Poll: Atmos Music: Are You Going to Listen at Home?

[andi-999]

just get upfiring speakers

Does everyone know why the mirrors on an 18 wheeler say "If you can't see me I can't see you"?

It's because light waves (photons) travel in an exact straight line.

Sound waves do the same so if you reflect 45 degrees upward towards the ceiling the sound waves will bounce back to you at the opposite 45 degree angle (angle of incidence) and arrive at your ear almost as if they have been from ceiling mounted speakers.

Problem solved (thru the use of physics).

I tried first ATMOS with upfiring speakers. I think my room was well suited for that on paper, I have a concrete ceiling, 8.5 feet high. I bought Dolby certified upfiring speakers and tried for two days (different placement, different height etc). The experience was really underwhelming and rather distracting, actually. I tried music and movies. I sent those speakers back and installed two ceiling speakers. THAT did the trick! I think you can better save the money and stick to 5.1/7.1 if you cannot install ceiling speakers.

Cheers,
Andreas

 

[Scott65]

A while back I sat through an Atmos demo at a an electronics retailer here in the city, and I was completely wowed, and it was on a system with the upward firing type of speakers (which are apparently not even as good as the ceiling mounted ones) and as someone who's really picky about imaging and localisation, I wasn't left wanting at all. The demo included some bits from a nature documentary where a magpie flew toward you and as it went "over" you it squawked, and the effect was so realistic I involuntarily recoiled downward slightly and looked up. There was also a music video for some electronica group that was fully discrete with stuff ping-ponging and swirling around like some modern-day Enoch Light mix or something.

That is 'music to my ears' as I am thinking of getting upward firing speakers.

 

[jimfisheye]

Jim, I'm not sure TTN will win you over. The music is mainly front-centric. There are theatrical moments that are very Atmosy. This video might help you with your question, though my hunch is nothing exists in Atmos, right now, that is quite what you're looking for. I could be wrong!

That's kind of the impression I was getting. Also hope we're wrong!
I feel like this whole 3D thing is digressing into movie soundtrack focus right out of the gate and no one is making any demo worth music focused mixes.

You know. A front-centric mostly stereo mix with some ambience/audience in the rears... is better that just a stereo mix! Because everything is better in surround.
So it's not that I'm hating on any of that or anything.

Just, you know. Someone starts talking about hanging speakers from the ceiling and trying to sell this... Well, step up to the plate son and lets hear a wild mix then! Right?

Still going to pursue this of course because I'm crazy and the only thing better than more channels is even more channels than that!

I think that plugin I found initially is that new proprietary NoTools format too unfortunately.
Protools is still hanging on by the skin of their teeth because they had their foot in the door for movie soundtrack mixing. Their feature set is 15 years old now. Editing sucks. A bug-riddled crashy unstable mess. Many groups of new hire engineers away from what was actually Protools 15 years ago. But those movie studios are a big deal and all the engineers know the software. Dolby always liked acting proprietary too.

See, that's another sign this is going to be wasted... er, 'focused' on movies.

The BBC upgraded to Reaper though. But now I digress as usual.

 

[edisonbaggins]

That's kind of the impression I was getting. Also hope we're wrong!
I feel like this whole 3D thing is digressing into movie soundtrack focus right out of the gate and no one is making any demo worth music focused mixes.

You know. A front-centric mostly stereo mix with some ambience/audience in the rears... is better that just a stereo mix! Because everything is better in surround.
So it's not that I'm hating on any of that or anything.

Just, you know. Someone starts talking about hanging speakers from the ceiling and trying to sell this... Well, step up to the plate son and lets hear a wild mix then! Right?

Still going to pursue this of course because I'm crazy and the only thing better than more channels is even more channels than that!

I think that plugin I found initially is that new proprietary NoTools format too unfortunately.
Protools is still hanging on by the skin of their teeth because they had their foot in the door for movie soundtrack mixing. Their feature set is 15 years old now. Editing sucks. A bug-riddled crashy unstable mess. Many groups of new hire engineers away from what was actually Protools 15 years ago. But those movie studios are a big deal and all the engineers know the software. Dolby always liked acting proprietary too.

See, that's another sign this is going to be wasted... er, 'focused' on movies.

The BBC upgraded to Reaper though. But now I digress as usual.

Jim, just to clarify, I'm not saying there are no 3-D mixes with discrete info in the heights. There are (watch the video, wink wink).
However, IIRC, you've stated you don't dig electronic music, so that's going to knock out the most discrete titles, at this time.
At least in Atmos. I'll make some recommendations for Auro-3D soon.

 

[jimfisheye]

Upfiring speakers?!

Yeah, no. Doesn't work.

The ceiling would literally have to be a perfect reflection for the audio band. Which is impossible. You'd make reverb.
The first reflection in reverb reflects back to you with highs and lows attenuated from absorption into the material. It's midrange bouncing back. Then the further bouncing around is the reverb part and it gets muddier as it bounces around the room.

Even if you thought you were going to get tricky and delayed the other channels to time align with the first reflection. (Which would be manditory BTW) Still no.

The notion for doing something silly like this actually comes from some of these scam products like shitbars! Some idiot actually put little 2" TV speakers in the top and side of those stupid things and they're telling people it's "surround". It is not. Just adding comb filtering and reverb and in an unpleasant and unmusical way.

 

[jimfisheye]

Jim, just to clarify, I'm not saying there are no 3-D mixes with discrete info in the heights. There are (watch the video, wink wink).
However, IIRC, you've stated you don't dig electronic music, so that's going to knock out the most discrete titles, at this time.
At least in Atmos. I'll make some recommendations for Auro-3D soon.

Sure.
I like some electronica.

 

[edisonbaggins]

Sure.
I like some electronica.

Cool. Somebody made comments recently that they're really hoping for mainstream pop/rock to be mixed super-discrete up in the heights. Thought it was you. My memory is shit.
If you can handle electronica you're in good shape.

 

[bluelightning]

The two music centric titles that are really good, and not mentioned thus far are the Galvany Street and the Bohemian Rhapsody 4k atmost track for the live aid concert. I don't have atmos yet so can't say how much better they are than the 5.1

 

[Blrac]

Upfiring speakers?!

Yeah, no. Doesn't work.

The ceiling would literally have to be a perfect reflection for the audio band. Which is impossible. You'd make reverb.
The first reflection in reverb reflects back to you with highs and lows attenuated from absorption into the material. It's midrange bouncing back. Then the further bouncing around is the reverb part and it gets muddier as it bounces around the room.

Even if you thought you were going to get tricky and delayed the other channels to time align with the first reflection. (Which would be manditory BTW) Still no.

The notion for doing something silly like this actually comes from some of these scam products like shitbars! Some idiot actually put little 2" TV speakers in the top and side of those stupid things and they're telling people it's "surround". It is not. Just adding comb filtering and reverb and in an unpleasant and unmusical way.

I think you are expecting Atmos height speakers to be the same as regular speakers. That isn't the purpose of them, at least not yet. IMO it is mainly just to displace sound into another area of the room, not necessarily for the remarkable sound quality of everything else. However, with decent speakers it can blend rather well. At least mine do. And of course the timing is factored into this blending since I have the upfiring reflective speakers. They dont jump out, but mix in with the rest of the music I have listened to so far. Perhaps something with sound coming from those speakers only may reveal shortcomings, but nothing I have heard is exclusively just from them.

Just wanted to share my observations to perhaps allay some of your concerns. You have to try it to know though. You may or may not like it the way I do and of course your system and environment are different than mine, but I think you may be pleasantly surprised. The only reason I would say to not try this would be financial reasons. Just my 2 cents.

 

[HomerJAU]

Regarding support for Atmos here on QQ: The poll clearly shows the vast majority that’s voted support Atmos Music.

Quite a number of members viewing this thread have not voted (yet) so maybe they’re not going to listen to Atmos Music?

 

[HomerJAU]

I think you are expecting Atmos height speakers to be the same as regular speakers.

I bought ceilings speakers with same sensitivity as my others: 89db which will help to level match at any input level.

 

[Jeffrey Michael]

Having experienced both upfiring and ceiling speakers for Atmos, I feel upfiring is almost as good, but is a lot easier to screw up.

 

[Jeffrey Michael]

Here is a good ‘short’ explanation of Object-based Audio:

In traditional "channel-based" audio, music is recorded with a listening device in mind; for example, a 5.1 home theater with five speakers and one subwoofer. Object-based Audio encodes audio sources as objects with meta-data that describes the microphone's placement in 3D space.

 

[jimfisheye]

I think you are expecting Atmos height speakers to be the same as regular speakers. That isn't the purpose of them, at least not yet. IMO it is mainly just to displace sound into another area of the room, not necessarily for the remarkable sound quality of everything else. However, with decent speakers it can blend rather well. At least mine do. And of course the timing is factored into this blending since I have the upfiring reflective speakers. They dont jump out, but mix in with the rest of the music I have listened to so far. Perhaps something with sound coming from those speakers only may reveal shortcomings, but nothing I have heard is exclusively just from them.

Just wanted to share my observations to perhaps allay some of your concerns. You have to try it to know though. You may or may not like it the way I do and of course your system and environment are different than mine, but I think you may be pleasantly surprised. The only reason I would say to not try this would be financial reasons. Just my 2 cents.

They're actual channels that you specifically mix to. Not all mixes will use them but some will. And it will be intentional content that is an element of the mix.
Now, it may be that faking it or kludging it sorta kinda gives a similar effect to what the mix would do with those channels. There would be typically ambient or reverberate content in those channels. And that's not just completely out to lunch. So... you get the cobbled stuff like up firing speakers and it works out with a kind of similar sound. However, it would not strictly be 1:1 reproducing the mix.

You wouldn't typically mix drums to the height channels. But you could. And a to spec installation would reproduce it. (hmmm... Motley Crue concert with the flying drum cage right?)

 

[J. PUPSTER]

First a basic 7.1.4 overhead setup.

And the many various layouts from the Dolby Atmos page (click each diagram for a detailed look.):
https://www.dolby.com/us/en/speaker-setup-guides/index.html

 

[Blrac]

What I meant is that despite the fact that they have sounds specifically targetted to them, they aren't a full size speaker, or even a bookshelf speaker (in most cases). Therefore the sound produced will not be the same as those type speakers, even though the speaker level may be the same or similar, the quality of sound is not going to be what a bigger speaker can produce. Don't expect that. Expect to hear sound from the area in which they are placed (or angled to reflect) and that is the extent of it at this point. That may get better in the future if this takes off and the mixes become more immersive though. And sorry if I say this incorrectly, but I hope you get the jist of it--the Atmos mix is done independent of the surround mix. Meaning sounds are specifically meant for those channels only, not any other speaker or part of that mix. Because of that, the speakers dont necessarily have to be any bigger than what they are marketing now. It is more for effect and depth of sound than it is sound quality, imo. I hope this clarifies what I meant, and what I have researched and observed. After all that, I still stand by the fact that money should really be the only reason not to add this.

 

[J. PUPSTER]

A question I have is- do the users have full balance control through their AVRs for individual channels, especially for music, not movies?

 

[HomerJAU]

This is what I’ve used (6” with plus minus 3db range down to 65Hz) for the front ceilings and 8” for rear ceilings (down to 45Hz). Extremely easy to mount. No screws.

https://www.focal.com/sites/www.foc...alog/document/300icw6_specification-sheet.pdf

 

[J. PUPSTER]

This is what I’ve used (6” with plus minus 3db range down to 65Hz) for the front ceilings and 8” for rear ceilings (down to 45Hz). Extremely easy to mount. No screws.

https://www.focal.com/sites/www.foc...alog/document/300icw6_specification-sheet.pdf

Looks good Homer, what do they mean by rotating tweeters?

And it sounds like you may not need an angled overhead like this Paradigm?
https://www.paradigm.com/en/in-ceiling-speakers/sig-15r-30-v3

 

[HomerJAU]

High frequencies are directional so I’ve rotated the tweaters to face the middle of my seating positions.

Edit: They also tilt to about 30 degrees off vertical.