Room Set Up with Atmos speakers

[DF!]

I have been experimenting in my theatre room past few days Its about 15.5 feet wide by 19 feet deep with mostly a 9 foot ceiling. My current set up is 5.1 running 4 large identical matching towers for R & L front and R & L rear surround - the centre channel and subwoofer are also the same series. The av receiver is a NAD 787 and I have completed a DIRAC setup for calibration.

Some action movies movies / series off netflix are truly impressive with the the sounds from the rear towers and some of the concert blu-ray sound as good in multichannel as they do in 2 channel when you toggle the audio sound track so I think I have dialled it in pretty good.

A few questions:
1. I did the crossover at 50 HZ for the towers and 70 HZ for the centre. Any thoughts on crossover settings as I think 80 Hz maybe the standard for home theatre setups? [as my towers frequency response is 34 HZ to 40 KHZ at +/- 3 DB where as my centre channel is 55 KZ to 40 KHZ]

2. How much would a person gain by adding 2 atmos roof speakers? I am not sure how many sound tracks are mixed this way - seems to be many netflix and tv sound tracks are mixed for soundbars and open concept TV areas these days as many sound tracks don't even do much with the rears even so why would they put sound to the Atmos speakers. I guess I am just not sure given what I have now sounds pretty good and typically in ceiling speakers are not the good and would be a bit of work to fish the speaker wires to them plus installation - I could likely mount a down ward firing bookshelf at a 45 degree angle as another thought as perfect spot where the roof changes in height from 9 feet to 8.5 feet to accommodate HVAC?

3. If I did add the roof speakers, then I would probably remove my rear towers and put bookshelves there so that the book shelf and atmos speakers are closely matched. Any thoughts on towers versus book shelves for rears?

 

[JeffS7444]

How much would a person gain by adding 2 atmos roof speakers?

What sort of device are you using for streaming? The 1080P Apple TV does not support Atmos, but the 4K model does, and original content on Apple's TV+ service uses Atmos by default. With Netflix, it's a little harder for me to be sure, as the display on my AVR simply indicates multichannel sound. But my impression to date is that Atmos's "virtual sound field" does work in the sense of not sounding like multiple channels of mono audio, even if actual output from the height speakers is very modest. Perhaps my height speakers would be taxed more heavily if I favored superhero movies with lots of things flying around and exploding! But in a series like "Home" at TV+, they're used for ambient sound.

 

[DF!]

I did put 4 K apple tv in there to get a Atmos track. I noticed the same track from Netflix from my cable provider was streaming in 5.1.

 

[richard12511]

A few questions:
1. I did the crossover at 50 HZ for the towers and 70 HZ for the centre. Any thoughts on crossover settings as I think 80 Hz maybe the standard for home theatre setups? [as my towers frequency response is 34 HZ to 40 KHZ at +/- 3 DB where as my centre channel is 55 KZ to 40 KHZ]

In my experience, the correct crossover is more about what's right for the room. Speakers with better extension give you more freedom, but I wouldn't set the crossover lower just because the speaker can play lower. For example, I've got speakers 32Hz extension, but I cross them over to subwoofers at 100Hz.

I would measure your in room response with several different crossovers. Pick the one that measures the best. If two look pretty equal, I tend to go with the higher crossover to reduce distortion and add headroom.

 

[keenly]

I have been experimenting in my theatre room past few days Its about 15.5 feet wide by 19 feet deep with mostly a 9 foot ceiling. My current set up is 5.1 running 4 large identical matching towers for R & L front and R & L rear surround - the centre channel and subwoofer are also the same series. The av receiver is a NAD 787 and I have completed a DIRAC setup for calibration.

Some action movies movies / series off netflix are truly impressive with the the sounds from the rear towers and some of the concert blu-ray sound as good in multichannel as they do in 2 channel when you toggle the audio sound track so I think I have dialled it in pretty good.

A few questions:
1. I did the crossover at 50 HZ for the towers and 70 HZ for the centre. Any thoughts on crossover settings as I think 80 Hz maybe the standard for home theatre setups? [as my towers frequency response is 34 HZ to 40 KHZ at +/- 3 DB where as my centre channel is 55 KZ to 40 KHZ]

2. How much would a person gain by adding 2 atmos roof speakers? I am not sure how many sound tracks are mixed this way - seems to be many netflix and tv sound tracks are mixed for soundbars and open concept TV areas these days as many sound tracks don't even do much with the rears even so why would they put sound to the Atmos speakers. I guess I am just not sure given what I have now sounds pretty good and typically in ceiling speakers are not the good and would be a bit of work to fish the speaker wires to them plus installation - I could likely mount a down ward firing bookshelf at a 45 degree angle as another thought as perfect spot where the roof changes in height from 9 feet to 8.5 feet to accommodate HVAC?

3. If I did add the roof speakers, then I would probably remove my rear towers and put bookshelves there so that the book shelf and atmos speakers are closely matched. Any thoughts on towers versus book shelves for rears?

Ceiling speakers make a huge difference. Such a more enjoyable listening experience.