependent on being on the right room layout to work. Sound bars such as the Yamaha sound projector range (see YSP5600) have the ability to steer the audio beams to make the virtual speaker illusion more effective, and in the process overcome some of the room limitations that dog less sophisticated products.

 

[Pestilence]

Cheers for the response. Thinking more about it, it looks as though if I'm going to bother, it's just going to have to be biting the bullet and sorting out a proper standard 5.1 setup again.