Dolby Atmos Speakers?

[Styphin]

Pioneer's Atmos speakers:
http://www.cnet.com/news/pioneer-deb...tarts-at-4750/

I wonder if Dave has any thoughts on this. I was planning on buying a Sierra-2 based 5.1 surround system, but now, I'm very intrigued about Atmos. Ceiling installation is more trouble than I'd like, so the Andrew Jones Elite Atmos 5.1.4 set sounds like it could get my money instead. I mean, the audio quality of the Elites won't be up to par with the Sierras, but I've heard they're pretty decent sounding, and at half the cost of the Sierras... hmm.

[curtis]

I wonder if Dave has any thoughts on this. I was planning on buying a Sierra-2 based 5.1 surround system, but now, I'm very intrigued about Atmos. Ceiling installation is more trouble than I'd like, so the Andrew Jones Elite Atmos 5.1.4 set sounds like it could get my money instead. I mean, the audio quality of the Elites won't be up to par with the Sierras, but I've heard they're pretty decent sounding, and at half the cost of the Sierras... hmm.

The top mounted drivers on those Pioneers is not going to properly recreate a properly setup Atmos configuration with ceiling mounted speakers.

[FirstReflect]

"Recreate" as in, "unable to tell the difference between speakers physically on or in the ceiling vs. upward-firing Atmos-enabled speakers" - yes, I agree that the upward-firing Atmos-enabled speakers won't do that. Everyone in every demo thus far has been able to distinguish between physical speakers on the ceiling vs. upward-firing Atmos-enabled speakers.

But that does not mean that the upward-firing Atmos-enabled speakers and Modules should be dismissed out of hand. Certainly not without having heard them for yourself in person first.

My experience with Atmos has been in 4 different commercial movie theaters and one store demo of a Pioneer Elite setup. The store demo was Pioneer Elite from top to bottom, meaning they were using a Pioneer Elite Blu-ray player, Pioneer Elite AV Receiver (SC-87), and the Pioneer Elite speakers. It was a 5.1.4 setup with the upward-firing Atmos-enabled Towers for the Front Left & Right, and upward-firing Atmos-enabled bookshelf speakers in the Surround positions (about 135 degrees from Center, so a bit farther back than I'm used to with Surround speakers, but nevertheless, that's where the store had them).

The seating was a loveseat, so there wasn't a whole lot of movement for the listener around a larger seating area. They played the Dolby Atmos demo disc that everyone else has described from all the previous demos. And they played some parts from Transformers: Age of Extinction - the only currently available Blu-ray release with an actual Atmos soundtrack.

To cut right to the chase, I was pretty darn impressed. The ceiling was a suspended ceiling with metal tracks and ceiling tiles. It was flat and about 9-10 feet high, I would estimate.

To put it bluntly, I haven't been all that impressed with Atmos in the commercial cinemas. I thought Transcendence and Dawn of the Planet of the Apes both made pretty good use of it, but other than that, I haven't really thought it added much, if anything, over standard 5.1 or 7.1 Surround Sound. But much in the same way that I've enjoyed 3D more at home than I have in the movie theaters, I also enjoyed the home version of Atmos more than the cinema version. It was easier to hear the overhead effects, and considerably easier to spot a difference between Atmos and standard 5.1 surround.

For the average buyer, as soon as you say, "more speakers", they've instantly stopped listening and they're not longer interested. There's no way most people are even going to consider installing speakers on or in their ceiling. But this Pioneer Elite 5.1.4 setup looks exactly the same as a standard 5.1 setup. So it's almost a "stealth" way of potentially bringing Atmos into homes.

And it works!

For myself, I already have 11 speakers. I could either move my Front Wide speakers to Rear Height positions while keeping my Front Height speakers where they are. Or I could move to a 13 speaker system. But I'm a crazy person.

But putting together my own personal experience along with all the testimony from people who have heard the various demos, I have to say that dismissing the upward-firing Atmos-enabled speakers without hearing them first would be a mistake. There's more going on than just having drivers firing up at the ceiling at a 20 degree angle. Dolby has also specified (and patented) a specific frequency response curve and dispersion pattern that mimics some of the head-related transfer functions that our brain uses in order to tell when a sound is coming from above us. Pioneer Elite has also introduced MCACC Pro, which now uses FIR filters and adjusts subwoofer integration more precisely.

So it's quite a bit more going on that just, "here are some drivers firing up at the ceiling now". And I'm not the least bit surprised that reports from other people who have had the chance to listen to several different demos from several different companies have often included comments that Pioneer's demos have been the most impressive (at least out of the options that are actually somewhat affordable - not the multi-hundreds of thousands of dollars type of setups ).

Now, the Pioneer Elite speakers just on their own in comparison to the Sierra-2? No, they definitely do not stack up. The Sierra-2 are superior speakers, plain and simple. But my point is that the upward-firing Atmos-enabled drivers should not be dismissed out of hand.

It's going to be tricky; I don't know if Dave F. would ever consider creating add-on Atmos Modules. IMO, that would, by far, be the best way for Ascend to come at this whole Atmos thing. All of Ascend's speakers have flat tops, so there's no physical reason why add-on Modules for both the SE and the Sierra series could not be created.

But the ribbon tweeters would not be a good choice. They have limited vertical dispersion, and Dolby wants the overhead speakers - whether physical on-wall, in-wall, or upward-firing Atmos-enabled - to have a 90 degree dispersion pattern in every direction. So getting a perfect timbre match would be quite the challenge for the ribbon tweeter speakers. Frankly, I don't really think there's any way to pull off both at the same time - dispersion and perfect timbre match, I mean.

Anyways, if you're someone who's building a dedicated home theater from scratch, then yeah, I would assume you'd want to go for installing actual speakers in or on your ceiling. That's what I would do, and that's more or less what Dolby was pushing for at CEDIA where they're mostly talking to custom installers. But if you're more in the mass market crowd who really doesn't like the idea of adding more speakers, then the upward-firing Atmos-enabled speakers and Modules are a surprisingly good alternative.

As an Ascend customer and fan myself, I'm not entirely sure what to do. I think that keeping my Front Wide and Front Height speakers makes sense as a starting point. Atmos can make use of those positions, so there's no real reason to change them. I'd probably most like to add Top Middle or Top Rear speakers. But in my current room, I've no way to do that.

So my options would be to install Rear Heights, or to use upward-firing Atmos-enabled Modules in the Surround positions to create the Top Middle channels. Since I have RAAL ribbons in every position around me, I'd sure like to maintain that perfect timbre match, but there's currently no real way to do that.

It's going to be interesting moving forward. But if I were shopping brand new, and if Atmos were my number 1 priority, I'd have to hand it to Pioneer Elite and take a very long hard look at their offerings. Myself, I'd almost certainly still end up with Ascend RAAL ribbon speakers. Their advantages are too good to pass up. But figuring out how I would deploy Atmos after that decision would (and is) very tough. If Dave is willing, he could make this a lot easier on us by developing an add-on Atmos Module

- Rob H.

[markie]

Ceiling reflection is the next thing imo. From an AVS article,

Overall, everyone seemed very pleased with the Atmos versions of everything. Many of those I spoke with after the demo preferred the upfiring speakers over the ceiling-mounted ones, especially if they were sitting directly beneath one of the ceiling speakers. Switching between the two types of height speakers during the helicopter demo, the upfiring speakers enlarged the circular path compared with the ceiling speakers, and it was impossible to hear the sound move from one speaker to the next, unlike the overheads, which were probably too close to the listeners for optimum performance

But it also goes beyond home theatre and the heavy digital processing required for ATMOS. It can apply to two channel analog as well. Duke LeJeune of AudioKinesis has implemented ideas from James Romeyn, creating speakers with a LCS - late ceiling splash - module which directs sound at the ceiling. His Dream Maker speaker incorporated an LCS module and won a best of best from reviewers at last year's RMAF. They will be there again this year.

Mark

[pj-]

Agree with last two posts. I've read a lot of demo impressions and AVS forum posts by Andrew Jones and others. Ceiling reflected atmos-enabled speakers and modules seem like a good compromise and will likely be the majority of atmos systems.

I will be in the market for 4 atmos modules in a year or two when there's more atmos content and 9 channel receivers have come down a bit in cost (assuming I hear a demo and am not terribly underwhelmed). I ain't gonna replace my Sierra-2 LCR or CBM-170SE surrounds, so modules that compliment my current speakers acoustically and aesthetically would be ideal.

They are a niche within a niche so it may not make sense for dave to produce atmos modules, especially at this early stage, but I hope it's not out of the question.

[cranster]

I have Sierra towers raal, horizon raal, 4 Sierra 2's, and 1 lv12r. I will add another lv12r. I want to add 4 ceiling speakers because my ceiling is only 7 feet so up firing modules are out. Since there is no atmos solution from ascend I am looking for ceiling speakers with timber cohesion with the sierra's and raal. I've read that Dave told someone that speaker craft is a good option. Which speakercraft?
I am going to add an x7200 wa to drive the speakers and will probably use my marantz 7008 for the last 2 channels in 7.2.4 setup.

It's time to realize we are in an atmos world and we need an ascend solution. If ascend doesn't produce their own atmos speakers then perhaps a partnership with the right atmos speaker company like Dave has with Rythmik. If not then recommendations would be great. Thanks. I am looking for mind blowing. I can afford a thousand dollars apiece, but less would be better.

[Johnny_Mac_III]

I think a good solution when using a RAAL setup would be to go with a 9.2.2 setup. This way you can place 2 Seirra Sats above you. This will keep you within the dispersion limits of the RALL. Then take advantage of using wides.

[davef]

I have Sierra towers raal, horizon raal, 4 Sierra 2's, and 1 lv12r. I will add another lv12r. I want to add 4 ceiling speakers because my ceiling is only 7 feet so up firing modules are out. Since there is no atmos solution from ascend I am looking for ceiling speakers with timber cohesion with the sierra's and raal. I've read that Dave told someone that speaker craft is a good option. Which speakercraft?
I am going to add an x7200 wa to drive the speakers and will probably use my marantz 7008 for the last 2 channels in 7.2.4 setup.

It's time to realize we are in an atmos world and we need an ascend solution. If ascend doesn't produce their own atmos speakers then perhaps a partnership with the right atmos speaker company like Dave has with Rythmik. If not then recommendations would be great. Thanks. I am looking for mind blowing. I can afford a thousand dollars apiece, but less would be better.

I definitely don't agree that we are in an Atmos world, I would say less than 5% of our customers and even new inquiring customers have plans to go with a full Atmos setup, although that percentage does seem to be increasing lately.

That said, why not mount HTM-200's on the ceiling? Or are you looking at an in-ceiling solution?

[Blutarsky]

I personally don't see a need to spend money for the marginal improvement of Atmos.
Especially if you don't plan on building a dedicated HT room with treatments, etc.
B.

[N Boros]

I think a good solution when using a RAAL setup would be to go with a 9.2.2 setup. This way you can place 2 Seirra Sats above you. This will keep you within the dispersion limits of the RALL. Then take advantage of using wides.

THX recommends four overhead speakers, to get the most lifting of the audio out of the plane and into a more 3-dimensional setting:

https://www.avforums.com/podcast/avf...-special.11590

To sum up, they recommended, after much experimentation, to add top fronts and top middle speakers to the ceiling on top of a traditional 7.1 system for the best height effect. They said that just top middles alone didn't really produce as much of a height experience.

I've listened to Anthony Grimani talk about this same issue on Home Theater Geeks and he seems to think that wides are more important than the extra pair of height speakers, but I'm not sure I agree. I think that the majority of new immersive audio soundtracks will be mixed with more height in mind than using the wides. Also, if one has a good set of speakers like Ascend for the traditional 7.1 speakers, then I don't think that the speakers need much extra help of wides to fill in the gap. I was recently watching a Blu-ray of the 4th or 5th Season of Boardwalk Empire and thunder struck between the side right surround and right front speaker. I have Sierra 2s for my fronts and some Aperion audio speakers mounted up near the ceiling angled down for side surrounds (this is not optimally how I would like them placed, but I am saving up to get some Ascend speakers here, and then I will optimally place them). Anyways, the sound of the thunder strike was about 10 feet to the right of either the surround or main speaker almost directly between them. It was eerie. I backed up and replayed this scene several times, since I thought it was actually thunder outside my house since it was too far beyond the speakers to actually be there. Sure enough, it was coming from the soundtrack. The Ascend speakers working with the Aperion speakers can do an amazing job of locating objects in space near you, as well as quite a bit away from you. I might even go so far as saying that in the horizontal plane, a good set of Ascend speakers can likely put a sound anywhere inside of the circular region between the speakers and even quite a bit outside that region as well. This is on well recorded audio tracks, of course.

The downside to the wide horizontal dispersion of the Sierras with the Raal ribbon tweeter is that the vertical dispersion is more narrow. This is where two pairs of height speakers can fill in what is missing. That is what I am planning for in the future. I will likely get Raal ribbons for the 5 or maybe even 7 traditional surround speakers and then add two pair of ceiling speakers. I think that I want actual in-ceiling speakers though. So for me I have been thinking about NHT speakers, since their traditional speakers share quite similar design goals as Ascend: wide dispersion, flat frequency response, etc. If my ceiling height wasn't 7 to 8 feet (depending on the spot in my basement) and more like 8 to 9 feet I might just mount some of the HTM 200s up there.