KEF R8 Meta Dolby Atmos Speaker Review

[Vacceo]

When done right, it is a very nice experience. Just finished watching a movie with my wife in our theater and it was just wonderful. The image is almost 12 foot wide which is massively larger than our TV. With surround sound, subs and such, it takes you to a different place. Alas, it is expensive to setup even if you have the room.

Do you have an atmos setup? If so, would you recommend speakers like the ones in this thread for those that cannot or do not want to drill the cealing?

Lucky you, one day I am looking to build my home theater with 9.4.6 system! I will ask you for any advice you can provide!

Four subwoofers? I can give you a point already: if your ribcage does not feel about to explode, you´re doing it wrong.

Now, more seriously, probably you have a quite large space to set so many speakers and that sounds like an incredible place to try Dirac ARC. I´m sure you don´t dive in money, but you sound like the perfect candidate to write a journal on how you build such system, so we all can learn a thing or two.

 

[buz]

Nothing can drill through my ceiling that doesn’t cost more than the speakers.

And then if you are unluckily whole chunks of concrete get loosened. Absolutely NFW I am going to deal with that.

On the upside, noise isolation is superb.

If I ever get around to build my own place from scratch (very unlikely), I will make sure to build a cinema room. Until then it's the living room.

 

[Fidji]

Nothing can drill through my ceiling that doesn’t cost more than the speakers.

you must be the one living in those bunkers with 50cm special high strength safe-grade alloys all over.
for plebeians like us with 30cm armed concrete, Boshhammer for 200 euro is a great tool.

 

[buz]

you must be the one living in those bunkers with 50cm special high strength safe-grade alloys all over.
for plebeians like us with 30cm armed concrete, Boshhammer for 200 euro is a great tool.

I had professionals doing that for a bunch of lamps. Their feedback was alright we'll try, if the concrete gets damaged fixing is your problem. We were lucky, all damage got covered by the lamps.

Zero desire to try again.

 

[amirm]

Do you have an atmos setup?

If you mean height speakers, no. Hence the reason I am doing all these tests.

 

[Fidji]

If you mean height speakers, no. Hence the reason I am doing all these tests.

It is very unfortunate, that height speakers layouts are not compatible between Dolby/DTS/Auro. In-ceiling/up-firing speakers are Atmos/DSU specific. Trinnov has very good guide for different format specific and hybrid layouts of height speakers, but of course it makes use of most of the ridiculous channel count of ALt32.

While it seems that Atmos has won current immersive audio format war, there is still huge amount of great movies in DTS:HD and there are much better ways to up-mix than to use DSU.

I would personally go for Height Speakers under ceiling, pointed directly at listening position. 7xNeumann KH150 would be my ultimate choice ;-), 7x KH120 for more modest setups

 

[jhaider]

It is very unfortunate, that height speakers layouts are not compatible between Dolby/DTS/Auro. In-ceiling/up-firing speakers are Atmos/DSU specific. Trinnov has very good guide for different format specific and hybrid layouts of height speakers, but of course it makes use of most of the ridiculous channel count of ALt32.

There’s a lot of academic hand wringing about height speaker placement, often from people who don’t actually use height speakers.

IME Auro-style layout works fine for Atmos content. In our old house (regular living room, not a dedicated space) we used standard wall-mounted bookshelves (Tannoy XT Mini) for heights. When we designed the audio system for the family room of our current home, we settled on ceiling mounted speakers aimed at the listening position (“vintage” Pioneer/TAD models with angled baffle that allows aiming the coax towards the listening area) in positions within tolerance for both layouts.

IMO the “preferred” Atmos layout is kinda dumb anyway. For one thing, it doesn’t really work for rooms with ceiling fans. Which is why I wish KEF would do angled baffles like the old Andrew Jones era Pioneer Elite model I posted earlier, or bring back their old style motorized ceiling speakers with new tech.

 

[Fidji]

There’s a lot of academic hand wringing about height speaker placement, often from people who don’t actually use height speakers.

IME Auro-style layout works fine for Atmos content. In our old house (regular living room, not a dedicated space) we used standard wall-mounted bookshelves (Tannoy XT Mini) for heights. When we designed the audio system for the family room of our current home, we settled on ceiling mounted speakers aimed at the listening position (“vintage” Pioneer/TAD models with angled baffle that allows aiming the coax towards the listening area) in positions within tolerance for both layouts.

IMO the “preferred” Atmos layout is kinda dumb anyway. For one thing, it doesn’t really work for rooms with ceiling fans. Which is why I wish KEF would do angled baffles like the old Andrew Jones era Pioneer Elite model I posted earlier, or bring back their old style motorized ceiling speakers with new tech.

Yep. This is why I use 9.x.7 setup with Center Height. All with standard bookshelves speakers mounted from the ceiling. 2 holes in the ceiling for each mount.

 

[Newman]

The EQ for upfiring use was shown earlier in the thread.

I can’t find it.

 

[Vacceo]

If you mean height speakers, no. Hence the reason I am doing all these tests.

Let us know if you finally install a set!

 

[Robbo99999]

No, no! My contact didn't have the engineering data. Folks who designed the actual speaker had it and just took a bit to find and compare.

Ah right, so you're saying that KEF knew the speaker performs like you measured it, they knew it before?

 

[Esprit]

Alas, it is expensive to setup even if you have the room.

A dedicated theater is impossible here (the houses cost 5,000 euros per square metre) but a UST projector with a 120" screen together with a hi-fi system is already very pleasant.

 

[Vacceo]

There’s a lot of academic hand wringing about height speaker placement, often from people who don’t actually use height speakers.

IME Auro-style layout works fine for Atmos content. In our old house (regular living room, not a dedicated space) we used standard wall-mounted bookshelves (Tannoy XT Mini) for heights. When we designed the audio system for the family room of our current home, we settled on ceiling mounted speakers aimed at the listening position (“vintage” Pioneer/TAD models with angled baffle that allows aiming the coax towards the listening area) in positions within tolerance for both layouts.

IMO the “preferred” Atmos layout is kinda dumb anyway. For one thing, it doesn’t really work for rooms with ceiling fans. Which is why I wish KEF would do angled baffles like the old Andrew Jones era Pioneer Elite model I posted earlier, or bring back their old style motorized ceiling speakers with new tech.

Some months ago there was a very heated up debate between HT youtubers. On the one hand, the Audioholics guys argued that in ceiling speakers are the right way to go while Joe´n Tell and TechnoDad argued that height speakers, as long as the angles were well aimed, was equally good with the advantage of the flexibility for Auro and DTS.

From your perspective, you seem to align with the idea that a height setup, not just strictly in ceiling, can be perfectly functional. I have only tried bookshelves on a very tall shelf angled down and it worked quite well, but you definetly have the advantage of having tested both methods.

 

[Descartes]

Do you have an atmos setup? If so, would you recommend speakers like the ones in this thread for those that cannot or do not want to drill the cealing?


Four subwoofers? I can give you a point already: if your ribcage does not feel about to explode, you´re doing it wrong.

Now, more seriously, probably you have a quite large space to set so many speakers and that sounds like an incredible place to try Dirac ARC. I´m sure you don´t dive in money, but you sound like the perfect candidate to write a journal on how you build such system, so we all can learn a thing or two.

The room is 19L x 11W x 10H feet

 

[Jon AA]

I can’t find it.

Here you go:

That's what Audyssey uses when you label a speaker a "Dolby" speaker. This is from Dolby's patent:

There is some disagreement on whether it's needed or not--I tend to think in a perfect world (where all the sound you hear is the reflected sound) it wouldn't be. But when a speaker still has decently wide dispersion over 5K much of the sound you hear will be direct sound from the speaker in the real world. In that case I would think that it helps--obviously Dolby thought so pretty strongly. It's probably largely speaker/setup dependent.

Back in the day, many speakers such as this (designed to be used as either upfiring or height) had a switch on the crossover to engage/disengage that circuit. With Audyssey, you could switch it on and off in real time and see which way gives the most convincing effect.

 

[dasdoing]

romcoms

lol. had to google that

I think you're underestimating the impact of ambiance coming from the height channels (as it does in real life) in improving believability of the scene--both for movies and music.

possible. but is there really much coming from above in real life? is there a way to extract height channels from atmos material so I can get an idea?

 

[dasdoing]

if the concrete gets damaged fixing is your problem.

I don't get it. Unless it's a huge chunk some plaster will fix it

 

[Vacceo]

The room is 19L x 11W x 10H feet

Perhaps a 7.2/4.4 could be enough in such a space.

 

[amirm]

is there a way to extract height channels from atmos material so I can get an idea?

Just disconnect all speakers other than atmos.

 

[dasdoing]

Just disconnect all speakers other than atmos.

my system is 4.1