So Jon, does your new set up have Auro 3D? If so, and should you suffer withdrawal from no longer cutting round holes in the ceiling, you can add a VOG (Top Center) right over your MLP.
I'm on the Atmos trail! (Finally - Old Man yells at height speakers!)
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Jon, once the system is up and running, I hope you elaborate on your impression of Atmos surround. Are you running apple or tidal right now?
UPDATE: I got sidelined with a stomach flu, so all in-work stuff came to a halt for a while!!! 
But I am now back on track and headed for Atmos. This morning I installed the speakers in the ceiling and did all of the wiring up there, and mounted the projector. I did the dreaded crawl space pull yesterday, and it went well. (However, I have yet to fire anything up so I am not sure it all went well, but I pulled redundant HDMI cables just in case)
Anyway, I am running new speaker wire to the fronts and the sub as long as I have everything apart and will put new connectors on everything just to keep it clean. It's been over 25 years since I had that room built.
So, still a bit more time before I can report back, but I will. I can't wait to hook up that new 4K apple TV with the ethernet connection and search for apple music Atmos style!!
But I am now back on track and headed for Atmos. This morning I installed the speakers in the ceiling and did all of the wiring up there, and mounted the projector. I did the dreaded crawl space pull yesterday, and it went well. (However, I have yet to fire anything up so I am not sure it all went well, but I pulled redundant HDMI cables just in case)
Anyway, I am running new speaker wire to the fronts and the sub as long as I have everything apart and will put new connectors on everything just to keep it clean. It's been over 25 years since I had that room built.
So, still a bit more time before I can report back, but I will. I can't wait to hook up that new 4K apple TV with the ethernet connection and search for apple music Atmos style!!
Here are some more pictures. I am done for today. I wired everything from the amp going out, a ran new speaker wires where I could (Fronts, Center, and of course the new Heights. My subwoofer is odd as I have to wire my big Definitive Technologies Front Speakers to the Sub, then the sub gets connected to the front outs on the receiver, along with it's own coax for the LFE. The DT's also have a audio cable that connects to the sub out on the Denon. 25 year ago I remembered why it did all that, I think it was BiPolar or something. Today, I don't remember and don't care, as long as it works. It was a pain to rewire it all, but in the long run it will be worth it. All new connectors of course.
So far, I haven't turned anything on. That's tomorrow. So there may be smoke and fire, who knows? I have to hook up the inputs to the receiver and then fire up the 3800H for the first time. I have never found success with that Audyssey thing and end up setting everything up by ear, but since I can't trust my ear anymore, I may have to let it do it's thing.
So maybe by tomorrow I can finally attempt to hear a real Atmos audio track in the proper way. Once I do, look out. I'll be bugging everyone for help and assistance in getting the stuff right. Until then, I'm partaking of a cool beverage and some 'feet up time'. Just wanted to check in!
SPEAKER LOCATIONS (I hope I did it right because I ain't changing it):
This is the wall behind my screen. It's where the mess usually lies!
And here is the back of the 3800H, just the speakers and the HDMI to the projector connected so far. Can you see where I f' up?:
So far, I haven't turned anything on. That's tomorrow. So there may be smoke and fire, who knows? I have to hook up the inputs to the receiver and then fire up the 3800H for the first time. I have never found success with that Audyssey thing and end up setting everything up by ear, but since I can't trust my ear anymore, I may have to let it do it's thing.
So maybe by tomorrow I can finally attempt to hear a real Atmos audio track in the proper way. Once I do, look out. I'll be bugging everyone for help and assistance in getting the stuff right. Until then, I'm partaking of a cool beverage and some 'feet up time'. Just wanted to check in!
SPEAKER LOCATIONS (I hope I did it right because I ain't changing it):
This is the wall behind my screen. It's where the mess usually lies!
And here is the back of the 3800H, just the speakers and the HDMI to the projector connected so far. Can you see where I f' up?:
Alright! Dude! Did you buy an economy sized roll of shrink tubing? Wowser.
Thanks, no. I do have a real nice label maker for wiring (that came from work), but the new speaker wire was from Amazon. It is 12 Gauge and it's a BITCH to strip. There's no string in with the 2 conductors, which makes it hard to peel back. The connectors I used were very nice, those from Amazon too. I sound like an ad placed in the thread!
Yeah, the majority of my wiring is 12 gauge, but I have some really good wire strippers, since I do all my pc wiring custom. I have some favorite Amazon RCA jacks as well, not as nice as yours but I prefer the set screw type (I don't know if yours are or not, just saying). I ordered a whole bunch once and found out you had to insert the wire then screw them together to compress the 12 gauge wire and I got tired of that pretty fast with my old hands and promptly ordered new ones. Just my preference.
Looking good, Jon! Hope you get 'er running soon.
Looking good, Jon! Hope you get 'er running soon.
But you used different wire for the various channels.Thanks, no. I do have a real nice label maker for wiring (that came from work), but the new speaker wire was from Amazon. It is 12 Gauge and it's a BITCH to strip. There's no string in with the 2 conductors, which makes it hard to peel back. The connectors I used were very nice, those from Amazon too. I sound like an ad placed in the thread!
Some red/black, white/white, clear/clear. ???
Those channels will all sound different now.
I see it! Surround back right, red and black are swapped.
Wow, I wish I had your labelmaker! As a firm believer in labeling cables, I used yellow electrical tape and a sharpie on mine. It sho’ ain’t purty, but it’s done.
I just priced Atmos pre-pros. Not this year, alas.
I just priced Atmos pre-pros. Not this year, alas.
That's a good point! After all this work Jon is doing, we don't want him under-impressed. lol! Go for the kill.
Kick his ass Seabass!!
Sharing something mildly interesting . . . I did this recently myself and the Audyssey room correction process detected it and halted the set-up while I fixed it.
Thank you AI.
I see you've hooked up for, I think, a 7.3.4 setup. But you won't get that without an external stereo amp for the fronts or rear heights/tops. The 3800 has processing for 11 channels, but only amps for 9.
YES! I found that out when I ran speaker setup. No problem, it was an easy solution. Nuke the rear surrounds! They were shitty little speakers anyway!!
UPDATE: What a day, run through the ringer!!!
So I put the screen back up to line up the projector. Lens height, lens zoom, all the really basic stuff. Nothing critical. Just got the picture square with the test pattern in the projector. That went well.
Then, since I had the screen up, it was time to set up the 3800H. It has a very nice setup routine. You answer a bunch of questions concerning how many speakers you have and where they are and what they'll be doing. Very user friendly. This is where I found out I could not use my rear surrounds without an additional amp. F that. Who cares? Those babies are relics now!
So I began the speaker programming and got to the test. It sends a test sound to each speaker, which was great! Until I got to the last one. SILENCE. Nothing from the Front Height. Oh oh.
I tried it again. Was the amp bad? Was the speaker bad? Did I cut the wire somehow? Were the connectors bad. Here we go. Massive troubleshooting. I ohm'ed all 4 surround speakers at the speaker wire at the back of the amp (disconnected of course). All were 6 something ohms, except one!
The Meter was all over the place with that one. So I took the connectors wires for that speaker at the back of the receiver and saw no issue (damn, that would have been easy!)
Then I pulled the offending speaker out of the ceiling and checked for short and sorts. I put it on my step ladder and reconnected it, making sure that each conductor was not near the other. Again, it failed.
So...........................................off to freaking Best Buy, 35 miles away. I bought another set of speakers $179 with the intent of bringing them back, or bringing the bad one back in the new box, depending on the outcome.
Got home, hooked it up while it was still on the ladder and IT WORKED! F'ers. Cheap ass speakers.
Then I continued and did the entire Denon setup with the microphone. That went about as well as you could expect. So now I thought I was ready to rock. However, I could not get the Denon to connect to the network (hardwired). So here we go with more troubleshooting. I thought my router might be bad, but no. After checks and balances, it turned out my ethernet run through the dreaded crawl space is not right. Wonderful.
Without that run, the Apple TV would not connect and that pretty much put a squash on the rest of the day. I was kaput! Tomorrow I will troubleshoot the wire to find the bad section. It could be anywhere.
So, another day without Atmos. In the old days I would have kept at it until I dropped. These days I drop a lot quicker!!
So that's my story. Sorry if I'm being too detailed, I just feel like sharing it with you guys. You've all been here before. Sometimes it fun to hear about other peoples struggles.
As for what I will play first? Well, by wife really wants to hear 'Low Spark' in atmos, and I know it's not supposed to be that great, but if it's there on Apple TV, then that's what I will play first. She's putting up with me and all of this disruption.
And hey, you know what I was thinking on my way back from Best Buy? In the '70s we had 2 channels, then expanded to 4. No one cared and little was released. Then in the 2000's we had 5 channels and LFE. Again, no one cared and a lot of good stuff never got released.
Now here we are, we have at least NINE CHANNELS AND MORE, and shit is coming out of the record companies like they took a laxative!!! What the F is up with THAT???
So I put the screen back up to line up the projector. Lens height, lens zoom, all the really basic stuff. Nothing critical. Just got the picture square with the test pattern in the projector. That went well.
Then, since I had the screen up, it was time to set up the 3800H. It has a very nice setup routine. You answer a bunch of questions concerning how many speakers you have and where they are and what they'll be doing. Very user friendly. This is where I found out I could not use my rear surrounds without an additional amp. F that. Who cares? Those babies are relics now!
So I began the speaker programming and got to the test. It sends a test sound to each speaker, which was great! Until I got to the last one. SILENCE. Nothing from the Front Height. Oh oh.
I tried it again. Was the amp bad? Was the speaker bad? Did I cut the wire somehow? Were the connectors bad. Here we go. Massive troubleshooting. I ohm'ed all 4 surround speakers at the speaker wire at the back of the amp (disconnected of course). All were 6 something ohms, except one!
The Meter was all over the place with that one. So I took the connectors wires for that speaker at the back of the receiver and saw no issue (damn, that would have been easy!)
Then I pulled the offending speaker out of the ceiling and checked for short and sorts. I put it on my step ladder and reconnected it, making sure that each conductor was not near the other. Again, it failed.
So...........................................off to freaking Best Buy, 35 miles away. I bought another set of speakers $179 with the intent of bringing them back, or bringing the bad one back in the new box, depending on the outcome.
Got home, hooked it up while it was still on the ladder and IT WORKED! F'ers. Cheap ass speakers.
Then I continued and did the entire Denon setup with the microphone. That went about as well as you could expect. So now I thought I was ready to rock. However, I could not get the Denon to connect to the network (hardwired). So here we go with more troubleshooting. I thought my router might be bad, but no. After checks and balances, it turned out my ethernet run through the dreaded crawl space is not right. Wonderful.
Without that run, the Apple TV would not connect and that pretty much put a squash on the rest of the day. I was kaput! Tomorrow I will troubleshoot the wire to find the bad section. It could be anywhere.
So, another day without Atmos. In the old days I would have kept at it until I dropped. These days I drop a lot quicker!!
So that's my story. Sorry if I'm being too detailed, I just feel like sharing it with you guys. You've all been here before. Sometimes it fun to hear about other peoples struggles.
As for what I will play first? Well, by wife really wants to hear 'Low Spark' in atmos, and I know it's not supposed to be that great, but if it's there on Apple TV, then that's what I will play first. She's putting up with me and all of this disruption.
And hey, you know what I was thinking on my way back from Best Buy? In the '70s we had 2 channels, then expanded to 4. No one cared and little was released. Then in the 2000's we had 5 channels and LFE. Again, no one cared and a lot of good stuff never got released.
Now here we are, we have at least NINE CHANNELS AND MORE, and shit is coming out of the record companies like they took a laxative!!! What the F is up with THAT???
Ain't that the truth. Keep the faith!
I wouldn't do that, rather find a cheap Class D stereo amp to hook up. Many Atmos mixes have a good amount of output in the surround back speakers. Steven Wilson for example, use them most of the time. When I went from 5.2.4 to 7.2.4 I was surprised on how much information was back there.
I have the same receiver as you, and I'm very satisfied with it.
I wouldn't do that, rather find a cheap Class D stereo amp to hook up. Many Atmos mixes have a good amount of output in the surround back speakers. Steven Wilson for example, use them most of the time. When I went from 5.2.4 to 7.2.4 I was surprised on how much information was back there.
I have the same receiver as you, and I'm very satisfied with it.
I will keep that option open, but right now it won't be a high priority. But, they're there so they'll remind me every time I look at them!
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