Need Atmos Speaker Options

[davidl81]

I am thinking about adding Atmos speakers to our living room setup while I am upgrading our TV.  There are a few issues.  The biggest one is the ceiling is 15' tall and I really don't want to add in ceiling speakers in this room (mostly because of how hard its going to be to run the speaker wire into the attic from where the AVR sits).

So I have kind of settled on maybe just going the reflective speaker route.  Well normally you just place the reflective speaker on top of your normal speakers, but there is the next rub, I have Martin Logans with no flat space to lay speakers on.  As you can see in this picture I can wall mount some speakers (wall to this point are even pre-wired), but I can't really find a wall mount Atmos reflective speaker.  Anyone have a suggestion?

(For size reference that is a 75" TV on the wall)

[ttocs]

Reflective is really not going to work well with a high ceiling. Maybe it could work "ok" if reflective speakers were mounted way up high, close to the ceiling, but still, not a good starting point.

But, let's consider something here, bear with me please.
What is the distance from your seating to the front wall?
What is the distance from your seating to the rear wall?
Knowing this you can calculate the height that a speaker "should" be located if used for Front/Rear Tops in a Dolby setup. With a high ceiling such as yours, you should be fine mounting on the front wall, and maybe the rear wall, with the ceiling height working for you instead of against you.

An example assuming a 42 inch floor to ear dimension.
If your seating for the MLP is 10 feet from the front wall, the speakers would need to be mounted 13.5 feet high (10 feet away and 10 feet above ear height). If the MLP is 12 feet from the wall, then the speakers would be mounted in the corner where ceiling meets wall to get close to the 45º angle. If the seating is more than 12 feet from the wall then the angle is lower, but this is still better than using reflective speakers.

Here's a Dolby diagram.


And for the record, because my ceiling is also my roof (cathedral ceiling), I mounted my speakers to the surface of the 1 inch thick plaster ceiling and ran the speaker wire exposed and painted same as ceiling. I will not cut into the roof cavity and compromise the insulation (I live in cold Winter area and don't want any more ice dams on the roof).

[marcl]

May 3, 2023 21:11:25 GMT -5 ttocs said:

Reflective is really not going to work well with a high ceiling. Maybe it could work "ok" if reflective speakers were mounted way up high, close to the ceiling, but still, not a good starting point.

But, let's consider something here, bear with me please.
What is the distance from your seating to the front wall?
What is the distance from your seating to the rear wall?
Knowing this you can calculate the height that a speaker "should" be located if used for Front/Rear Tops in a Dolby setup. With a high ceiling such as yours, you should be fine mounting on the front wall, and maybe the rear wall, with the ceiling height working for you instead of against you.

An example assuming a 42 inch floor to ear dimension.
If your seating for the MLP is 10 feet from the front wall, the speakers would need to be mounted 13.5 feet high (10 feet away and 10 feet above ear height). If the MLP is 12 feet from the wall, then the speakers would be mounted in the corner where ceiling meets wall to get close to the 45º angle. If the seating is more than 12 feet from the wall then the angle is lower, but this is still better than using reflective speakers.

Here's a Dolby diagram.


And for the record, because my ceiling is also my roof (cathedral ceiling), I mounted my speakers to the surface of the 1 inch thick plaster ceiling and ran the speaker wire exposed and painted same as ceiling. I will not cut into the roof cavity and compromise the insulation (I live in cold Winter area and don't want any more ice dams on the roof).

Exactly!   And the other issues with the bouncy speakers .... It would only work if the ceiling is perfectly flat, and I assume a ceiling that high is not;  even if it was flat, it would be pretty difficult to aim the up-firing speakers precisely enough to get separate imaging from them way back down at the seats; with the distance required for the sound to travel an extra 20+ feet, you'd need a LOT of power in those speakers; and Dirac doesn't work with the bouncy speakers.  It seems the only option other than hanging speakers from the ceiling is to go with the front and rear height approach that ttocs describes.