Where to add Atmos speakers for maximum audio impact.

[GabeL]

The website says that in relation to the Auro-3D format, not Atmos. Again, though, the constraints of your room will dictate what you can do with placement.

The website also says: "If you have a unique room layout and are unsure of the best place to install SVS Prime Elevation speakers for height effects, 5.1 surround sound or some other application, contact the SVS Sound Experts at [email protected], 877.626.5623 or chat."

Good point, the devil is in the details. Thanks for sharing the contact info, I will most get in touch with them.

 

[GabeL]

Wouldn’t that be if there’s only two?

Two ceiling speakers, I believe (as opposed to four).

 

[GabeL]

Ok, well, at this point I thank everyone for their input and for the links to other resources. My plan is to shift the TV first then get in touch with SVS to see what they would recommend and I'll go from there.
Thanks again for everything. Cheers, Gabe

 

[GabeL]

Contacted SVS and the suggestion was to go with front and back heights. I will give that a try as a starting point. Thanks again

 

[mandrix]

Contacted SVS and the suggestion was to go with front and back heights. I will give that a try as a starting point. Thanks again

That's generally where people start. But don't be afraid to change, based on real results. All about the room.

 

[GabeL]

Well, got the front and back heights installed on the wall with the provided brackets (which I must say are very nice). Just waiting on the shipment of additional speaker wire since I didn't have enough here at home Looking forward to my first Atmos experience next weekend!

 

[mandrix]

I just did yesterday a new 13 point mic placement with Dirac Live and UMIK-1 mic, this time I did this as "mid top" speakers since like I said they are about 4 ft forward of the fronts. Very impressed with the new calibration. Add Harman curves -8dB and -10dB to the filters and really liking the -8dB boost on the bottom end.

 

[TheAbsentMind]

Well, got the front and back heights installed on the wall with the provided brackets (which I must say are very nice). Just waiting on the shipment of additional speaker wire since I didn't have enough here at home Looking forward to my first Atmos experience next weekend!

Two months on, how are you liking them? I’m also curious what gauge wire you used.

I just ordered four Prime Elevation to go from 7.1 to 5.1.4. They should be here in a few days so I can finally hear what my PSB speakers and SVS SB-2000 can’t do from above!

Since I have an unfinished ceiling with exposed joists, this may or may not work. I’ve also ordered some 360 wall mounts that I may need to get angled right for my weird, weird room. I’ll be calling SVS tomorrow to pick their brains about placement, obstacles, and opportunities.

Fingers crossed.

 

[GOS]

Two months on, how are you liking them? I’m also curious what gauge wire you used.

I just ordered four Prime Elevation to go from 7.1 to 5.1.4. They should be here in a few days so I can finally hear what my PSB speakers and SVS SB-2000 can’t do from above!

Since I have an unfinished ceiling with exposed joists, this may or may not work. I’ve also ordered some 360 wall mounts that I may need to get angled right for my weird, weird room. I’ll be calling SVS tomorrow to pick their brains about placement, obstacles, and opportunities.

Fingers crossed.

Nice, I've often wondered about those Prime Elevation speakers.

 

[GabeL]

Two months on, how are you liking them? I’m also curious what gauge wire you used.

I just ordered four Prime Elevation to go from 7.1 to 5.1.4. They should be here in a few days so I can finally hear what my PSB speakers and SVS SB-2000 can’t do from above!

Since I have an unfinished ceiling with exposed joists, this may or may not work. I’ve also ordered some 360 wall mounts that I may need to get angled right for my weird, weird room. I’ll be calling SVS tomorrow to pick their brains about placement, obstacles, and opportunities.

Fingers crossed.

So far I am really enjoying the additional speakers. I used 16 gauge speaker wire; nothing fancy. My Atmos collection is quite limited still, but I can tell you that listening to the SDE releases is definitely more engaging than it was on a 5.1 setup and the Peter Gabriel Atmos mix is truly amazing now. Eventually, I plan to add two more, but that will have to wait a bit Best of luck and I hope they help enhance your setup out as they did mine.

 

[minimumtumbleweed]

My thought was to add the front heights on the wall and the others on the ceiling about half way.

If you already have the option to put on the ceiling, there is no purpose in putting Atmos speakers on the walls. I can already tell you from experience that front height speakers on the wall blend very easily with your fronts, diminishing their purpose. If you are set on four speakers, I would have two in the middle of your ceiling and then two behind your listening position, either high on the back wall angled down or on the ceiling. Personally I have two speakers that I have put just in front of my listening position and angled towards me and the effect is pleasing.

EDIT: Never mind, thought this was a new thread . Enjoy your setup!

 

[minimumtumbleweed]

I have been a Atmos listener since 2020 and as it is evolving like so many things in the audio world, I have come to conclusion and will likely change my set up in 2024.
In your Reddit , it makes mention that in ceiling speakers may be wrong.
I have in ceiling (4) speakers, they primarily fire straight down with the tweeter that is adjustable to my listening position.
I wouldn't go as far as to say it is wrong, I would sat that box speakers as in Post #2 would be more desirable.
Reason is, you get the full use of the speaker firing at you, not the midrange down and the tweeter angled.
Also a highly desirable acoustic treatment is to put a panel above your listening area, some call this acoustic treatment a cloud panel.
If you have flush mount speakers, the presumably 2"-3" depth of your ceiling panel will block some of the directional sound from your speakers.
I am not going to say I did it wrong, just that I found a more desirable way.
I have been a contractor for 50+ years and no installation of anything worries me, but I do know that for some, the lack of skills, makes the ceiling speakers not easy.
The good news is that from a mounting point of view, assuming you have good ceiling joists and/or good anchors a box speaker is actually easier to install than flush mount speakers.
I look forward to changing mine sometime this year.

Not to hijack this thread, but curious as to your thoughts. I have tow small speakers (OWM3) being used for Atmos. I've hung them from the ceiling on ball mounts about a third of the way between my listening position and the fronts, same distance between them as between the fronts, and then I've angled them towards the listening position. I didn't really base this on anything though and was wondering what others thought about whether this would be an optimal approach to setting things up or if there's a better way.

 

[LuvMyQuad]

Not to hijack this thread, but curious as to your thoughts. I have tow small speakers (OWM3) being used for Atmos. I've hung them from the ceiling on ball mounts about a third of the way between my listening position and the fronts, same distance between them as between the fronts, and then I've angled them towards the listening position. I didn't really base this on anything though and was wondering what others thought about whether this would be an optimal approach to setting things up or if there's a better way.

I think you made a good choice for a 2 height setup. How does it sound?

 

[steelydave]

Not to hijack this thread, but curious as to your thoughts. I have tow small speakers (OWM3) being used for Atmos. I've hung them from the ceiling on ball mounts about a third of the way between my listening position and the fronts, same distance between them as between the fronts, and then I've angled them towards the listening position. I didn't really base this on anything though and was wondering what others thought about whether this would be an optimal approach to setting things up or if there's a better way.

I've purchased almost exactly the same setup (Polk TL1's instead of OWM3s) along with some white ball mounts and after reading so much about Atmos speaker placement that my head was spinning, I think you're basically right within the reccomended ballpark in a 5.1.2 setup:

This is from Dolby's reccomended placement chart, basically 80 degress (10 degrees in front of straight above) is optimal, but it can range as much as 65 degrees (25 in front of you) to 100 degrees (10 degrees behind the listening position) and still be within spec.

As with floor-level speakers, toeing in (and down in the case of height speakers) is absolutely the right thing to do, as on-axis frequency response of speakers (especially smaller and cheaper ones is always better when they're pointing right at your ear 'oles. I always laugh when I see photos of supposed "audiophile" setups where all the speakers are at right angles to the walls because you just know the people are more in love with aesthetics than sound, or heaven forbid, music.

 

[minimumtumbleweed]

I think you made a good choice for a 2 height setup. How does it sound?

It's OK? Some things do really pop in the heights but then others not so much. It's possible that it's a limitation of just having two.

 

[minimumtumbleweed]

I've purchased almost exactly the same setup (Polk TL1's instead of OWM3s) along with some white ball mounts and after reading so much about Atmos speaker placement that my head was spinning, I think you're basically right within the reccomended ballpark in a 5.1.2 setup:

View attachment 103393

This is from Dolby's reccomended placement chart, basically 80 degress (10 degrees in front of straight above) is optimal, but it can range as much as 65 degrees (25 in front of you) to 100 degrees (10 degrees behind the listening position) and still be within spec.

As with floor-level speakers, toeing in (and down in the case of height speakers) is absolutely the right thing to do, as on-axis frequency response of speakers (especially smaller and cheaper ones is always better when they're pointing right at your ear 'oles. I always laugh when I see photos of supposed "audiophile" setups where all the speakers are at right angles to the walls because you just know the people are more in love with aesthetics than sound, or heaven forbid, music.

Yes, I definitely feel sorry for the blokes over on r/hometheater with their "my wife made me do it" setups

 

[TheAbsentMind]

With thanks in advance, here’s the tl;dr:

All things being equal, would folks here advise ceiling speakers to be a bit too narrowly placed or too widely placed? This is for 5.1.4.

I know there are no “right answers” but I value this community’s experience.

Spoiler: Now the long version:

I’m hanging four Prime Elevations from the exposed joists in my ceiling. Along one side there are a few brass pipes that are in the “precise” width according to a variety of sites as guides, Dolby’s pdf and a handy video someone posted here — as well as Audio Advice’s design tool.

I’ve relied pretty heavily on that tool to dial things in relative to my real world room’s idiosyncrasies. I’ve triangulated the various recommendations to have the ceiling tweeters about 4’8” apart (each 2’4” to the left or right of the sweet spot). Because I have some brass pipes on one side the best options are either 4’0” apart or 3’0” apart.

Now, I’ve also bout some swiveling mounts so I can fidget and fuss so if they’re “too narrow” or too “too wide” I can adjust the angles. Obviously, in my AVR I can also dial the dB up or down to smooth things out post-room correction… but being as I’m the opposite of a handyman, I’m trying to reduce the number of times I’m on a ladder or drilling unnecessary extra holes in the wood.

My inclination is to go a bit “wide” since the brackets themselves and the angles will edge the tweeters closer by a few inches than the measurements I can do on my own.

Tangent: When I went to Magnolia a few weeks ago just to see what they have, they insisted I make a in-home appointment. Luckily no one told me they expected a 10% deposit on a project at the end of the consult because their recommendation included $2000 labor (which I was later told is probably closer to $1000)… to hang four Atmos speakers from an exposed ceiling. <crickets>. I wound up spending $800 on open box SVS and $50 on mounts. Neither at BB, of course.

 

[steelydave]

Ceiling speakers should ideally be the same width apart as your front speakers, and then toed inward and backward so they're pointing at (or as near as possible) the head of someone sitting in the prime "sweet spot" listening position.

The other thing I wanted to mention is that pretty much all satellite speakers have an industry standard '1/4x20' (quarter inch screw, 20 threads per inch) screw mount hole, which is also the same one that camera tripods and other similar gear use. So, presuming your speakers don't exceed the maximum weight rating, you can use pretty much any ball joint mount.

Monoprice makes some black ones that are only 10 bucks but I wanted white ones so as not to harm the feng shui of my ceiling, so I paid 5 bucks or so more for some from one of those no-name Chinese clone brands.

 

[ProgRules]

I can't find the video I watched before installing my Atmos system, but it made a convincing case that overhead speaker placement is all about angles. 30-45 degrees from the MLP, with closer to 45 the ideal. You measure ceiling height and subtract 5 feet (average ear height when seated). Measure out that distance from MLP, then measure over that distance in each direction for the front heights. Do the same going back for rear heights. Then make sure the speakers are aimed at the MLP.

I'd suggest a google search.

 

[barfle]

With thanks in advance, here’s the tl;dr:

All things being equal, would folks here advise ceiling speakers to be a bit too narrowly placed or too widely placed? This is for 5.1.4.

I know there are no “right answers” but I value this community’s experience.

Spoiler: Now the long version:

I’m hanging four Prime Elevations from the exposed joists in my ceiling. Along one side there are a few brass pipes that are in the “precise” width according to a variety of sites as guides, Dolby’s pdf and a handy video someone posted here — as well as Audio Advice’s design tool.

I’ve relied pretty heavily on that tool to dial things in relative to my real world room’s idiosyncrasies. I’ve triangulated the various recommendations to have the ceiling tweeters about 4’8” apart (each 2’4” to the left or right of the sweet spot). Because I have some brass pipes on one side the best options are either 4’0” apart or 3’0” apart.

Now, I’ve also bout some swiveling mounts so I can fidget and fuss so if they’re “too narrow” or too “too wide” I can adjust the angles. Obviously, in my AVR I can also dial the dB up or down to smooth things out post-room correction… but being as I’m the opposite of a handyman, I’m trying to reduce the number of times I’m on a ladder or drilling unnecessary extra holes in the wood.

My inclination is to go a bit “wide” since the brackets themselves and the angles will edge the tweeters closer by a few inches than the measurements I can do on my own.

Tangent: When I went to Magnolia a few weeks ago just to see what they have, they insisted I make a in-home appointment. Luckily no one told me they expected a 10% deposit on a project at the end of the consult because their recommendation included $2000 labor (which I was later told is probably closer to $1000)… to hang four Atmos speakers from an exposed ceiling. <crickets>. I wound up spending $800 on open box SVS and $50 on mounts. Neither at BB, of course.

I bought four ceiling speakers from BB five hears ago when I was building my room. They were easy (enough) to mount in the drywall ceiling, although I had plenty of bonus room joists to avoid. The four speakers cost $200, and I already had the wire.

And yet, they remain unconnected, as the Atmos project is well down the road. I installed the speakers as close to the Atmos recommendations as I could, given the constraints of a pre-existing space. Putting them in when the mess was already a mess had everything to do with the timing.