I'm on the Atmos trail! (Finally - Old Man yells at height speakers!)

[JonUrban]

Once you hear a few Tom Petty tracks with the guitar solos in the ceiling, you'll know it was worth it...

Can't wait. That's one I really want to hear, his GH in Atmos

 

[Sal1950]

What the hell? It appears you can still teach old dogs new tricks!

Holy Schmoly Jon, you went the whole hog.
i'm sure you'll find the investment worthwhile.
But I'd highly recommend you find a way to do 4 heights, they really do make all the difference. Run the other 2 sets of wires externally in some wire tracks if you have to.
A short run like you'd need wouldn't be that fugly.

Oh....and don't fall! ...being very serious here. Slow and easy wins the race and many hours of listening fun.

For sure there friends.
No way we bounce as well as we used to.
Jon, find a youngster you can slip a couple bucks to for the crawl space work.
With all the cash your investing, whats a few more to avoid the pain.

 

[mandrix]

Massively agree on 4 height speakers if possible.
Also remember, the heights don't have to be front and back. Mine are set up as back and mid. You can do any combination that suits you or your room.

 

[JonUrban]

You guys are killing me!!

Garry (HomerJAU) has told me I should go with 4 heights right from the start when I told him I was doing Atmos. I resisted against my better judgement, because I trust Garry implicitly. But with the forums input and me having yet to pull any wires, I am probably just going to bite the bullet, take some abuse from my wife:

"Why do we need TWO MORE SPEAKERS??? THERE ARE SPEAKERS ALL AROUND THE F***ING ROOM!!!!"

and cut two more holes in the ceiling. The issue is that they probably won't be that far from the first two sets of holes I drilled, and for wiring purposes, I need to stay within one ceiling joist of the others, since I can get the drill up into the hole I already did for the first two speakers.

Anyway, away I go. Thanks again for the input. I just got the 4K Apple TV 128Gb so it has the Ethernet port and I can hard wire it to the router I have in my audio rack.

Once everything is together (probably not for a week or so), I'll be back to ask all about getting that thing set up for Atmos audio. I know there are posts here and I'll read them, but I am sure I'll have questions for you Atmos experts

 

[Sonik Wiz]

You guys are killing me!!

Garry (HomerJAU) has told me I should go with 4 heights right from the start when I told him I was doing Atmos. I resisted against my better judgement, because I trust Garry implicitly. But with the forums input and me having yet to pull any wires, I am probably just going to bite the bullet, take some abuse from my wife:

"Why do we need TWO MORE SPEAKERS??? THERE ARE SPEAKERS ALL AROUND THE F***ING ROOM!!!!"

and cut two more holes in the ceiling. The issue is that they probably won't be that far from the first two sets of holes I drilled, and for wiring purposes, I need to stay within one ceiling joist of the others, since I can get the drill up into the hole I already did for the first two speakers.

Anyway, away I go. Thanks again for the input. I just got the 4K Apple TV 128Gb so it has the Ethernet port and I can hard wire it to the router I have in my audio rack.

Once everything is together (probably not for a week or so), I'll be back to ask all about getting that thing set up for Atmos audio. I know there are posts here and I'll read them, but I am sure I'll have questions for you Atmos experts

I strongly approve of going for it, Jon. After all it's not my time or money. I will live vicariously through your audio adventure.

Oh, what speakers have you settled on for the heights?

 

[timothyemerson]

Yeah, the ladder is not an issue for me. It's bending down a lot and crawling, which is why I am dreading the foray into the crawl space under my addition to pull the new HDMI and speaker cables. I might need a week off after that, or a hospital stay!

Have you got a cat or know someone with a cat? You could tie a string to the cat, get it to run between entrance and exit points, presto; you've then got string to tie the cable to and pass it through. Here's a video (I couldn't find the original so had to post this one hijacked by some genius superimposed over top pointing out the bleeding obvious):

 

[fredblue]

You guys are killing me!!

Garry (HomerJAU) has told me I should go with 4 heights right from the start when I told him I was doing Atmos. I resisted against my better judgement, because I trust Garry implicitly. But with the forums input and me having yet to pull any wires, I am probably just going to bite the bullet, take some abuse from my wife:

"Why do we need TWO MORE SPEAKERS??? THERE ARE SPEAKERS ALL AROUND THE F***ING ROOM!!!!"

and cut two more holes in the ceiling. The issue is that they probably won't be that far from the first two sets of holes I drilled, and for wiring purposes, I need to stay within one ceiling joist of the others, since I can get the drill up into the hole I already did for the first two speakers.

Anyway, away I go. Thanks again for the input. I just got the 4K Apple TV 128Gb so it has the Ethernet port and I can hard wire it to the router I have in my audio rack.

Once everything is together (probably not for a week or so), I'll be back to ask all about getting that thing set up for Atmos audio. I know there are posts here and I'll read them, but I am sure I'll have questions for you Atmos experts

Garry's spot on, 4 Heights does Atmos right

 

[HomerJAU]

Garry's spot on, 4 Heights does Atmos right

Oh, what a feeling, when there’s Quad on the ceiling! (to the tune of: Dancing on the Ceiling)

 

[MixerRog]

Well, I am replacing my ceiling projector. So, since I have a conduit that runs from the crawlspace under my theater room to the projector, and it's a 2" deal because back when the addition was built, the standard video cable was that huge YPbPr cable for laserdiscs, and I have to replace the existing HDMI cable with one that does 4K, I am going to pull a couple of speaker wires up with the HDMI cable and then fish them through the ceiling and mount 2 ceiling mount speakers on either side of the projector, as far in front of it and to the sides as I can. These will be my heights. Doing 4 would really be an issue, although I realize that would be the way to do it, but the beams run parallel to the screen, and in order to get wires into the next cavity I would have to really rip out some sheetrock, and since I don't hear that well anymore anyway, I'm just going to settle for the 2 height speakers. It's better than none.

The current setup is actually 7.1, as I added some smaller rear surround speakers a few years ago when that was the rage. They never did much for me at the time.

Anyway, thanks for asking. I am looking forward to moving to 4K and Atmos. It appears that's the way of the world now. Can't be left behind!

Joh,

Glad to hear you made the jump as I did also even with my poorer ears also & it does sound better I think. Got good deals on 2 used recent Sony Receivers - one Atmos & one not needed as no room for high speakers in my main listening room but both can decode full 5.1 flacs now instead of having to convert to dts.wav as my old non HDMI receivers required for surround playback. This makes it much easier to mix in full 5.1 since I can now monitor Sound Forge Pro 12 in full 5.1 sound to make changes in the mix to sound the best to me ears.
I am only using 2 height speakers so far & sounds fine. The jet flying scenes in Top Gun sound pretty impressive but the change was really made for music as we don't watch many movies -- only 2 in last 5 years. So far many of the songs in Atmos that I have now sampled don't actually use the height speakers that much.

Rog

 

[MixerRog]

Have you got a cat or know someone with a cat? You could tie a string to the cat, get it to run between entrance and exit points, presto; you've then got string to tie the cable to and pass it through. Here's a video (I couldn't find the original so had to post this one hijacked by some genius superimposed over top pointing out the bleeding obvious):

Our cat is now 19 years old so I doubt he would help me! He might forget how to get out like I would too! Rog

 

[JonUrban]

I strongly approve of going for it, Jon. After all it's not my time or money. I will live vicariously through your audio adventure.

Oh, what speakers have you settled on for the heights?

Well, I am sure purists are going to puke, but what triggered me into actually doing these ceiling speakers was a deal at Best Buy that seemed to good to pass up. They allegedly had a pair of speakers that sold "cough-cough" for $699 and they were on sale for $129! For a pair! So skeptical Jon went in there, expecting them to not have any, and they did. I listened to them played through a 3800H and they sounded good (for me, remember that), so I went for it. The price cleared the 'wife-factor', especially since it was for two speakers. When I went to get the second pair, they were a bit more but I didn't care. You see, the big thing is getting the wiring in place. If these are inadequate or are lacking to me and others, it's very doable to cut bigger holes and install better speakers. So for now, I go with the cheap ones. They are Sonance - MAG Series 6-1/2" 2 ways. They seem to be pretty damn nice for the price.

So here's the result of today's action. I figured out where to put the other two holes, cut those out, drilled in between the joists and pulled some pull wires in anticipation of running the 4 speaker wires to each destination. I now have a clear pull from each speaker hole to the 2" conduit that runs through the ceiling and down to the crawl space. At least I am done with sheet rock. What a mess that creates!

(For the curious, the square hole will be covered with the snap in blank off plate you can see on the seats, and the cable and small access holes have cover plates for them. I need that access to get to the box that terminates the 2"pipe from the basement)

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[HomerJAU]

Excellent job Jon!

 

[mandrix]

Bravo!

 

[Sal1950]

Yippeeee for Jon

 

[ar surround]

You guys are killing me!!

Garry (HomerJAU) has told me I should go with 4 heights right from the start when I told him I was doing Atmos. I resisted against my better judgement, because I trust Garry implicitly. But with the forums input and me having yet to pull any wires, I am probably just going to bite the bullet, take some abuse from my wife:

"Why do we need TWO MORE SPEAKERS??? THERE ARE SPEAKERS ALL AROUND THE F***ING ROOM!!!!"

So you went for the four speaker arrangement. The line on Draft Kings was 50 to 1 that you would cave.

 

[GOS]

So you went for the four speaker arrangement. The line on Draft Kings was 50 to 1 that you would cave.

I think we can all pressure Jon into doing things with his system that he thought unheard of. lol

 

[Mr. Afternoon]

I think we can all pressure Jon into doing things with his system that he thought unheard of. lol

Booo~ I'm pressuring you to set your subwoofer to MAX! Ask the neighbor if the sound is nice!

 

[Sal1950]

"Why do we need TWO MORE SPEAKERS???

Ask her why she needs another frying pan, is one good enough? LOL

 

[Blackwood]

Ask her why she needs another frying pan, is one good enough? LOL

But only ask is she’s not the type who is apt to swing one in your direction.

 

[JonUrban]

Yes, you all are a great influence, that's for sure, and I value all of your input. That's why I decided to post here about this. Originally I was just going to do this in a PM to Garry, who's always helped me a lot, but I wanted to share this with you all. I resisted for quite some time, firstly because I figured I'd be moving sooner than later, but now that I've decided to stay where I am for the near future, I needed to upgrade this room as we've been using it less and less. Now it's like bringing this addition back into the house! It was built in the '90s and started out with LaserDiscs. Seems like an eternity ago. I remember playing the first DTS CDs in this room and marvelling that "Quad was back!". Way before the dawn of QQ.