Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion HiFi & HT Chat Which speakers matter most for Dolby Atmos?

Grappling with the complexity of the latest suround sound options, Atmos, etc.

And ignoring domestic limitations and technical interfaces...

If one is starting from a convention 5.1 DD/DTS capable cinema installation (Fl, FR, C, Sub, RL, RR), which additonal speakers are most important to getting the effects of Dolby Atmos material, and is their positional allocation consistent with DD/DTS installations?

Are the various extra overhead effects speakers even necessary or is the sound quality in 5.1 good enough to show what Atmos can do?

The Atmos setup (based on reading a sample User Manual from Marantz for their Cinema 50 product) seems to emphasise the side positioning of the surround speakers, whilst I have run my rears (in a 5.1 setup) from the "rear" output of the processor. Is this an important difference and one which should be resolved by repositioning my rears to the side for Atmos?

And the side/rear conundrum introduces another variable. Should the sides or rears be the more capable speaker?

Thanks in advance for your collective wisdom.

You don't list your system so it is a bit difficult to presage your options. Personally, I prefer DTS to Dolby but have Blu-ray discs with all three formats.

Once the movie is on and I get immersed in the action etc I'm not aware of any sonic differences. (but I do quite like the THX, DD, DA sound demo's that you occasionally get)

I suggest the volume of each channel will make a noticeable difference but I keep mine at reference level as installed by AudioImages. However, I come from the 'as the sound engineer recorded it' school of thought.

I don't suppose this is of any help whatsoever.

Not far from N London if you would like a demo of mine.

Thanks @spinaltap I had read that publication - too generic, hence I tried with a specific processor to little avail.

And thanks @IanP but I am looking for real world Atmos-specific experience rather than "basic" ( ) DD/DTS. My system is similar to yours.

The idea of spending considerable ££££ (and domestic brownie points) on a full room make-over to find there is little sonic* benefit (in my home room, not in a dealer demo installation) over my existing does not appeal. So my proposed strategy would be to purchase an Atmos-capable processor and connect the 5.1 channels to my Meridian processor analogue inputs and set the volume at 87. Then control the volume via the third-party processor which would also decode and power the extra channels. That gives a sound basis for jumping off or for going full installation Atmos.

Hence my questions.



* This is not about SQ but the cinematic sound effects so if 5.1 Atmos is similar to 5.1 DD/DTS then the exercise would be pointless.

My suggestion; contact your nearest friendly Meridian/Trinnov dealer. Borrow a Meridian 271 and Trinnov Altitude CI to home-audition them in place of your existing processor.

Then, without any doubt, you can authentically assess the difference Trinnov Optimizer can make to your existing 5.1 system.

Hi Gianni

I think room dimensions do come into it. Maybe start by excluding speaker positions that you can't accommodate.
I've help with a couple of Atmos builds and they have all had ceiling speakers that have added to the experience. I'm sure you're aware that there a multiple Atmos layout standards.

Cheers
Tom

Gianni, I suggest watching The Real Reason Dolby Atmos Disappoints that answers your questions on why Atmos may or may not work for you, compared to installing an Atmos system that actually delivers.

If done correctly you're in a sound bubble in which the speakers disappear. I’ve used the vids from these guys

I utilised AI (mostly Gemini) to detail/measure every facet of my listening room, including the electronics being used, where my chairs are located and their distance from the screen.

AI subsequently indicated where on the ceiling my overhead speakers should be installed to provide the optimum Atmos hemisphere according to Dolby guidelines.

It then provided the details to dial into my AVP to blend the passive overhead speakers with my digital active bed speakers.

I agree with Rick7; my Atmos setup can, with the right disc, produce a 3D bubble which is just amazing to sit within. How much of that is down to speaker quality / location / AV processor, I'll leave to wiser heads to explain.

Thanks all for your very helpful insights and references.

My take-aways from all those and my own further research may be simplified in the pragmatic contexts of my (relatively constrained) room, my budget and my system thus:

(1) Dolby Atmos is no better than Dolby Digital in a conventional 5.1 system

(2) Dolby Atmos is all about the overhead effects, thus it requires overhead speakers (or speakers that bounce sound off the ceiling)

(3) The minimum Dolby Atmos extension is a two speaker overhead system but four speakers are preferable

(4) Positioning those 2/4 speakers may or may not be critical depending on how clever the Atmos processor is

(5) In my room, the overhead speakers can realistically only go in one arrangement

(6) Even after all that it may not be the next big thing


My DSP8000/DSP5500s, being so tall, do add a certain height to everything and can create a nice sound bubble. In the past I had some KEF TDM34s as side speakers mounted high on the wall which added a less-than-perfect phasey height effect and were moved on.

So perhaps Atmos is not for me but maybe I will try some elevated side speakers again...

Buying the right AVR is more than Atmos movies. Buy wisely (Trinnov+Roon+Tidal) for the added benefit of native 5.1 and Atmos music.

Even so, regarding height channels, this is from a Widescreen Review (May/June 24j of the Storm ISR Fusion. That is, don't buy an AVR without AuroMatic...

Movie studios have decided to cheat the public by rarely using any of the capabilities built into Dolby Atmos or DTS:X when they create immersive soundtracks for theatrical or home movies. Doing that properly requires putting one or more sound engineers at mixing consoles for days at a time while they work out what sounds should appear in height channels, what sounds should be in ear-level channels, and what sounds should be in BOTH ear-level and height channels. Dolby and DTS both allow sophisticated placement and movement of objects in 3D space, but you might hear that done properly in one out of 50 movie soundtracks, and then it might last for the duration of one helicopter fly-over and never again during an entire two-hour movie. It’s quite pathetic. And the studios don’t do any better with DTS:X mixing. It’s not the fault of Dolby Atmos or DTS:X that their soundtracks are so terrible. The problem is 100 percent created by the studios being interested only in putting ‘Dolby Atmos’ or ‘DTS:X’ on the boxes so they will sell without putting any actual intelligence into their ersatz Immersive Sound soundtracks.

With streaming, there’s even LESS ‘name recognition’ of Immersive Sound. Streaming programming also never gets actual sound engineers. Instead, for Dolby Atmos soundtracks, they appear to put the original 5.1 or 7.1 mix through Dolby Surround (a terrible sounding upmixer that makes everything sound worse) to upmix the 5.1 or 7.1 to 11.1. Then they encode those 11 fake and bad-sounding channels as though they are 11 discrete channels created by sound engineers at the console. Except studios don’t do proper Dolby Atmos or DTS:X soundtracks more than one or two out of 100 titles. DTS:X soundtracks happen the same way, only those are upmixed through Neural:X. Neural:X sounds a little better than Dolby Surround, but not much. To hear these movies with actual decent Immersive Sound, you have to forget the DTS:X or Dolby Atmos decoding completely, and use the AuroMatic upmixer instead. It is a revelation. You simply shouldn’t bother with Immersive Sound in 2024 if you don’t have AuroMatic in your system.

In Star Trek Beyond, there is a scene when 100s or 1,000s of one-man ships swarm Enterprise and gain entry through the hull by making man-sized holes. Once they get inside Enterprise, fighting breaks out all over the ship. Using native decoding, the height channels are silent for this entire boarding scene except for the computer voice saying “Red Alert” several times through in the height channels. There is literally no other sound in the height channels. Yet if you were there on the ship while that was happening, you would be surrounded by the sounds of combat and weapons echoing off the ceiling everywhere you would be immersed in that sound, but as released by the studios, you get terrible, dumb, awful, and useless Immersive Sound. But turn off Dolby Atmos or DTS:X and switch to AuroMatic and you experience a revelation of realistic on-ship combat and the “Red Alert” announcements remain in the height channels.