Atmos speaker challenge

[mikoz]

Hi all,

I have a media room that's about 11x21 with 9 ft ceilings.  It was, until recently (see below) a 7.1 system with 2 subs  which was setup in 2006.   The rears are actually in-wall and the surrounds are hung from the side walls about 75% of the way back in the room.   The room also has a platform for the 2nd row of seats., which elevates the second row about 10 inches or so.    I have two rows of 3 media chairs.

At that time, before this object oriented audio stuff emerged,  the general guidance for these systems was to place the surrounds and rears above ear level, so the rears are about 4 feet from the ceiling and the surrounds are about 2 feet from the ceiling.  The surrounds are B&W's and are pretty large, and since the room is narrow I mounted them higher up since I didn't want people  hitting them when walking to the back of the room but I recognize this is kind of high, but it beats people knocking them off the wall as they sit down.  
I also have an LED fiber optic star array in the rear 2/3rds of the room. 

I recently got the RMC-1 and decided to try Atmos.  I added 2 SVS elevations to the front (Front heights), which was easy to do.  

But now the question about adding more... it's not so easy.  

First, I thought about wides, which are supported by the RMC-1., these would be easy to add but would be the same distance apart as the surrounds,  since both would be mounted on the same walls, only the wides would  obviously  be closer to the fronts.     But from what I've read there's not much value in wides anymore, correct?    

How about Rear heights?  Well, the existing rears (in wall) are only about 4 feet from the ceiling.  And the room isn't huge.   Is this really worth it?  

What about in ceiling rears. I don't want to do this due to star ceiling and the fact that I'd be again cutting more large holes... but it's a possibility.  

Is it even worth adding more in such a room?    And if so, would you add in-ceiling rears or add them above the existing rears or go with Wides?  

 

[Casey Leedom]

I say it's time for a new constellation view for your Star Ceiling!

Casey

[mikoz]

Feb 1, 2019 12:23:00 GMT -5 Casey Leedom said:

I say it's time for a new constellation view for your Star Ceiling!

Casey

I literally drilled 350 tiny holes in the ceiling, it was not fun.  But it looks really cool.  I didn't bother to actually create anything realistic in terms of a constellation, it's pretty random.  

But, still, the question remains, is it worth it to add  rear ceiling speakers (hardest to do as I have to cut around the fiber ceiling and most intrusive to the room.. it has enough holes as is, but possibly/probably best payoff)  or add wides (easy to do, but is this really even worth it) or add rear heights hung from the wall close to the ceiling (medium in terms  of difficult, questionable payoff since they are so close to the rears)?  
Is *any* of that even worth it given the room size and layout?  

[lrobertson]

It’s sounds like dts:x pro will always use wides at least with a neural x type of up mix for the beds which I hear is more important than even heights back in the I think it was audessey dsx days. Atmos is really hit and miss from what I hear but people love it it’s just will it bother you when they are not in full use... kind of hard to tell. Wides will probably grow more important in the future but you may get more immediate return with rear heights especially since we don’t know when or even if we get dts:x pro. I’m not talking from real world experience. You’d get a better answer speaking with people that have been dealing with these expanded layouts for years. The avsforum trinnov threads. If I were you I’d get the hard part done and add heights knowing it would be easy to add wides if you decide to later seeing as you have the RMC-1.