I just finished an upgrade from 7.2 to 7.2.4 this summer and I am a big fan of Klipsch speakers. When I saw that they made Dolby Atmos speakers I was hooked!. I have a cathedral ceiling in my living/listening room. My room is setup with the highest point running across the middle of the room in front of me. I have a beamed ceiling that has a large main beam running along the highest point length wise and then 4 more beams on each side that run from the low sides up to the high middle beam. My original idea was to use the Klipsch RP-500SA speakers for ceiling speakers and mount them against the beams so that they would be firing straight down towards the floor. I could take advantage of the wedge shaped of the speaker to cancel the slant of cathedral ceiling so they'd fire straight down. The layout of the smaller beams would allow placement of the four speakers into a box in front and towards the middle of my listening position. After researching Dolby Atmos installations, I learned that my idea wouldn't be a recommended setup. So my first test of the RP-500SA were to use them as designed, as Atmos enabled speakers. I set them on top of my 4 main Klipsch RF-7ii and tried bouncing the sound off of the slanted ceiling. It barely worked and was unsatisfactory. I tried adjusting the angle the speakers fired at the ceiling but they never sounded convincing to me.
My second test was to set them up as front height and rear height speakers mounted high on the wall next to the ceiling and firing down into the room. The RP-500SA speakers have a switch on the back to configure the speaker as an Atmos upward firing speaker or as a height mounted surround speaker. (This switch will turn on a filter/crossover in the speaker that will add a notch in the frequencies and limit the frequencies output from the speaker, per Dolby specs, so that they would sound more like the reflected sound was coming from above your head.) With the switch in the surround position, they become full range (eh) satellite speakers. This front / rear height arrangement sounded exactly like that - the sounds were in FRONT (and slightly higher) of me. They did not sound like they were above me firing down. The rear heights did a good job of sounding above and behind me.
For my third test I thought I should try the speakers as Side Height mounted speakers. Again, they sounded exactly like were..... side high speakers firing down into the room.
Finally, I placed the front height speakers on the center room beam in front of me, firing down towards the listen positions. I put the rear heights back up on the rear wall behind the listening positions. This configuration closely matches the Dolby recommended 7.2.4 speaker placements and provides a definite above in front left/right and above behind left/right space.
The Dolby Atmos enabled speakers may work fairly well in an ideal environment. The ceiling has to be flat and smooth, at a certain height above the listeners head. The Atmos enabled speakers have to be sitting at a certain height off of the floor and they need to be placed around the listening position so that the reflected sound comes from behind and in front of you..... lots of ifs... Using the speakers as front/side height speakers would probably be the easiest setup.
David H
