Atmos ceiling speaker location advice needed

DCTrimble

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Hello. First, apologies if I am posting in the wrong forum - this was my best guess.

I am trying to figure out where to place two ceiling speakers for a 5.2.2 setup. I have had a 5.2 setup for a couple of years and have had the ceiling speakers waiting for me to install them.

My question - the installation guidance focuses on one position - the primary listening position. For me this is the couch and would result in the speakers being about three feet at best in front of the couch (this is about 65 degrees as called for by Dolby). The problem is that two chairs that flank the couch are also frequently used. At best this would also have the speakers directly above or slightly behind these seats.

So do I stick to the plan or do I push them further from the couch/closer to the screen by about a foot? This would seem to me to give those listeners a better chance of having overhead effects. It would also open the door to me adding rear ceiling speakers at a later date when I upgrade my receiver (Denon x3300W). (The Dolby advice for four speakers in the ceiling indicates that those front ceiling speakers should be at about 30 - 55 degrees so this would be consistent with that).

If it matters, I have Def Tech mythos speakers all around, the ceilings are the Di8R.

Greatly appreciate any help or advice you all can share! Thanks

David

ps my family is tired of me sweating these details!
 
Welcome to the Forum.

Unfortunately you will have to pick a position that works best for the main listening position (MLP) and the best position, or as close as you can get, to what is recommended. If your MLP is on the couch then that is the position that all Audyssey readings should be taken from. This will also effect the Atmos speaker position. That position, as a rough guide, should be above where your knees would be in a seated position and aligned with the front left and right speaker.

To try and accommodate the other seats by positioning could spoil the overall effect at the MLP which it seems is going to be used the most. It's easier to move seats around rather than making new holes in the ceiling.

Hopefully you have all your base speakers at a seated head height.
 
Thanks for the help. I think what pushed me down this path is that in the Dolby diagrams for speaker placement if you go with four speakers the forward pair are much further forward than in a 2 ceiling speaker set up. In the end I guess that means that if I upgrade to four I will need to relocate the two ceiling speakers I am installing for my 2 ceiling speaker setup.

Thanks - center speaker is high, above the tv and other speakers are about one foot above seated ear height due to the vagaries of the room. Typical problem where room layout forces tv to be above a fireplace. I currently have an old LG 60 inch plasma. If/when I buy (I would guess) an OLED I may research mounts that would allow the set to be lowered when viewing. Have not yet seen a good solution...
 
If you can accommodate four speakers in roughly the correct positions as shown by Dolby that is always going to be the best option. Your centre is the problem. Any base speaker and most certainly the centre has to be at a seated head height, preferably under the screen to lock the dialogue to it.

At the moment your front soundstage is going from low to high to low instead of a balanced flow from horizontally aligned speakers. It will also have it's audio too close to the Atmos domain to be able to separate those layers. It is a problem when people have their screen above a fireplace. I took my fireplace out. Wife wasn't best pleased, but hey ho.

There is a simple way and that is to take away the centre allowing the left and right to downmix the centre dialogue. This would give you a 4.1.4 and it can be just as effective.
 
Thanks, that is very very helpful. I had never considered giving up the center speaker before. The advantage of that approach would be that when I upgrade my TV, it would allow me to go to a larger screen - I could do 75 if I didn't have to the center speaker. I can lower the front left and right speakers. They are mythos 3 I think so are a decent size. Alternatively, I could move the center to below the TV I suspect but that would put the TV higher up - another reason to justify the OLED for that off angle viewing!
 
I had the same problem with the center speaker, I ended up sticking a wooden block and tilting it upwards towards the seating position.

I mounted my SVS Prime Elevations on the ceiling in front of the seating position, approx 1m from MLP.
50155967103_1111de5c02_c.jpg
 
I couldn't install ceiling speakers without ripping up the floor in two rooms above our living room, and that wasn't going to go down well with my wife. I also didn't want to have any trunking running across the ceiling. In the end I got two little Minx speakers and mounted them up high on the side walls, at ceiling height (about 10ft), angled down and about two feet in front of the seating position. They are set as Top Middle in the amp. Despite this non-standard position, I can say the 5.1.2 still works, overhead effects still sound like they are overhead. The Atmos Helicopter demo clip definitely sounds like it is circling overhead, not off to the side.

Obviously the OP has real in-ceiling speakers, but my point is that I think the Atmos system is more flexible than you might think, so maybe no need to worry about it too much!
 
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out of interest, I only have a 7.2 amp, so I have 5.1.2, I have my atmos heights set at the front on the ceiling, my question is, if you only have 2 atmos height speakers, is it possible to have front height coming out of these and have rear height coming out of my rears, this way i'll still get the affect of movement on the heights even if the rear height isnt actually coming from above, if you know what I mean.
 
out of interest, I only have a 7.2 amp, so I have 5.1.2, I have my atmos heights set at the front on the ceiling, my question is, if you only have 2 atmos height speakers, is it possible to have front height coming out of these and have rear height coming out of my rears, this way i'll still get the affect of movement on the heights even if the rear height isnt actually coming from above, if you know what I mean.


That's how I understand the atoms render works.
 
out of interest, I only have a 7.2 amp, so I have 5.1.2, I have my atmos heights set at the front on the ceiling, my question is, if you only have 2 atmos height speakers, is it possible to have front height coming out of these and have rear height coming out of my rears, this way i'll still get the affect of movement on the heights even if the rear height isnt actually coming from above, if you know what I mean.
No. If you have a seven channel amp then it's usually the rear surrounds that are the channels that can be set to Atmos duties (Denon owner). The other five amps are detailed to the base level speakers of front, centre and surrounds. You would need a nine channel receiver to implement what you want.
 
out of interest, I only have a 7.2 amp, so I have 5.1.2, I have my atmos heights set at the front on the ceiling, my question is, if you only have 2 atmos height speakers, is it possible to have front height coming out of these and have rear height coming out of my rears, this way i'll still get the affect of movement on the heights even if the rear height isnt actually coming from above, if you know what I mean.

As I understand it, Atmos is different to the older 5.1/7.1 soundtracks where each channel dedicated to a real speaker. With Atmos each sound has a position and direction around you and if that position is somewhere between where your physical speakers are it will still try to balance the levels and timing of that sound to make it seem to come from the right place.You should still get a sense of sounds passing overhead to the back even with just two height speakers and surround left and right placed slightly to the rear of the seating position at ear level. Having more speakers means the sound can be steered more accurately, but you shouldn’t be able to place a sound as coming from one specific speaker, except maybe the centre.
 
As I understand it, Atmos is different to the older 5.1/7.1 soundtracks where each channel dedicated to a real speaker. With Atmos each sound has a position and direction around you and if that position is somewhere between where your physical speakers are it will still try to balance the levels and timing of that sound to make it seem to come from the right place.You should still get a sense of sounds passing overhead to the back even with just two height speakers and surround left and right placed slightly to the rear of the seating position at ear level. Having more speakers means the sound can be steered more accurately, but you shouldn’t be able to place a sound as coming from one specific speaker, except maybe the centre.
With a seven channel amp you can only have two speakers designated as Atmos. The metadata from the Atmos soundtrack will only be converted and fed to those two speakers. Putting the surrounds high on the wall would have the base level audio portrayed too high up in the soundfield and those speakers should be placed at just above a seated head height. The only speakers in the ceiling or high on a wall should be in the Atmos domain.

Although Atmos will move an object based sound through all speakers as directed it will still treat surrounds as base speakers and will not portray any height element in those speakers.
 
I just checked with an ATMOS test file, rear heights are coming out the back as some have suggested, I thought they were summed to the single pair of heights but they are not, which is how I wanted it.

So with the helicopter demo I get the sense of overhead height but when it moves backwards it also moves down, which is better then summing to the atmos pair as there would be no sense of backward movement.
 
Can't do ceiling so have the Eltax monitors sitting on the rear freestanding pair behind the sofa in a up firing position....

Measured the distance to try ceiling on the Denon X3400 and i am well impressed with them.....
Quality speakers.
Tweak the system and check the setting.. Especially the crossovers..
 
See Dolby attached guidelines. I am setting up my ceiling speakers right now for a 9.4.2 setup.
Coles Notes:
If you are putting speakers into the ceiling they need to be between 2 to 3 times the height of your surround speakers. . The more separation you can create from your surrounds to the ceiling speakers the better. I don't have very high ceilings (8ft only in basement), so to get around this I am going with couches that sit quite low. A typical ear height according to Dolby is 3.9 ft. My ear height will be right at 3 ft, creating more separation.
Speakers should be ideally at 45 degrees in front of you and behind you (if going with 4 speakers), but 30-55 degrees is acceptable.
Ideally all four speakers should be equal distance from each other in a square centered around the listener. The distance between the two fronts should be .5 to .7 the width of the entire room. Same for the rears.

Hope this helps.
 

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  • atmos-installation-guidelines-121318_r3.1.pdf
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I couldn't install ceiling speakers without ripping up the floor in two rooms above our living room, and that wasn't going to go down well with my wife. I also didn't want to have any trunking running across the ceiling. In the end I got two little Minx speakers and mounted them up high on the side walls, at ceiling height (about 10ft), angled down and about two feet in front of the seating position. They are set as Top Middle in the amp. Despite this non-standard position, I can say the 5.1.2 still works, overhead effects still sound like they are overhead. The Atmos Helicopter demo clip definitely sounds like it is circling overhead, not off to the side.

Obviously the OP has real in-ceiling speakers, but my point is that I think the Atmos system is more flexible than you might think, so maybe no need to worry about it too much!

Can you please post some pictures of your setup? I'm interested in your setup as I really cannot bring myself to do any more work to my living room and wall mounted Atmos's would suit perfect.
 
hello everyone, some advice ...
I hope to be in a correct thread...

I have 4 atmos speakers to install.

I will put 2 atmospheres rear attached to the ceiling and positioned just behind the sofa (MLP). Postion 1 and 2 in the photo.
where would it be more correct to put the fronts?
in front of the sofa or further apart?
To explain me better ... in the photo the atmospheres are the blue dots .. the fronts better in position 3/4 or 5/6?


Thanks for your help
 

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    C34562ED-962D-4251-814C-97CFD90A04AD.jpeg
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To explain me better ... in the photo the atmospheres are the blue dots .. the fronts better in position 3/4 or 5/6?
I would put the front Atmos between those positions. 3/4 is too close to the seating and 5/6 is too far.
 
I would put the front Atmos between those positions. 3/4 is too close to the seating and 5/6 is too far.
My room dimensions are similar, although my sofa is a little closer to the back wall so I'm only installing 2 Atmos speakers. Would 3/4 be the ideal position, as top mids, or would they be better directly overhead?
 
My room dimensions are similar, although my sofa is a little closer to the back wall so I'm only installing 2 Atmos speakers. Would 3/4 be the ideal position, as top mids, or would they be better directly overhead?
If you are going for a 5.1.2 then those Atmos speakers should be roughly above where your knees will be at a seated position in the MLP. They should also be in line with the front speakers or just inside that if close to a wall.
 
Also remember that the Dolby guidelines are just that, guidelines! Not everyone has the perfect room. Just saying :D :thumbsdow:facepalm:
 

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