I have a seated ear height (when reclined) of about 41 inches. So max recommended ceiling height is 11.7 feet (I'm surprised its so low). They assume ear level to be 3.9 feet (47 inches), which they claim is ear level for the average seated listener. There is a recommended ceiling height limitation of 3 x ear level. Here are some of the points I took from it:
Until that day, I'm moving back to good old 5.2.0.Click to expand.After reading the full document, I think I do understand it more, but in doing so I also think its even more restrictive than I first thought. If, one day, I can persuade "the household" to have proper wall mounted heights, then I'll give it a go then.
The small amount of benefit is outweighed by the cons listed above - plus they are all pretty ugly weird shapes to have in the lounge and need more amplification etc etc. In summary, and please I'm stressing here that these are the personal views of me (and partly my wife), the upfiring method is not for us. Funnily, upmixing of 2 channel source is probably better because it's so subtle what it sends to height. Yes, it gives this feeling of a bubble of more sound, but then I switch them back off and it is what I can only describe as "cleaner". It's not intelligent enough to take anything meaningful that should be "higher up" in the soundstage. Upmixing to me is mostly rubbish with them in any of the three positions. Many of them don't and seem to me like it was just some geezer randomly putting some sounds in the height channels - in some cases worse than using upmixer!ģ. Some (well less than half in my experience) Netflix Dolby Atmos (sort of, with DD+) sources work, such as "Blue Miracle". Proper Dolby Atmos and DTS:X Blu ray sources (I don't have any Auro 3D sources) work with all three setups, including Surround Dolby.Ģ. These are my conclusions, from my experiments.ġ. Then, I've tried them properly on top of the FL and FR (which is actually not permitted by "the household" but was allowed for a week's experiment). Then, I've tried front Dolby with them hidden behind FL and FR. I've tried Surround Dolby (as most of this thread). Sorry, I haven't updated this in a while now.Ī lot of experimentation has been made since. Again, we tried it with and without and it worked well. Oh and, just to add, can't really explain this one but with 2.0 sources (good example is Harper's Island) the up-mixing is also really good. Sometimes, it "lifts up" centre information and it almost bewilders you with a "how is it doing this?". General comment on Dolby Atmos though, the "bubble" is incredible. Either for DD or DTS sources, in our opinion. But with them as surrounds, it doesn't work at all. The up-mixers probably work if you have them at the front because it doesn't matter what front channel information it uses. We will use this for titles intended to be Dolby Atmos or DTS:X but not use the up-mixing. So glad that Denon allow the surround dolby format for.
Various Dolby Atmos titles, switching between 5.2.0 and 5.2.2 and it is brilliant. So, the next day, we had a play around on Netflix. We went back and played a couple of the scenes without the surround dolby switched on and wow it makes a big difference. "A sound bubble" that I've heard it described on here. Something magical that you can't explain. We actually gave up on the film after 25 minutes because we didn't like it. The next day we started "The Woman in the Window" on Netflix, which is in Dolby Atmos. However, I was kind of "what a waste of time laying those wires in".īUT. Just to add at this point, this was the first surround sound we've had for months, so in the new setup it was amazing and sounds great. We had to turn off up-mixing and go back to 5.2.0. Utterly disappointing, sounded like loads of the front channel information was coming from the rear. I ran two Audyssey's deliberately, one in 5.2.0 and one in 5.2.2 (with the Surround Dolby).įirst film was in DTS-HD MA on Blu-ray but with DTS up-mixing switched on.