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Dolby height speakers for room with high ceiling

Jbrunwa

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We are interested in adding Dolby height speakers but our room has has a flat 18 ft high ceiling and is open on one side. We could mount angled down 2 or 3 height speakers on the front and 2 on back wall. Would like to hear what others with high ceilings are using and/or recommendations. Our fronts are Revel F328Be and C426Be and we are putting our M106s as surrounds. TIA.
 

voodooless

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Hang them down by wires? Could be like some fancy art objects ;)
 
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Jbrunwa

Jbrunwa

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Hang them down by wires? Could be like some fancy art objects ;)
Sorry I thought you were joking, but this might be a good idea. We are reconsidering this and we are going to give this a try. Thanks for the suggestion. We found some used JBL Pro C67P/T pendant speakers and plan to rig up a temporary rope over our room to see how they would work as height speakers. If it works we will get bids from electricans to run cables and hang the pendant speakers from the attic.
 

Golfx

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Mount angled down firing high wall mount speakers similar to SVS prime elevation. If you want higher quality, Perlisten makes angled down firing surrounds that could serve as atmos speakers.
 
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Jbrunwa

Jbrunwa

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Mount angled down firing high wall mount speakers similar to SVS prime elevation. If you want higher quality, Perlisten makes angled down firing surrounds that could serve as atmos speakers.
Thanks for the suggestion.I just took a look at these. if wall mounted the fixed angle speakers would face down but would not be directed toward the listening positions, unless they have a really wide dispersion. I may give the SVS Prime Satellite speakers with third party ball mounts as an experiment. They are obviously not in the same class as my front speakers but maybe it wont really matter for atmos.
 
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phoenixdogfan

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Sorry I thought you were joking, but this might be a good idea. We are reconsidering this and we are going to give this a try. Thanks for the suggestion. We found some used JBL Pro C67P/T pendant speakers and plan to rig up a temporary rope over our room to see how they would work as height speakers. If it works we will get bids from electricans to run cables and hang the pendant speakers from the attic.
Reminds me of those halcyon disco days when swinging batchelors wore rayon shirts with the first five buttons undone, white leisure suits, patent leather shoes and hung their Bose 901s suspended from the ceiling with chains. :p
 

Golfx

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Thanks for the suggestion.I just took a look at these. if wall mounted the fixed angle speakers would face down but would not be directed toward the listening positions, unless they have a really wide dispersion. I may give the SVS Prime Satellite speakers with third party ball mounts as an experiment. They are obviously not in the same class as my front speakers but maybe it wont really matter for atmos.


SVS sales staff are very help and informative. The prime elevation have a very wide dispersion 40+ degrees. Amazon also sells two-plane swivel speaker mounts.
 

Sancus

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Not sure if I'm misunderstanding something, but high ceilings aren't really a downside for Atmos. In fact they can be an upside as they may make it more difficult to localize sound coming from the height speakers. The Trinnov HT position guide recommends 3m as ceiling height and states that higher may be preferred. If you are willing to mount speakers to your ceiling, that should work just fine. The distance is only a factor insofar as you'll want those speakers to be powerful enough in terms of SPL.

The most important thing for tops is that the speakers should be pointed at the listening position, and the recommended angles need to be fairly steep -- from 55-90 degrees relative to listener position, depending on number and chosen layout. Otherwise it won't sound like effects are coming from above. This can be a problem with wall mounted solutions.

The Revel C763L is the canonical "best ceiling speaker for home theatre" as it was widely used for mastering BluRays. It's an angled speaker that sits in the ceiling, but I don't know if the angle will be correct for your setup. I also don't know if Revel makes brackets for ceiling mounting something like an M106, but something like that could work as well.
 
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Jbrunwa

Jbrunwa

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Not sure if I'm misunderstanding something, but high ceilings aren't really a downside for Atmos. In fact they can be an upside as they may make it more difficult to localize sound coming from the height speakers. The Trinnov HT position guide recommends 3m as ceiling height and states that higher may be preferred. If you are willing to mount speakers to your ceiling, that should work just fine. The distance is only a factor insofar as you'll want those speakers to be powerful enough in terms of SPL.

The most important thing for tops is that the speakers should be pointed at the listening position, and the recommended angles need to be fairly steep -- from 55-90 degrees relative to listener position, depending on number and chosen layout. Otherwise it won't sound like effects are coming from above. This can be a problem with wall mounted solutions.

The Revel C763L is the canonical "best ceiling speaker for home theatre" as it was widely used for mastering BluRays. It's an angled speaker that sits in the ceiling, but I don't know if the angle will be correct for your setup. I also don't know if Revel makes brackets for ceiling mounting something like an M106, but something like that could work as well.

Thanks for the information. I had not seen the Trinnov guide before, and I just downloaded it and will peruse the document. i think this will help us a lot.
 
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Jbrunwa

Jbrunwa

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Just to follow up, we put up 4 JBL Stage A130 speakers on front and rear walls on pan/tilt mounts. When Atmos content uses them, they sound pretty good.
 

wseroyer

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We are interested in adding Dolby height speakers but our room has has a flat 18 ft high ceiling and is open on one side. We could mount angled down 2 or 3 height speakers on the front and 2 on back wall. Would like to hear what others with high ceilings are using and/or recommendations. Our fronts are Revel F328Be and C426Be and we are putting our M106s as surrounds. TIA.
I'm using 5 cheap as dirt Polk Audio OWM3 for my height channels, they work well, but combined with my Klipsch KL-650-THX speakers they are a bit lacking in the horn department, and just can't keep up, not sure what I should upgrade them to I was thinking about the Klipsch RP-500SA's, but they are very expensive in my opinion for what they are.
 

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Jbrunwa

Jbrunwa

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I'm using 5 cheap as dirt Polk Audio OWM3 for my height channels, they work well, but combined with my Klipsch KL-650-THX speakers they are a bit lacking in the horn department, and just can't keep up, not sure what I should upgrade them to I was thinking about the Klipsch RP-500SA's, but they are very expensive in my opinion for what they are.
I suspect you are correct about the difference in tonality. I also decided to buy cheaper height speakers. I don’t know how “scientific” this is, but I tried SVS Prime Satellite and Polk Signature S15 speakers before settling on the JBL, testing by playing pink noise through the level setting menu of the AVR before going to the trouble of mounting them, just sitting on a stand. The SVS and Polk sounded way different than the Revels when playing pink noise. I hypothesized that JBL might sound similar to Revel thinking they might share the Harman design philosophy to some extent. And the JBL speakers do sound much closer to the tonality of the Revels, although not exact.
 

wseroyer

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I suspect you are correct about the difference in tonality. I also decided to buy cheaper height speakers. I don’t know how “scientific” this is, but I tried SVS Prime Satellite and Polk Signature S15 speakers before settling on the JBL, testing by playing pink noise through the level setting menu of the AVR before going to the trouble of mounting them, just sitting on a stand. The SVS and Polk sounded way different than the Revels when playing pink noise. I hypothesized that JBL might sound similar to Revel thinking they might share the Harman design philosophy to some extent. And the JBL speakers do sound much closer to the tonality of the Revels, although not exact.
tonality, they actually sound pretty good, I think its because my high layer is all the same speaker and my bed layer is the same speaker I have them crossed over at 100hz, they work fine for airplanes and bullets wizzing over my head, where I really notice them is in Atmos Music, they aren't good for this and sound very small compared to my main stage (because they are).
 

Asinus

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The Revel C763L is the canonical "best ceiling speaker for home theatre" as it was widely used for mastering BluRays. It's an angled speaker that sits in the ceiling, but I don't know if the angle will be correct for your setup. I also don't know if Revel makes brackets for ceiling mounting something like an M106, but something like that could work as well.
Late to the party but I'm leaving my two cents for others wondering the same. IMO, consider good bookshelves first unless the installation is difficult or looks are more important.

If there is no alternative but to put the speakers in-ceiling the C763Ls are good, but the frequency response curve (both spinorama an in-room measurement) is not as good as Revel bookshelves. The main advantage is the smaller size and that they have integrated backboxes and tabs to secure seismic wire. Also it is relatively easy to install if you have ceiling panels (cut a circle, route wire, screw the "dog ears" secure), they can be pointed to the MLP and are less affected by floor reflections unlike downward firing ceiling speakers.

They are also on the low-sensitivity side. During the Dirac Live calibration the C763L (~2m from my head) have a ~6dB difference with the F228Be (~3m from MLP) and ~3dB difference with M126Be (2m from MLP). If you have more money to burn on in-ceilings also consider the JBL SCL-5.
 

Dj7675

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Late to the party but I'm leaving my two cents for others wondering the same. IMO, consider good bookshelves first unless the installation is difficult or looks are more important.

If there is no alternative but to put the speakers in-ceiling the C763Ls are good, but the frequency response curve (both spinorama an in-room measurement) is not as good as Revel bookshelves. The main advantage is the smaller size and that they have integrated backboxes and tabs to secure seismic wire. Also it is relatively easy to install if you have ceiling panels (cut a circle, route wire, screw the "dog ears" secure), they can be pointed to the MLP and are less affected by floor reflections unlike downward firing ceiling speakers.

They are also on the low-sensitivity side. During the Dirac Live calibration the C763L (~2m from my head) have a ~6dB difference with the F228Be (~3m from MLP) and ~3dB difference with M126Be (2m from MLP). If you have more money to burn on in-ceilings also consider the JBL SCL-5.
Have you seen any measurements on the SCL-5? I would still say if you can mount speakers on the ceiling it will be better than in ceiling speakers in regards to performance. I still think one of the best options would be the Revel M80xc if crossing over at 80hz is important, or if crossing over at 100-120hz is ok then the M55xc.
 

Asinus

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Have you seen any measurements on the SCL-5? I would still say if you can mount speakers on the ceiling it will be better than in ceiling speakers in regards to performance. I still think one of the best options would be the Revel M80xc if crossing over at 80hz is important, or if crossing over at 100-120hz is ok then the M55xc.
No actual measurements on the SCL-5, only forum chatter about being able to deal more SPL while having more bass extension (in order to get more output on the C763L you have to cross them at 100Hz or that square woofer bottoms out). But for that MSRP I'd expect M2 kind of measurements.

The XC series look good spin-wise and the included mounting arm is also very convenient but the power handling seems to be a weakness. Even though the M80XC is a bit more sensitive than the 763L, it caps out at 80W while the Concerta2/Performa bookshelves have similar sensitivity and handle 150W. It is probably fine for 99% of the content since height speakers normally handle reverb or quick SFX, but now and then there are movie scenes where the height channels are pushed and you want them to keep the pace with your mains or the illusion breaks.

That is why I bit the bullet and got four "good" height speakers, I initially figured a couple of cheap JBL in-ceiling would be "good enough" for Atmos but it was noticeable when effects were going from the floor to the heights and cranking up the amp would distort.
 

Dj7675

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No actual measurements on the SCL-5, only forum chatter about being able to deal more SPL while having more bass extension (in order to get more output on the C763L you have to cross them at 100Hz or that square woofer bottoms out). But for that MSRP I'd expect M2 kind of measurements.

The XC series look good spin-wise and the included mounting arm is also very convenient but the power handling seems to be a weakness. Even though the M80XC is a bit more sensitive than the 763L, it caps out at 80W while the Concerta2/Performa bookshelves have similar sensitivity and handle 150W. It is probably fine for 99% of the content since height speakers normally handle reverb or quick SFX, but now and then there are movie scenes where the height channels are pushed and you want them to keep the pace with your mains or the illusion breaks.

That is why I bit the bullet and got four "good" height speakers, I initially figured a couple of cheap JBL in-ceiling would be "good enough" for Atmos but it was noticeable when effects were going from the floor to the heights and cranking up the amp would distort.
I agree on the measurements... JBL Synthesis should provide more measurements. They don't seem to be releasing them anymore. I wouldn't let the specs on Revel regarding power handling be the last word on them... For example on the M55XC @amirm had this to say:
"I then went through my usual playlist and was shocked how closely the sound of this little "outdoor" speaker resembled my much larger home Revel speakers. Clarity was superb. Distortion was nowhere to be found even when I turned the volume up. Indeed this speaker could handle incredible amount of power pumped into it without strain. Not letting it produce too much bass helped a lot here."

Also in the M55XC he did compression tests and showed what looked to me to be very good results up to 106dB. Some distortion to be expected in the lower frequencies but if you have them crossed over at 110 or 120hz it should lime that. While the M80XC didn't have all of the same tests the M55XC had, I would expect it would be better across the board in regards to power handling and distortion at higher volume. I'm not sure why Revel seems to be underselling on their power handling but Amir seemed to think they can get very loud with the proper amount of power.
 
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