Hooked on Wides

[Johnny_Mac_III]

A couple nights ago I decided to add wides to my current 7.1 setup (CMT-340 SE LCR, HTM-200 SE surrounds, and LV12r sub). So, I pulled out a couple of cheap PA speakers and connected them to the pre-outs on my x4000 and played Pacific Rim in DTS Neo X. I was floored by the amount of realism that was added to the sound field by simply extracting some ambience to those 2 channels. It really filled in that hole between the surrounds and fronts and planted me right in the movie. Very cool.

Now I want to add some real speakers to the mix. I'm looking for recommendations from the SE line of speakers. I will be sitting about 7 feet from the wides. Also, I will be needing a minimum of 2 channels of amplification, so some recommendations in that department would be helpful as well.

Thanks.

[N Boros]

Is it true that the new surround formats (Dolby Atmos and DTS X) don't support wides?

Or saying it another way, is that going forward is there a way of using wides when trying to use the new surround formats?

I love the idea of wides, but just wondering if this will be supported in any way going forward.

[Johnny_Mac_III]

Dolby Atmos supports them. They have them mapped out in their 9.1.2 setup recommendation. Anthony Grimani actually recommends the 9.1.2 setup over the 7.1.4 setup.

[N Boros]

Dolby Atmos supports them. They have them mapped out in their 9.1.2 setup recommendation. Anthony Grimani actually recommends the 9.1.2 setup over the 7.1.4 setup.

I guess I meant, are the wides supported as placement options on current AVRs or Preamps under $5000? It is my understanding that there are speaker placement options similar to wides in the cinema with something like 64 different speaker options and technically in the current Atmos spec, but the home version seems to only give options for height and overhead. Am I right about that?


I remember seeing that episode of Home Theater Geeks with Anthony Grimani, you are mentioning. I came away convinced that what he was saying makes sense. But THX tested multiple configurations of Atmos and said regardless you want side and back surrounds if you are going to do overhead speakers at all. I thought they said two pairs of over head speakers was more convincing that one pair. This was from the AVForum interview of THX on June 3rd, 2015, where they discussed this. I've listened to it two or three times now, but I seem to keep forgetting a detail or two.

[Johnny_Mac_III]

That would actually be a great question for the AV Rant podcast If any of the Dennon or Marantz receivers only give options for height and overhead for atmos. I'll have to mail that in to them.

I remember that AV Forums podcast. They guys from THX did a great job. Do the Denon or Marantz receivers give the ability to process 13 speakers?

[Johnny_Mac_III]

Ok, so it looks like they have 13 pre outs, but can process up to 11 speakers. The good news, I could be wrong, but at least from this photo, http://www.avsforum.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=989561&d=1444653479 I would assume you can choose between a second pair of heights or wides. Grimani actually recommended moving the top middles a bit closer to the front wall and a bit closer to the middle of the room. This may negate the need (at least in a room about 20 ft in length) for top fronts. Or at least be a good compromise if you wanted wides.

[N Boros]

In the THX interview on the AVForum podcast they mentioned that ceiling speakers do a much better job of giving you a sense of height to the soundstage in comparison to the height speakers. I think what you have discovered is the case in all reasonalby priced receivers and pre-pros: they all top out at 11 speakers playing at a time. Some 20, 30 and 50 thousand dollar options exist to give more speakers but this it out of reach for anyone on this forum. You are probably right that there is a good chance you can layer Audyssey DSX on top of other things to use the wides on older recievers. You might want to look into this with newer recievers with Atmos and DTS X. A recent AVRant podcast mentioned how when you have an Atmos soundtrack you must bitstream it from the blu-ray to the reciever or else you lose the metadata. The new Denon and Marantz seem to only let you use Dolby decoder for a Dolby bitstream. I think it will be another year or so until things settle down and we have a good idea of how it will all work.

[FirstReflect]

Hey, guys!

So first up, Denon and Marantz are the only mass market brands still offering Front Wide outputs.

Actual Dolby Atmos soundtracks CAN make use of Front Wide speakers. All depends on where those audio objects are placed in the mix. It's entirely possible with an Atmos soundtrack for those Front Wide speakers to be sitting there silent a lot of the time. But they ARE a supported speaker position.

The Dolby Surround Upmixer does NOT support Front Wide speakers. However, on the newer Denon and Marantz models that will be getting the DTS:X firmware update (and we actually have announced dates now! January and February for Denon, Feb and March for Marantz - only the 9 and 11 speaker-capable models in those early months. All the less expensive 7-speaker-max models will be getting the update later in 2016: http://www.twice.com/news/audio/marantz-sets-timetable-dtsx-updates/59810 ) - the Dolby Surround Upmixer can only be used on Dolby bitstreams or PCM audio. So as far as Blu-ray is concerned, there aren't a ton of titles where this will be a restriction. And even on Blu-ray discs where Dolby TrueHD is the format, you COULD manually switch the settings so that the player does the decoding and outputs 7.1 PCM.

Why do I mention that? Because the DTS Neural:X upmixer (which is part of the DTS:X firmware update) CAN use Front Wide speakers, just like DTS Neo:X before it. DTS Neural:X upmixer can only be used on DTS bitstreams and PCM audio (in the case of Denon and Marantz, specifically).

So bottom line: if you want to keep using Front Wide speakers:

a) actual Dolby Atmos can use them
b) Dolby Surround Upmixer cannot
c) DTS:X and DTS Neural:X upmixer can use them
d) So if you have a Dolby bitstream that isn't Atmos, the workaround is to have the player do the decoding and output multi-channel PCM so that you can apply the DTS Neural:X upmixer.

Some other stuff -- for genuine Atmos and DTS:X soundtracks, you MUST send those as a bitstream from your Blu-ray player. That's the only way to include the metadata. Decoding inside the player will just result in 7.1 PCM. You could use either upmixer on that PCM (DSU or Neural:X), but it would no longer be full on Atmos or DTS:X.

-- "Only" 11 speakers can actually be active at any one time. The Denon & Marantz models offer 13 speaker pre-outs, but only 11 will actually be active. However, it IS possible to switch between which speakers are active. So physically connecting 13 speakers is not entirely insane :p

For example, you could connect your traditional 7 speakers, add Front Wides, add Front Heights, and also 2 ceiling speakers. When using the Dolby Surround Upmixer, you'd be using the 7 traditional speakers plus the Front Heights and 2 ceiling speakers. When using Audyssey DSX, the 2 ceiling speakers would switch off and the Front Wide speakers would switch on. For DTS Neural:X, you'd have a choice.

For the time being, in my own setup, I've settled on a 9.2.2 setup. So I've got Front Wides and Front Heights. This is mostly because I don't have any good way of permanently attaching ceiling speakers, though. If I had my druthers, I'd use Top Middle speakers instead of Front Heights. Having those speakers directly overhead is, in my experience so far, the most noticeable by a fairly wide margin. The Front Height positions are comparatively subtle.

I'm in full agreement with the THX guys. You want at least one pair of speakers somewhere behind you. But the Surround Back, Rear Height and Top Rear speakers can end up sounding rather redundant. If you elevate your Surround Back speakers the way we always have anyway, there's really not much benefit in adding either Rear Height or Top Rear speakers, IMO.

The recommended Dolby setup with Top Fronts and Top Rears does sound really good, though. And particularly if your room is a little larger so that there's a bit more of a gap between the Surround Back and Top Rear speakers. I'll say it again, though, the Top Middle speakers are the most noticeable.

So a 9.2.2 setup with Front Wides and Top Middles is something I'd enjoy myself. Atmos, DTS:X, and DTS Neural:X can all work with that placement. So the Dolby Surround Upmixer is the only odd man out with its lack of Front Wide usage.

It's a shame it's so complicated. It's also a shame that 9.2.4 really isn't an option :p But I'm glad I'm not the only person who's heard Front Wides and enjoyed them now. I do sometimes wonder about myself...haha

- Rob H. - AV Rant Podcast Co-host

[Johnny_Mac_III]

Thanks for the great info Rob.