Upgrade to atmos 7.1.2 vs 7.1.4 vs stay at 7.1

gurot1

This audio upgrade bug is killing me. Debating whether to make the jump to Atmos. Main issue is that there is duct work in the ceiling that hangs down a foot from the ceiling. It is about 40" in front of my MLP (which is 36" from the rear wall) My ears are approximately 46" from ceiling. I am currently running LSiM 705 fronts, 706c centre and LSiFx for side and rears. Debating whether 4 atmos speakers are doable in this tight ceiling space or if I should just install 2 in-celing atmos speakers at the front edge of the couch. I could potentially install the rear in ceilings about 2 feet behind MLP and 1 foot from rear wall and the other heights would be about 30 inches In front of MLP.

Excuse the mess, I am looking at making some panels on the rear wall behind the listening position. Interestingly, when I was doing some REW sweeps, once the safe n sound was deeper than 6" I started getting a null at about 148 Hz which got narrower and deeper as the panel got deeper. The bass traps are already up in the rear corners. I had removed one of the black speaker cloth covers in front of one of the bass traps. I am looking at whether the speaker cloth will look ok on the ceiling close to the projector screen to darken it for watching movies on the projector vs putting some blackout curtains on the ceiling during movies.

Looks like I will have to go with either Polk 700 LS or 900 LS in ceiling speakers to match the rest of the setup. Also, will probably lower all 4 surrounds 6" to 1 foot due to atmos wanting lower surrounds, but would rather leave them where they are.. When I finally get around to deciding on what to do (if I even end up upgrading to atmos (will need a new receiver too!)), I hope it is a noticeable improvement on non 4K movies.

Thanks for help as always.

rpf65

A pic would help.

gurot1

ooops, forgot the pics


The first pic is from MLP looking at the ductwork soffit. The second is just one of the front of the room and the last is a pic of the rear of the room and MLP.

nooshinjohn

Not sure how well atmos speakers would perform overhead in a drop ceiling. My gut says Atmos would be overkill in that space.

gurot1

What, are you suggesting that I not waste my money and time on this venture? Is that even allowed on this site?

nooshinjohn

Thinking you could upgrade some other aspects. We will never tell you not to spend money.


If you don't have 4K, its my understanding you wont have Atmos capability anyway, so why not upgrade what you have to get there first, then think about speakers for that ceiling.

rpf65

Those ceiling tiles aren’t design to support the weight of a speaker, so you would have to have a plan for that.

The speakers would have to be placed a couple of feet in front/behind the duct run, assume that is what the painted area is. The relation to your seating position will determine if it’s feasable. Probably looking at 2 speakers for overhead duty. Don’t think 4 would add any benefit, that is if that duct run is toward the center of the room.

gurot1

You are correct in that the duct work is the yellow painted area. I have 40 inches in front of MLP to the duct work and 36" to the back wall. Room is about 19 feet deep and 11.5 feet wide. I thought Atmos was encoded on some of the regular blurays as well, but I think as more 4k content comes out, they are going to push that format and include atmos mix on those discs and not on blu ray from what I hear. This site has been a money pit for me. LOL started with some rti10s and a csi3 centre and some r15 for surround and a velodyne sub..and have progressed to the current setup. Now if only the kids would go to sleep on time so the wife and I could enjoy some non-cartoon flicks...well, at least we all watch the marvel movies. Of topic, but the SVS aseq1 definitely helped tighten up the bass on my dual subs.
No worries about jigging something up to support the speakers, I can do that, ideally don't want to cut into the beam of the drop down ceiling to place speakers, but will cross that hurdle once I get there.

mrloren

Only this that comes to mid is SVS Prime Elevation speakers

https://www.svsound.com/collections/prime-series/products/prime-elevation

Mount them at the top of the wall

gurot1

It's funny you mentioned the svs speakers. I was looking at those as well but then was thiinking it probably better to stay in polk lineup. But I could mount the svs under the soffit as well for optimal spacing.

mrloren

I do think it is best to stay with the same line to manufacture. Your case Polk doesn't make a speaker to fit your needs. Ceiling Tiles can take a ceiling speaker install but I don't know how it would sound. Our lobby at work has them for soft background music. Don't think they could take volume.

mantis

First off what is MLP?
What height is to the tweeters of your current surround system?
What Sub do you have?
Anyway Atmos is the BOMB BUT careful placement and as correct as possible is ideal for the overall best results.
7.1 is cool but not with Bi polar speakers. You should be using all Mono Pole style speakers for the best overall effect. Bi Polar speakers where actually designed for Dolby Pro Logic not Dolby Digital and beyond. You can however get away with Bi polar design for side surrounds just fine but not surround back.
If your tiles are hard they will hold a in ceiling speaker all day. If they are the soft design then you would have to place a thin sheet of plywood behind the tile to support the weight of the in ceiling speakers.
In that room I think 2 would work just fine. I don't see a need for 4 but 4 does sound incredible when properly placed.
4k is the way to go and if your looking to upgrade, 4k is also incredible.

mrloren

Great idea of using the plywood @mantis actually if the supports can take it replace the tile with 1/2" MDF. If going plywood Lowe's sells a project panel (4x8) sheet that is very good and strong. I've used it for drawer bottoms https://www.lowes.com/pd/RevolutionPly-5mm-Poplar-Plywood-Application-as-4-X-8/50121135 thin and light weight and somewhat strong, or go with 6mm baltic birch.

ATMOS and DTS-X are great. My room is not the ideal lay out for the format but it sounds way better with it all than without. I did do a day of experimenting when I put in the T15 for surrounds. from 5.1 to my 5.1.4 sounding the best. On non ATMOS and DTS-X movies the AVR will upscale to use the ceiling speakers. sounds way better than 5.1.

gurot1

I have been debating whether to just remove the back speakers and use a 5.1 setup instead. I remember reading that monopole is the best for the rears, but was getting a decent price on the LSiFx here. They have a pretty crisp sound to them. I would need some speakers that aren't too deep for the surround backs. I don't really want to do in wall rear speakers either. In all honesty, I have been thinking if a 5.1.4 might be a better setup than a 7.1.2 for my room. I have no problem jigging up something to keep the in ceilings in place. The tiles are soft, so was expecting to have to make something to keep them up there. Do in-ceilings need a hard surface towards the front for proper sound production? Not sure how much of a box they need around them for optimal sound. I am not the best carpenter, but can get the job done, especially since the work won't really be visible.

MLP(main listening position...aka where I sit and enjoy a beverage while watching a movie). You can't really see it in the photo as it has a bunch of cushions on it in the pic so you don't see the sofa.

As far as subwoofers are concerned, there are a couple of 150 pound SVS beasts lurking behind the sofa...taking up much of the room behind there are a pair of PB13 Ultra's...no plans to upgrade those beasts anytime soon. Putting them back there really helped clean up the room at the front which was getting super cluttered when the subs were there. Once I ran the AS EQ1 calibration, you can't really notice that they are right behind you. Using a Pioneer SC 1227k for the AVR. A B&K 5 channel power amp powers the front 3 and the side surrounds. Also using an Emotiva xsp-1 preamp hooked to the subs and the power amps and avr to emotive in home theatre bypass. The preamp is for 2 channel music (which I rarely get to sit and listen to these days). If I go atmos, thinking of a midrange Marantz AVR potentially to replace the preamp, avr and aseq1. But finding an AVR will be a separate journey!
Thanks for all the discussion/suggestions so far.
Oh yeah, the rear tweeters are currently at....let me go measure...70 inches from the floor and about 19 inches to ceiling.

WLDock

If you haven't already done so, look around at the Blu-ray content in Dolby ATMOS. If you are prepared to acquire it then decide if you are ready to upgrade to 4K, UHD, HDR, etc. now or at some point in time.

For now, you can always try some from height channels using Dolby Pro Logic IIz, DTS Neo:X with your Pioneer AVR. It will give you a taste of height channels and maybe calm the upgrade bug until you figure out how best implement ATMOS / 4K to your system.

gurot1

That's food for thought. I shall investigate those settings on my current AVR, it's something I hadn't thought of. hmmm...maybe I should look for a good deal on some LSi7's for my rears! I spend more time thinking about the HT setup than actually using it! Currently making some panels for the rear wall that will double up as a bit of shelving on the back wall. Almost finished that, then gonna make one 6 inch panel that can go behind the centre channel during movies...Hmmm, I could store it on the new shelf in the back lol. Then gonna use some black speaker cloth to darken up the ceiling in front of the projector screen that can be rolled out during movies and then back up again when not in use (yay, multipurpose rooms!). Don't want to paint the current tiles and the speaker cloth allows the vent duct in ceiling to breathe.

gurot1

Ended up getting a Marantz sr6012 on black Friday. First thing I noticed is that my pioneer is avr is a few inches deeper and taller than the Marantz and it weighs a few pounds more as well. I haven't had time to play around with it yet. But without any real setting up or calibration it sounds a bit warmer than the pioneer but that could just be placebo.

rpf65

No, your observation is correct.

gurot1

Taking awhile to get used to the volume setting going up as you put the volume up...used to the negative dB volume on previous reciver, although I think there is a setting somewhere on the Marantz to change it.

Oddly, I don't have any urge for 4k currently (I know, I don't know what is wrong with me!). I am still enjoying the sony hw-50es that I bought used earlier in the year. Still need to tweak that to get better dark pictures. I should have picked up a 4k player that costco was clearing out for 100 bucks a few months back. Hindsight is 20/20, Of course once those nice 4K projectors come down and price and have darker blacks and HDR and be affordable (is it a case of you can have 2 of the above, but not all 3?), then I will update the projector.

I have to see how much play my current speaker wires have in order to allow to drop the surrounds by 6 inches to a foot. Seating position on the sides of the sofa is close to the surrounds, thus can't have them at ear level (the five of us usually sit all across the sofa...and the kids know which is daddy's seat!).

Now, got to find some in ceilings. I know polk MC60 not same caliber as the 700 ls, but I can get them a lot cheaper for the atmos speakers and at least give atmos a testing and then maybe pick up in ceilings from the ls series (although I think the ls series may be overkill for atmos) at a later point and use the MC60 in ceiling elsewhere like in the kitchen). I think a 6.5" probalby the best bet for me in my tight spaced atmos. With the MC60 I can easily try out 4 atmos channels, whereas with the LS, the price of admission is a lot more and would definitely want to make sure the 4 channels made a difference!

gurot1

Well, I ended up installing 4 MC80's as they didn't have enough of the MC60s in stock. The MC60s would have been easier to install as they aren't as wide, I had barely any room to spare in between the joists with the MC80s. I figured they are cheap enough to get 4 of them and not look back, even if it is only an incremental difference between 2 overhead speakers and 4 overhead speakers in my setup. It is amazing how much stuff is in the basement ceiling when you finally get around to installing things and how you can't position things as nicely as you would like. I finally got around to downloading the atmos demos from the dolby site last week. I had initially lowered my surrounds about 6 inches from my initial 7.1 setup so that the bottoms of the LSIfx was just above my head. The position of the audio from the surrounds in some of the atomos demos seemed a bit too high up. I then lowered them another 8 inches or so, they are just about head level now (tweeter is still above head level). The atmos demos sound better, the sound is more cohesive (I didn't change any calibrations or settings in the AVR). Interestingly, when I was watching the blu ray of the original Jurassic Park, the sound from the sides sounded like the speakers were too low on the wall and the ambient sounds too directional. Go figure! I didn't get a chance to move the surrounds back up to see how they sounded with Jurassic Park. I figure there is no one surround speaker height that rules them all.

rpf65

ATMOS recommends direct firing speakers for surrounds. That is more than likely why you hear such a big, relatively, difference between the demo and whichever movie you actually watch.

I personally think surrounds and rears sound better in my room, with my gear set higher than Dolby recommendations. Like everything else, there is no Firm rules as everybody’s rooms are different.

gurot1

I remember hearing CEDIA was recommending to place a bit higher than Dolby's recommendations but I never saw what their actual recommendations were. I must say it does sound nice. During the rainstorm scenes it feels like a cool little breeze is blowing in the room, even though there isn't really one and the PB13's aren't making things move either at the time, just all in my head. Weird how that happens sometimes.

gurot1

Here is a shot of the ceiling. I haven't put the grills on yet.


And a shot of the back of the room. The big box along the back wall is my acoustic panel /shelf. Might make the rear shelf/panel narrower when it gets warmer outside. Was thinking of fliping the rear wall lsifx upside down to drop the tweeter but right now the shelf is too deep and would definitely interfere. If I was to flip the rear upside down, do I need to switch left and right? I know, I know, it is a bit tight for a 7.1 setup, but I already have everything and wired up so figured what the heck I will just keep it. I cant drop the rear panel too much as then it would start getting lower than my ears and not be doing its job of being an acoustic panel very well. Currently it is an acoustic panel/'pseudo basstrap' as the insulation is 12 or 15 inches deep. The shelf is 18 inches deep. Anyhow that is something for after things warm up!

gurot1

It keeps on snowing this winter!