Atmos set up- in ceiling vs upfiring

[Jerry Sobel]

I want to set up Atmos to my 5.2 system. I have read that upfiring tend to work poorly and it is best to go with in ceiling speakers. It is all a confusing mess really if you take a deep dive into the topic. Thoughts and opinions welcome. Also, for in ceiling speakers does one go with an amiable unit or one with a wide dispersion. I was looking at the KEF in ceiling and they are a wide dispersion pattern but no product testing on KEF site. Also, all of my other speakers are Von Schweikert and they don’t make in ceiling or upfiring so I does one “timbre match”?

 

[JoachimStrobel]

I would go for in- or on-ceiling speakers. Small ones. And 4 so you enable the full headroom above you. They will sound differently than your main speakers. There is no way out of that. So you need something like Dirac. You will have more direct sound hitting your eardrums giving an over-all harsher sound. So you need full frequency Dirac with a room curve attenuating those hight frequencies from the direct waves. I read advice saying first go to 7 then add 4. 7 speakers around you beets heights. I believe that is true for immersive mixes.

 

[Jerry Sobel]

I have Dirac Live 3 on my AV processor. I would love to do 7 ear level speakers but my room does not allow for it as one side it opens to my kitchen and the other is a glass sliding door to my backyard.

 

[GXAlan]

Ceiling speakers are the best but front heights are a good option too. The problem with upfiring is that the angles only work when you are in the exact distance from the speaker for your given ceiling height. I used front heights to help lift my center and sit very close to the rear speakers so rear upfiring actually works.

 

[Vacceo]

Upfiring speakers are a waste. If you cannot cut the ceeling for the speakers, Ángel down the height speakers. Even standard bookshelves angled down (and this, radiating directly) will get you better sound than bouncy.

 

[audio2920]

In general I agree; I've never had any luck with upfiring, so I would never recommend it as a solution.

I will caveat that though and say that it *can* work. One of the most immersive systems I've ever heard was a very humble Monitor Audio 5.1.2 system (probably just tuned with Audyssey something-or-other) in a completely untreated room using upfiring speakers. Given we weren't playing mixes I was familiar with, I'm not sure how much of the feeling of immersion I can truly attribute to those up-firing speakers as against the general wash of wall & ceiling bounce from the mains. Certainly though, the overhead spot FX were totally obvious as overhead and of perfectly acceptable quality. But it was about 5% science and 95% luck that it landed this way.

I feel like I'm talking myself around!? Maybe if you're one of those lucky people who things in life just go well for, maybe upfiring *is* worth a try at least? If you're more like me and everything in life takes 5x longer, has 5x the problems and cost 5x more than you thought, go straight to the overheads?

In terms of directivity, it's obviously a trade-off as with any other speaker. Narrower = normally less perceived immersion (from bounce) but better tracking of panning in the mix as a result. I think for overheads this is my personal preference as our ears don't have very good "Z-axis" anyway, so anything that helps us localise sound to the ceiling is good.

 

[JoachimStrobel]

The need for Dirac arises not necessarily for bringing down your direct path surround high frequencies (just look at the Dolby guidelines for LS placement and you get a feeling for what awaits you) but for level and time adjusting all those speakers. That might be more important for music than for movie sound - but then, anything will do for movies.