Poll: What's your current Atmos speaker layout?

[par4ken]

It becomes an issue when the mixer tries to smoothly pan over a side of the room, where the sounds from different speakers mainly reach to one single human ear (if we don't turn our heads).

It might become audible, maybe even bothersome to some but I would still consider it to be largely a non-issue. In the case of quad simply by moving the rear speakers more to the sides there is no real cogging effect that I notice.

The same idea holds for 7.1, simply move the side and rear speakers a bit farther forward to reduce the "cogging". Other than gimmicky effects with music and perhaps sound effects in movies I don't think that it is really worth worrying about!

 

[srbjab]

All of my speakers are the same, Mordaunt short Genie’s, in a 5.1.2 system and it sounds amazing, if I ever get the opportunity to move to 5.1.4 i’d be looking for another pair of the same, I bought them 2nd hand but they’re the best (and most expensive new) i’ve ever had

I have an all Martin-Logan electrostatic 7.1 system, but auditioning the very expensive M-L ceiling speaker options left me unimpressed. I ended up getting 4 Micca M-8C round ceiling speakers with concentric moveable tweeters and have never regretted it. Upgrading to 7.1.4 was probably the most impactful upgrade I've made to my system in a very long time. The Micca's actually sound pretty good on their own and I've never had any issues with "blending" the ceiling speakers with the rest of the system.

 

[MidiMagic]

"I agree with Sonic, go to an Atmos equipped movie theatre or as HomerJAU suggested find a QQ member close to you with an Atmos setup. I would think that you should be able to find a dealer that is willing to at least demonstrate a sound bar!" This cracked me up... everything's just down the street..

Down the street? More like 50 miles away. Two of our three remaining theaters are drive-in. The sound comes in on FM radio. The third barely has stereo. We used to have a large number of audio dealers. They all went out of business.

 

[MTB Vince]

If any Atmos-curious members of the group find themselves in Southern Ontario (an hour outside of Toronto, ON Canada), I'd be happy to host an extended Atmos listening demo in a modestly sized but well appointed, dedicated room.

Happy New Year!

 

[Sonik Wiz]

Down the street? More like 50 miles away. Two of our three remaining theaters are drive-in. The sound comes in on FM radio. The third barely has stereo. We used to have a large number of audio dealers. They all went out of business.

Well then. Quit bitching about what everyone else has. We can only do so much for you in suggestions.

 

[JimHansonDC]

I am wondering did you install your acoustic treatments in increments?
The reason I ask, I installed GIK Acoustic, Bass (2) Traps, side acoustic (5) absorbers, and rear acoustic (4) diffusers.
I did all of that, then turned on the machine and Holy Cow, was an immediate BIG BETTER sound, way more than anything I had done previous while building my rig.
Back to your cloud, when I last communicated with GIK Acoustics, telling them how happy I was and would they offer any extra advice, they said, you may want to put a ceiling absorber over your listening area, that would be in-between my two front and two rear ceiling speakers.
I never did, that's why I ask you the question.

I did the bass traps first with some wall absorption mostly from GIK too. I added some absorber/diffusors later on the back wall and in the front top corners. The big pic with the mic and speaker I did myself and had it printed on canvas. It's got two 2' x 4' 4" panels mounted in a frame with the canvas stretched over it. The cloud is basically the same thing with no canvas. It really did make a nice addition and I'm not gonna lie, I also did it because it looks cool.

 

[marpow]

I did the bass traps first with some wall absorption mostly from GIK too. I added some absorber/diffusors later on the back wall and in the front top corners. The big pic with the mic and speaker I did myself and had it printed on canvas. It's got two 2' x 4' 4" panels mounted in a frame with the canvas stretched over it. The cloud is basically the same thing with no canvas. It really did make a nice addition and I'm not gonna lie, I also did it because it looks cool.

Awesome, I did same with GIK, my wall side absorbers are pictures on canvas, I just used what they had to offer, kind of a custom California landscapes. Except I did one beach and a coconut tree , my wife said why the heck did you do that, I said I like Hawaii.

 

[hi-res_edition]

Atmos does not handle that.
It is the AVR processor which handles that.

It reads the 5.1/7.1 substream, if the AVR does not support Atmos.

If there is no Center speaker, it's Channel is 'merged' into FL, FR.

If there are not Rear Surrounds, those channels are 'merged' into the Side Surrounds of 5.1

If there is no LFE SUB, then the LFE Channel is 'merged' into FL,FR and, possibly, also into Surrounds, as my DENON does.

In summary, It is near like playing 5.1

Right, of course the processor (AVR) handles that... but my point is how are these variances calculated. I absolutely can say that a phantom center channel sounds very different than an actual center channel as an example. Likewise, I really wouldn't want the processor to send the LFE to all floor channels. Finally, all of this is going to sound very different based on the actual Atmos mix created, typically either 7.1.4 or 9.1.6. Just my two cents.

 

[AYanguas]

Sure. Center image sounds wide. Actually, the sound is coming from a Big Wide space from the Fronts. We have been so used to that, listening to stereo, that when mixing vocals only to the Center Channel (influenced by films dialogue?) It sounds so isolated that I don't like. On the other hand, isolated sounds in Center Channel, for Effects or particular instruments, enhance the surround, for some mixes.

With respect to LFE directed to the Quad Fronts and Surrounds (sides), I think it is a very good solution. If you don't have SUB, the bass is more EQ evenly distributed across the room, in a similar way than when you install 4 corner SUBs. I am currently experimenting this, as my SUB is Broken, didn't replace it, all Speakers Full LARGE, and I don't get the peak/valley of the boomy bass sound that I had before walking around the room outside the MLP.
Enough for music. Short for boomy film explossions

 

[LTW]

Resurrecting this to mention my home theater system is just 5.1 (and will likely stay that way) but I have upgraded my studio to 7.1.4 for Atmos mixing.

It’s interesting to see on here how many setups utilize 5 instead of 7 horizontal plane speakers but with a full compliment of 4 or more heights. I’m wondering if I should be leaning on the Sides so much in my mixes, or focus more on the rears. With the sides firing directly into the listeners ears they have a particularly ‘direct’ sound which is not really the same with the rear surrounds.

 

[AYanguas]

Resurrecting this to mention my home theater system is just 5.1 (and will likely stay that way) but I have upgraded my studio to 7.1.4 for Atmos mixing.

It’s interesting to see on here how many setups utilize 5 instead of 7 horizontal plane speakers but with a full compliment of 4 or more heights. I’m wondering if I should be leaning on the Sides so much in my mixes, or focus more on the rears. With the sides firing directly into the listeners ears they have a particularly ‘direct’ sound which is not really the same with the rear surrounds.

The most extended cause of having only 5 instead of 7 could be the sofa against the wall. Then, under that situation, the 4 heights can be installed, although Top Rears are not behind but in a kind of Top Middles location.

Having 7 floor speakers in my system, I can tell you that sound from sides, may be interesting to give the kind of binaural 'into the head' effect sound, that sometimes seem to me that sound is coming from above also. But other times they can be too much intrussive, depending on the mix.

On the other hand, when sound comes significantly from the rears, I get a different and pleasant sensation. Even better if both discrete or alternating use of sides and rears.

Those kind of good mixes, I think are appreciated when having 7 floor speakers. With only 5 speakers there should not be much different as all sound comes from the single pair of Surrounds.

The same way, as I have the Wides in my 9.1.4, I appreciate much when mixes use Objects at the Wides azimut angle. Specially, when vocals or other sounds come only from Wides and not from Fronts. Again, that mixes perhaps can not be appreciated in its full without the Wides.

I find many Atmos in streaming that efficiently use the 7 floor and the Wides speakers. Mixes done with enough sound locations to please the 9.1.4 speaker owners.

I cannot tell about any experience about the advantage of having 6 height speakers for the mixes that discretely uses them, because I have only 4 Tops for Atmos.

 

[jimfisheye]

We can play guessing games indefinitely on how a mix translates in a compromised scenario. Not having a system to reproduce that mix 1:1, that is. I think at the end of the day the people who are interested in hearing a mix on a 1:1 system will chase that and do just that. Anyone else will play the mix on what they have and be happy no matter if it's shy a few surround channels or folded down to stereo or folded down to essentially mono with some soundbar thing. So we sure shouldn't compromise the full beast!

I don't mean to suggest trolling people and make 7.1.4 mixes that are full system or bust! Just that a 7.1.4 mix should be all about using a 7.1.4 system first and any consideration to how it folds down to fewer channels second.

7.1.4 is the main reference system this landed on. Kind of a PITA with adding side channels, no doubt! Most music mixes before this were 5.1. 7.1 was an outlier. Now the expansion lands on 7.1.4. It is what it is. Oh, and double PITA with the 5.1(side) vs 5.1(rear) faux pas! I'll say it again, this is a stunning creative thing to see happen in this plastic corporate world and that tops any complaints.

 

[jimfisheye]

...
The same way, as I have the Wides in my 9.1.4, I appreciate much when mixes use Objects at the Wides azimut angle. ...

You and others did well to mention this many times around here!
9.1.6 is in fact considered a reference system along with 7.1.4. I'm not going to be doing any 2nd guessing and try to mix for 9.1.6 on a 7.1.4 array! But I will use objects for anything in or passing through those coordinates when it seems like the reasonable thing to do just because it changes nothing in 7.1.4. Got a mix on deck right now with that going on.

We DO need to start noting what system the mix was made on in the liner notes. Far too many releases omitting this.

 

[DanRuben]

In my surround setup I place the rears to the sides anyway, slightly to the front. I find speakers behind me incredibly distracting and prefer the soundstage created with the rears more to the front. But mostly I use a pair of Sonos Era 300s for Atmos music listening as they're specifically designed for that and the side drivers are crucial in that setup.

 

[DuncanS]

Am I correct in thinking that if you mix for a x.x.x bed then sounds placed on the bed stay in those speakers as there is no meta positioning data?

So a 7.1.4 bed mix on a 5.1.4 system would have the sides and rears merged.

Whereas if it was a 5.1.4 bed mix with meta data for rears, the sides & rears would appear in the correct speakers if played on a 7.1.4 system?

The reason I suspect this is I have a 5.0.4 system (no LFE, using Denon X8500HA) and in Atmos I rarely notice anything that appears directly behind (but left-ish & right-ish where I would expect from a 7.1.4 mix) only from my 110deg angled rears, which are slightly behind and to left & right of my seating position.

 

[mandrix]

I had a 7.1.4 system but swapped the side speakers to the rear for a 5.1.4. Seems to work better in this room and I still listen to a lot of 5.1.
Whether I will keep it this way is undetermined at this point. My MLP is not in the middle of the room but about 4 ft to rear of center by necessity.
But if I were mixing for Atmos I would go for 7.1.4 or >.

 

[zeerround]

My mixing is "up-remxing" so some stems are upmixed to 7.1 using the sides for things that were panned mid-left or right in the original stereo. I also like to use the sides for the bass, with a crossover to make a mono to stereo effect. That gets the bass out of center and creates more surround "wow" effect, both in leaving the center less cluttered for other sounds and in having it come from the sides in "stereo".

Re Atmos mix down, yeah I don't like many of the choices Dolby made for their mix down rules (sides to rears, wides to fronts) vs. using panning to create virtual positions, but fortunately when encoding you can include your own 8, 6, and 2 channel mixes, in addition to the (up to) 16 channel + objects Atmos mix. These will then be used instead of Dolby's mix downs on playback.

 

[LTW]

Am I correct in thinking that if you mix for a x.x.x bed then sounds placed on the bed stay in those speakers as there is no meta positioning data?

So a 7.1.4 bed mix on a 5.1.4 system would have the sides and rears merged.

Whereas if it was a 5.1.4 bed mix with meta data for rears, the sides & rears would appear in the correct speakers if played on a 7.1.4 system?

The reason I suspect this is I have a 5.0.4 system (no LFE, using Denon X8500HA) and in Atmos I rarely notice anything that appears directly behind (but left-ish & right-ish where I would expect from a 7.1.4 mix) only from my 110deg angled rears, which are slightly behind and to left & right of my seating position.

Yea as I understand it, depending on the mixdown settings used during the Atmos mix export the sides get folded into the front or rears. I’m not sure if streaming services take into account these mixdown settings or not though during their encoding process.

The Dolby encoding process also bakes groups of objects directly into the 7.1 (TrueHD) or 5.1 (DD+) core so even if those elements weren’t in the standard 7.1.2 mix bed they will be added to the core of the final encoded file. At least that’s the limited understanding I have of it. I think all objects are baked into the core 6 or 8 channels and are then subtracted and placed in 3D space using the metadata. Seems kinda wild to me.

 

[jimfisheye]

Am I correct in thinking that if you mix for a x.x.x bed then sounds placed on the bed stay in those speakers as there is no meta positioning data?
...

Objects are really only meaningful if the system upmixes to a larger array than something was mixed on. Anything in the bed channels is the same weather baked into the mix or delivered with objects for the Dolby renderer to finish. Anything downmixed to a smaller array comes out the same baked in vs using objects. The positioning comes out exactly the same just as it should. I did run through all the permutations with the Dolby renderer.

When you upmix into a bigger array, now you can end up with a sound element turning on a bank of speakers instead of landing on an in-between channel. The object lands on the in-between channel more like you envisioned the upmix to work. Dolby also wanted the ability to work in headphones and have some things translate - even if only crudely in that scenario.

 

[Ranasakawa]

I was playing my Star Wars Blu-ray movies today on my new 7.1 system and was absolutely gob-smacked at how amazing the effects now sound. Lots of new sounds I haven't heard before especially during battle scenes.