Dolby Atmos speakers placed as front height, how many of you?

[GeneralDisarray]

I don't have an expensive state of the art home theater. But when I watch a movie or good TV series, it sounds way better than any cinema I've ever been to, and I don't live in a little town, while at the same time I don't live in any of the major cities like New York or LA, where I imagine there are probably much better movie theaters.

My receiver is a Pioneer VSX-935, and the speakers are 3 pairs of JBL Stage A130, along with a JBL Stage A125C center speaker. The subwoofer is a 12" Bic America from 2011 that rumbles my whole house without breaking a sweat.

When I got my first Dolby Atmos receiver, I bought two Atmos add-on speakers, I think they were Onkyo. I wasn't impressed at all, so I returned them. Instead, I cut some wood and got some industrial velcro to Frankenstein a combo of two Energy CB5 speakers together, one as a normal front speaker and the other one pointing upwards at an angle like an Atmos add-on speaker would.

I was happy with this for many years, but when my Energy speakers started blowing up the tweeters because they are not very well made, I got the JBLs, and those were too big to do the same thing. So I decided to put them as front high speakers, sitting on a long shelf where I keep all my Blu-rays. And the thing, this sounded amazing. I have a lot of 4K Blu-rays with Atmos, and this was way better not just in sound quality but as far as experiencing the Atmos mixing in movies and music.

So I wanted to get an idea of how many people are using this configuration, and if this can be even considered an approved speaker layout for Dolby Atmos.

 

[lkanies]

In my TV room, I have a 5.2.4 configuration, with two front height speakers and two in-ceiling speakers (almost) above my head.

Sometimes I notice them? I almost never watch Blu Rays, and watch via streaming instead, so I assume audio standards are generally lower. I mostly only ever notice them in video games, and even then… I set them up 18months ago or so and stopped noticing them within a few months.

I assume this is good, not bad, like with subs ‍*shrug*.

I don’t think I understand your question, though. Isn’t this type of speaker only ever used in atmos? Is there some other difference I am missing? Like, I only ever see height speakers described as “atmos height speaker”. How could it not be a valid config?

 

[lkanies]

Do you mean that your front speakers are high, rather than ear level?

If so, you mostly have to worry about where the tweeter is pointing. It needs to be pointed at the ears of the listeners. So, if it’s a tower raised off the ground, then it needs to be tilted down. If it’s a bookshelf, then you have the same goal, just a different mechanism. It all depends on how high it is.

That can obviously be quite complicated, depending on the speaker (I have larger towers and would hate to try).

This house I am in came with in-wall speakers I am not using. The tv is mounted a little bit high, and the two front speakers are a good bit above ear level, mounted flush. The center is mounted above the tv and pointed down. I could not hear dialog at all. It was horrible.

Once I swapped to using my existing floor speakers and matching center, everything was clear and great. Obviously I have no idea if it was the speakers or placement. I tend to assume it was mostly the fault of the center speaker placement, because that’s where most of the dialog is.

I think mainly, if you like it, and it works well for the media you watch, it should be fine?

 

[smk267]

I don't have an expensive state of the art home theater. But when I watch a movie or good TV series, it sounds way better than any cinema I've ever been to, and I don't live in a little town, while at the same time I don't live in any of the major cities like New York or LA, where I imagine there are probably much better movie theaters.

My receiver is a Pioneer VSX-935, and the speakers are 3 pairs of JBL Stage A130, along with a JBL Stage A125C center speaker. The subwoofer is a 12" Bic America from 2011 that rumbles my whole house without breaking a sweat.

When I got my first Dolby Atmos receiver, I bought two Atmos add-on speakers, I think they were Onkyo. I wasn't impressed at all, so I returned them. Instead, I cut some wood and got some industrial velcro to Frankenstein a combo of two Energy CB5 speakers together, one as a normal front speaker and the other one pointing upwards at an angle like an Atmos add-on speaker would.

I was happy with this for many years, but when my Energy speakers started blowing up the tweeters because they are not very well made, I got the JBLs, and those were too big to do the same thing. So I decided to put them as front high speakers, sitting on a long shelf where I keep all my Blu-rays. And the thing, this sounded amazing. I have a lot of 4K Blu-rays with Atmos, and this was way better not just in sound quality but as far as experiencing the Atmos mixing in movies and music.

So I wanted to get an idea of how many people are using this configuration, and if this can be even considered an approved speaker layout for Dolby Atmos.

I have an 11.4 system in my dinky little office, using 4 Klipsch rp-500sa speakers as front and rear height, connected to a Denon x3800h via a Monoprice Monolith 7x200. (Just FYI: the Monolith probably isn't very strong objectively but it is cheap on sale/used and takes the harsh edge off the treble produced by the Denon AVR).

I like the system enough that I can stop thinking about it when my partner and I watch movies (though someday I'll replace the Polk s55s and the Klipsch 450c) but I haven't experimented or tested it enough to know how or even exactly what the Atmos speakers by themselves contribute to the system.

The only time I can tell that the Atmos configuration, as a whole, makes a dramatic, discernible difference, let alone improvement, is when I play video games that make effective use of it, like Returnal and Baldur's Gate 3.

Returnal is especially strong in this regard. I could pinpoint in 3d space the origin of sounds even when I couldn't see them. Falling objects, like tumbling rocks, seemed to originate above my head. By the time they settled on the ground, their sound seemed to be at the level of my character's feet.

The disembodiedness of BG3's disembodied narrator is also quite a lot more vivid, and environmental sound and effects really do seem to originate in 3d space.

Movies -- the ones I watch, at least -- seem to use only a fraction of the capabilities of spatial audio.

To make a long story short: whether or not your arrangement is approved or recommended, I'm not convinced I'd hear a difference with or without them for anything except video games. And regardless of whether I would or wouldn't, I'm not sure I'd trust myself to perceive/judge accurately what the front height speakers contribute.

 

[BJL]

So I wanted to get an idea of how many people are using this configuration, and if this can be even considered an approved speaker layout for Dolby Atmos.

Dolby has published detailed specifications describing recommended configurations for most all consumer applications:

https://www.dolby.com/siteassets/technologies/dolby-atmos/atmos-installation-guidelines-121318_r3.1.pdf

My last set up was 7.1.4 using top rear and top front. I am interested in trying front height and rear height combinations as well. I use SVS Elevation speakers, I contacted SVS and they were nice enough to send me a couple of extra sets of brackets so that after I move when I set things up again, I will place brackets for the height positions as well as the top positions and have some fun trying the different placements.

 

[GeneralDisarray]

Thanks for your replies. I honestly forgot about this thread because of many urgent things. I wish I could hear the audio in those games you mentioned, but I'm not a gamer and I wouldn't spend hundreds on a PS5 or Xbox just to test that.

Thank you BJL for that document, I just downloaded it and I will read it this weekend.

But I think I will also create an Atmos track with objects panned in different places to see if the placement works as it should. I can do that in Cubase, maybe put different instruments in different places, and then play it back after converting it to an Atmos file and see if those objects are where I put them. Whenever I do that, I'll post the file here in case anyone wants to try it out.

I can give you a great example of how Dolby Atmos was used in a very smart way. The Dolby Atmos version of "American Psycho" uses the Atmos speakers to play the narration from Christian Bale when he's thinking. So when he's speaking normally, obviously it comes from the center speaker, but when he's thinking, the voice comes from the extra Atmos speakers, so in my case, having them as height speakers, it really fills the room.

It's kinda funny when you have a home theater that doesn't cost an arm and a leg, and it sounds better than any movie theater in your area, at least where I live, and I don't live in a small town. I don't live in one of the major cities, but it's a rather big city with plenty of theaters, and not a single one sounds better than my setup.

Honestly I'm very surprised that studios still release movies on physical media but even more surprised that they actually spend money on a Dolby Atmos or even 5.1 track, when most people have nothing better than a sound bar. I don't know one person that has even a mediocre home theater setup. Honestly if the studios released all movies in stereo, 99% of people wouldn't give a damn.

 

[smk267]

But I think I will also create an Atmos track with objects panned in different places to see if the placement works as it should. I can do that in Cubase, maybe put different instruments in different places, and then play it back after converting it to an Atmos file and see if those objects are where I put them. Whenever I do that, I'll post the file here in case anyone wants to try it out.

Please do. I'd love to test it. Thanks for offering to share it.

I can give you a great example of how Dolby Atmos was used in a very smart way. The Dolby Atmos version of "American Psycho" uses the Atmos speakers to play the narration from Christian Bale when he's thinking. So when he's speaking normally, obviously it comes from the center speaker, but when he's thinking, the voice comes from the extra Atmos speakers, so in my case, having them as height speakers, it really fills the room.

This sounds very similar to the disembodied narrator in Baldur's Gate 3. It's a really neat demonstration of the counterintuitive ways in which spatial audio can support storytelling when it's used well. A real, physical voice, producing sound from a single point in 3d space, shouldn't and can't envelope or strike the listener from an impossible direction or have acoustic properties that violate the acoustics of the space where we're to assume the sound originates. Violating our brain's understanding of the laws of sound lets the movie or game do interesting things that just can't be done without spatial audio.

Honestly I'm very surprised that studios still release movies on physical media but even more surprised that they actually spend money on a Dolby Atmos or even 5.1 track, when most people have nothing better than a sound bar. I don't know one person that has even a mediocre home theater setup. Honestly if the studios released all movies in stereo, 99% of people wouldn't give a damn

Huh, interesting thought. I wonder though. Regardless of how most of us consume movies in our own homes, I think most studios and filmmakers aim for success in theaters. I mean, we could apply your reasoning to Christopher Nolan's obsessiveness with color grading, too: most home theaters are garbage, so focusing on minute color consistency and accuracy is wasted effort, right? But Nolan's clearly making movies that are meant to look, and sound, their best in highly capable theaters.

And given that projectors are all digital these days, I wonder whether the 5.1 or Atmos mixes really are more work for studios than a stereo mix. Is it possible that the opposite is true? If a movie is originally mixed for multichannel, wouldn't including multichannel be the default, and wouldn't a stereo mix be comparatively more work on top of that -- likely necessary, as you wrote, only because the vast majority of home theaters have just two weak speakers?

 

[Andysu]

Dolby Stereo CP200 control , processor , accessory , mpu-1 A-type and SR 280t cards additional cat64b card for special film shows here in THX sound system
Dolby MP 150D , Dolby MP 150E Dolby MP 150F , additional CP200 cat cards
Dolby CP500
Dolby CP750
Dolby SDU4 duel matrix five screen when some atmos titles don't have Lc Rc or some that do then i use discrete Lc Rc , if some encode on the disc won't allow stormaudio to
apply Lc Rc then use the back up
Dolby SA10 height 2
Dolby SA10 height 3
Dolby SA10 height 4
Dolby SA10 additional
Dolby SDU EX
Dolby SRA5
Dolby SRA5
Dolby SRA5
Sony SDDS D3000
dts cad 5 professional received for dts laserdiscs or rare few dts-es 6.1
stormaudio isp32 elite mk3
denon avc-x8500h
behringer DCX
behringer MDX
lucasfilm ltd THX sound system 3417 x6 installed with x3 additional THX crossover cards

overheads in use
height 1
height 2 modified with Dog channel and extra below surround
height 3 modified with Dog channel and extra below surround
height 4 modified with Dog channel and extra below surround
height 5

additional Dolby Stereo CP55 CP65

overhead surrounds is modified a far better improvement spec than dolby's own atmos

JBL professional cinema
regular channel configuration with CIC/UCI tower park experimental overhead surround and ( below surround ) the overheads was used at UCI tower park and few other UCI sites , when i started there as projectionist 1989 , i know what to look for , listen for and feel for when comes to movie soundtracks and often good memory on how films felt like , same print screen to screen or cinema to cinema if i happened to seen the same film more than once , 35 vic 5 , auto platter rewind , slider projector for ads , Dolby stereo CP55 SRA5 , quad amplifiers modified , booth monitor with surround level adjuster , EV speakers in all ten screens , x8 overheads main large screens , smaller screens x7 overhead surrounds

JBL 4673A five screen
JBL 8330 mkII surrounds sidewall back wall ( pan through ) / height back
JBL 8330A overhead surrounds
JBL control 1 below surround
JBL 4645/4645C front , bass extension / baby boom / LFE.1
JBL 4782 front JBL 4782 back bass extension / baby boom / LFE.1
JBL control 5 plus front wide
JBL control 5 rear side back wall
JBL control 5
JBL SB-2
JBL SB-2
JBL SB-2

bass shakers floor and seat buckets

SAS ( surround around seating ) in seat exciter where the cinema seat becomes a speaker

class d amplification behringer , crown , 60 amplifiers
aleisis ra300 bass shakers front row
alesis ra300 bass shakers back row

pioneer laserdisc CLD-925 Dolby Stereo Lt Rt
pioneer laserdisc DVL-909 a , Dolby Stereo Lt Rt , AC-3 , dts
pioneer laserdisc DVL-909 b , Dolby Stereo Lt Rt , AC-3 , dts
panasonic 900 THX
panasonic 9000 THX
pioneer dvd recorder
tosibia hd-dvd
JVC d theatre
JVC pro consumer , linear stereo , hi-fi stereo

120" 16:9 transparant screen , 4k laser projector , oled 65" main screen when not using projector

i think discrete below surround should have been applied 10 no years ago , again overhead surround to me isn't a new idea its been around since late 1969 at cinerama 70mm screen , bournemouth where in 1970 cinerama was phased out and the projector changed for 35 and saw classic icon ' star wars 1977 ' day one feb 1978 , with x6 in ceiling matrix mono overhead surrounds , Dolby stereo CP50

behringer audio mixer , tiger mic booms , behringer ECM8000 mics x9 , one usb mic connected to stormadudio doesn't get used much
spectrum lab
true RTA
REW

additional laser light smoke show

tuning the delay time maybe for just each/one row zone surround array gives the illusion sounds like whole array is one surround array ,

recently applied rockwool behind the screen

 

[smk267]

That is an absolutely amazing home-theater sound system. I mean, even calling it "home theater" seems ridiculous. There's nothing "home" about it. It's a theater, full stop, and probably blows other, professional systems completely out of the water. Just amazing.

 

[Descartes]

9.4.6 is my next project if all goes well