Speakers for Dolby Atmos and DTS:X

metalmackey

metalmackey

metalmackey

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Hi experts,

Ny new reciever has Dolby Atmos and will have DTS:X via a firmware update. I have Monitor Audio Silver FX speakers as my sides in a 5.1 setup. I was planning on getting 2 more Silver FX's as rears and 2 Atmos module speakers as heights to sit on my main RX6s. The issue is I've heard that the surround speakers for theese new formats need to be direct, but the Silver FX I have are bi-pole. Will this be an issue with placement of sound? Should I replace the FX speakers for direct speakers?

Ta :)
 
So should I use my old BX2s as sides and get another pair as rears? Or do I need the surround speakers to match the fronts eg. from the rx/silver series?
 
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Just to add, the reciever is a Marantz SR7010 with Monitor Audio RX6 floorstanders as main speakers. Will the bx2 be good enough for surrounds or would the much more expensive silver 2s be worth it?
 
Atmos could be to sound what 3D was to picture, but I'll skip that for the time being.

All the recommendations (and note that they are only recommendations) suggest monopoles which means direct-firing speakers for the sides and rears. It's easy to see why. Dolby is aiming for the surround effects to be positioned precisely. If you look at the Dolby site for Atmos you'll notice that graphic shows a lovely large room with lots of space to the sides and rear of the listening position. That's great for monopoles because the sound has chance to spread out and develop before reaching the listener. The challenge for most home owners though is that they a real world living room where the distances between the speaker and listening position is much shorter. This leads to the surround speakers sounding distracting because they reveal their position in an obvious way. That's what is meant by localising.

Monitor Audio surround speakers are switchable between di-pole (very diffuse) and bi-pole which is a half-way house between di-pole and monopole. You could try switching to bi-pole as an experiment after installing the ceiling speakers.

If you decide to go for monopole surrounds then a pair of BX2 or even just BX's will be more than sufficient. There's really no need to go mad with Silvers as the voicing across the Monitor Audio range is very similar.

Incidentally, Atmos is only one solution to this idea of extra surround channels. It has been around now in consumer hardware since late summer 2015, and commercially in cinemas since 2012. As yet though there are fewer than 80 Blu-ray discs with Atmos sound tracks, and quite a few of those are either re-issues of existing films or 'filler' titles that, let's be honest, might not be your first choice for viewing ;) :D

DTS has its own version called DTS:X. That's still pretty much vapour-ware at the moment but it's rumoured that the requirements allow for a broader range of surround speaker types because the software processing is smart enough to adapt.
 
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Thanks for the info Lucid.

The SR7010 will have Auro-3D as well as DTS:X via a firmware upgrade so I would like a speaker setup that would work with all 3 and have the best of all worlds :D
 
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