Dolby Atmos Ceiling Speakers

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ghalteman

Senior Member
Joined
Feb 7, 2005
Messages
201
Location
Reading, PA
I was fortunate to find timbre matched Boston Acoustic VR-MX speakers in White for my forthcoming Yamaha AVENTAGE RX-A860 Receiver. This receiver accommodates two Dolby Atmos channels, not four. According to the Dolby Atmos pictures, for a 5.1.2 configuration, the ceiling speakers belong slightly in front of you and in line with the front speakers. My question is just how many feet in front of my head. They show angles which are hard to figure.
Also, is the investment worth it?? I plan to mostly use the 3D setting for non-Atmos material. I had to buy the speakers as I may never see them again.
 
I was fortunate to find timbre matched Boston Acoustic VR-MX speakers in White for my forthcoming Yamaha AVENTAGE RX-A860 Receiver. This receiver accommodates two Dolby Atmos channels, not four. According to the Dolby Atmos pictures, for a 5.1.2 configuration, the ceiling speakers belong slightly in front of you and in line with the front speakers. My question is just how many feet in front of my head. They show angles which are hard to figure.
Also, is the investment worth it?? I plan to mostly use the 3D setting for non-Atmos material. I had to buy the speakers as I may never see them again.

:bump: for ghalterman :banana:
 
I have a question about sizing Atmos ceiling (height) speakers. (I am asking this question for a friend....uhmm...) My concern is that these little ceiling speakers will be overwhelmed if one has giant tower speakers for the fronts / surrounds as well as a 50 lb center speaker, all driven by 250+ wpc amps. I would think that anything less than an 8" woofer would be insufficient. And would even something of that size (8") get blown away? Am I off base here?

I know that @GOS has those upward firing Klipsh Atmos speakers sitting on top of his big towers, but they are specifically designed for that application.

Thanks for the advice.
AR
 
16289542384387093612705865163265.jpg

This is my set up for the front heights....oh yeah I'm watching cricket now, after shouting at the TV when Manchester United (supported them since the 60's) beat Leeds 5 1, in Prem League footy.
 
I have a question about sizing Atmos ceiling (height) speakers. (I am asking this question for a friend....uhmm...) My concern is that these little ceiling speakers will be overwhelmed if one has giant tower speakers for the fronts / surrounds as well as a 50 lb center speaker, all driven by 250+ wpc amps. I would think that anything less than an 8" woofer would be insufficient. And would even something of that size (8") get blown away? Am I off base here?

I know that @GOS has those upward firing Klipsh Atmos speakers sitting on top of his big towers, but they are specifically designed for that application.

Thanks for the advice.
AR
I plan on using the CI Home series from Paradigm for my ceiling and rear surround speakers.

https://www.paradigm.com/en/overview/series/ci-home-series
 
I was fortunate to find timbre matched Boston Acoustic VR-MX speakers in White for my forthcoming Yamaha AVENTAGE RX-A860 Receiver. This receiver accommodates two Dolby Atmos channels, not four. According to the Dolby Atmos pictures, for a 5.1.2 configuration, the ceiling speakers belong slightly in front of you and in line with the front speakers. My question is just how many feet in front of my head. They show angles which are hard to figure.
Also, is the investment worth it?? I plan to mostly use the 3D setting for non-Atmos material. I had to buy the speakers as I may never see them again.

You do not have to follow the recommendations exactly!

My overheads are 2ft wider than fronts and a couple of feet in front of me. Wider is better IMO.

The investment is worth it yes.
 
Congratulations on your upcoming upgrade.
My room is 12' wide X 14' long. My front heights are 3' from side wall, same as my front floor speakers.
My seat is approx 7' from front floor speakers and about the same for my front heights, the rear heights are about 6' from my head.
In the case of adding two heights only my first choice would be to do what the Dolby Atmos page recommends. But now that I have experience,
I think that if I was only doing two I would center them between the front and rear floors. If I did that in my case they still would be in front of me as my seat is only about 1' in front of my rears.
Another suggestion I have, if you have the ability with your receiver to trim, up or down the volume of each speaker, I would plan on boosting your heights.
Plus on subtle mixes your brain will take awhile to discriminate the heights from the floors, but the immersive bubble of sound will be quite apparent on day one.
My room build is documented extensively in this QQ thread.
https://www.quadraphonicquad.com/forums/threads/setting-up-home-theater-listening-room.28523/
 
I have a question about sizing Atmos ceiling (height) speakers. (I am asking this question for a friend....uhmm...) My concern is that these little ceiling speakers will be overwhelmed if one has giant tower speakers for the fronts / surrounds as well as a 50 lb center speaker, all driven by 250+ wpc amps. I would think that anything less than an 8" woofer would be insufficient. And would even something of that size (8") get blown away? Am I off base here?

I know that @GOS has those upward firing Klipsh Atmos speakers sitting on top of his big towers, but they are specifically designed for that application.

Thanks for the advice.
AR

Upfiring is no beuno IMO. Overhead is the way to go.

The SVS speakers are plenty suffient. The size of your others does not matter too much.
 
Your 'friend' might consider using these:

SVS Prime Elevation Speaker | Speakers for Dolby Atmos & Home Theater (svsound.com)

As an alternative to ceiling speakers.

I use them , they sound great as heights.

I looked at ceiling speakers but felt the fitting and wiring was not worth the hassle, when these are more than adequate.

Thanks beerking. These SVS units are really nice speakers. But "my friend" really needs an in-ceiling solution because of other considerations. Also, "my friend" has excellent access to the ceiling from the adjacent unfinished room. Fishing wires will not be difficult as shown in the photo.

Ceiling Access.jpg
 
Thanks beerking. These SVS units are really nice speakers. But "my friend" really needs an in-ceiling solution because of other considerations. Also, "my friend" has excellent access to the ceiling from the adjacent unfinished room. Fishing wires will not be difficult as shown in the photo.

View attachment 70076
Then "your friend" is wired to go!! 🤞 :LB
 
I have a question about sizing Atmos ceiling (height) speakers. (I am asking this question for a friend....uhmm...) My concern is that these little ceiling speakers will be overwhelmed if one has giant tower speakers for the fronts / surrounds as well as a 50 lb center speaker, all driven by 250+ wpc amps. I would think that anything less than an 8" woofer would be insufficient. And would even something of that size (8") get blown away? Am I off base here?

I know that @GOS has those upward firing Klipsh Atmos speakers sitting on top of his big towers, but they are specifically designed for that application.

Thanks for the advice.
AR
Based on my personal experience, I’d say any ”decent” speaker will do. I have Ascend Acoustics RAAL towers and use Boston Acoustics SoundWare 4.5 for Atmos ceiling mounts. YMMV. Here are my thoughts.

1. Amp power usually has little bearing on Atmos, unless you have a large room and play extremely loud, with inefficient Atmos speakers.
2. Atmos content as presently implemented is used primarily for atmospheric effects, with some occasional transient discrete details. Atmos speakers will experience lower levels than your other surround channels.
3. Your AVR‘s bass management allows setting up a minimum frequency for “small“ speakers (such as most used for Atmos), directing lower freq’s to the subwoofer. Most Atmos content has little low frequency energy anyway.
4. Good dispersion! Very important for ceiling-mounted speakers in support of Atmos.
5. Timbre matching for Atmos is not critical (given #2 above). Plus, your AVR’s room correction will help to mitigate the issue.

Here’s a discussion thread. Take it with a grain of salt, as with all things internet (including me) :)

Do Atmos speaker need to match main channels?
 
Just mention that, although it is often said that the content of the height speakers in Atmos is usually of a lower level, perhaps this is not necessarily the case when it comes to Atmos mixes in Music that use the height positions in a discrete way.

It all depends if you will use your theater mainly for films or also to listening music.

Many recent Music Atmos mixes are using good enough content for the height locations/speakers. Either in physical (Blu-ray/downloads) formats or streaming (Tidal, Apple, Amazon??), we start to have some increasing amount of music titles in Dolby Atmos that, for me, it helps to amortize the good invest in good height speakers.
 
I have a question about sizing Atmos ceiling (height) speakers. (I am asking this question for a friend....uhmm...) My concern is that these little ceiling speakers will be overwhelmed if one has giant tower speakers for the fronts / surrounds as well as a 50 lb center speaker, all driven by 250+ wpc amps. I would think that anything less than an 8" woofer would be insufficient. And would even something of that size (8") get blown away? Am I off base here?

I know that @GOS has those upward firing Klipsh Atmos speakers sitting on top of his big towers, but they are specifically designed for that application.

Thanks for the advice.
AR
most of what you assume is incorrect and way off base.

size of atmos speaker - atmos is not full spectrum, it is limited to about 100-110hz (low end) so having huge speakers is not an advantage, it is a waste of money.

speakers being overwhelmed - when you do the setup calibration the system will adjust speaker level to where it should be. you can always run it a little hot (add dB if you like). since it mostly used for limited ambient effects so it is not competing with the other speakers all the time.

amp power - as noted above the system calibrates all channels the the amount of power on each channel is largely irrelevant.
 
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most of what you assume is incorrect and way off base.

size of atmos speaker - atmos is not full spectrum, it is limited to about 100-100hz so having huge speakers is not an advantage, it is a waste of money.

speakers being overwhelmed - when you do the setup calibration the system will adjust speaker level to where it should be. you can always run it a little hot (add dB if you like). since it mostly used for limited ambient effects so it is not competing with the other speakers all the time.

amp power - as noted above the system calibrates all channels the the amount of power on each channel is largely irrelevant.
Did you mean 100hz to 10kHz :unsure: ?
 
most of what you assume is incorrect and way off base.

size of atmos speaker - atmos is not full spectrum, it is limited to about 100-110hz (low end) so having huge speakers is not an advantage, it is a waste of money.

speakers being overwhelmed - when you do the setup calibration the system will adjust speaker level to where it should be. you can always run it a little hot (add dB if you like). since it mostly used for limited ambient effects so it is not competing with the other speakers all the time.

amp power - as noted above the system calibrates all channels the the amount of power on each channel is largely irrelevant.

I find this reply rather confusing if not wrong.

First, all Atmos channels (surrounds and heights) are full bandwitdh.
The content on each channel may be different, as per the mixing done. You configure bass management for all speakers the same way you do for the frontal or surround speakers.
If a speaker is better the sound will be also better, either surround or height.

You say "the amount of power on each channel is largely irrelevant". Again, that's rather confusing. If that would be true, why not use this $1.00 (One US dollar) power amps:?
Amazon.com: Acxico 5Pcs Mini PAM8403 DC 5V Power Audio Amplifier Board Digital Power Amp Module 2 Channel 3W+3W Volume Control with Potentiometer : Electronics
 
most of what you assume is incorrect and way off base.

size of atmos speaker - atmos is not full spectrum, it is limited to about 100-110hz (low end) so having huge speakers is not an advantage, it is a waste of money.

speakers being overwhelmed - when you do the setup calibration the system will adjust speaker level to where it should be. you can always run it a little hot (add dB if you like). since it mostly used for limited ambient effects so it is not competing with the other speakers all the time.

amp power - as noted above the system calibrates all channels the the amount of power on each channel is largely irrelevant.
If that was true, I'd think all you'd hear would be the thumb thumb thumb of bass notes 😕
 
Just mention that, although it is often said that the content of the height speakers in Atmos is usually of a lower level, perhaps this is not necessarily the case when it comes to Atmos mixes in Music that use the height positions in a discrete way.

It all depends if you will use your theater mainly for films or also to listening music.

Many recent Music Atmos mixes are using good enough content for the height locations/speakers. Either in physical (Blu-ray/downloads) formats or streaming (Tidal, Apple, Amazon??), we start to have some increasing amount of music titles in Dolby Atmos that, for me, it helps to amortize the good invest in good height speakers.
I guess I'll find out in the near future.
I put my Atmos ceiling speakers up a couple years back. At that time I was just dipping my beak to see how things would shake out and used the 4 speakers I had from a Klipsch HT500 system I got a long time ago for a 5.1 computer room system, but never got around to using. I only been able to hear them with movies, a small amount of Atmos music disc releases and normal sources upsampled via my pre/pro. They are small speakers with only a 2.5" woofer and small horn loaded tweeters but came with wall mounting brackets that made the ceiling install easy. There's 2 Adcom GFA 535 II's at 60+wpc handing powering duties for the 4 top channels so they get plenty of juice. I didn't know what to expect but so far I've been quite pleased with how they worked out Atmos SQ wise. I think I'm going to grab a Apple TV box to get Atmos streaming going here and if I detect them running out of gas I'll post it. I believe the Atmos designers always knew people weren't about to start hanging K-Horn from their ceilings and the system has designed in DR limitations. I don't play things at ear bleed levels any more, action movies get played much louder than most music. I haven't run into any dynamic issues using these small speakers but time will tell, now that the wires are there changing out the speakers won't be too bad if I should decide.
hdt-500-sat-nogrille_635042238108610000_medium.jpg
 
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