nacthenud

No, "Atmos enabled" speakers refers to speakers that are designed for bouncing sound off the ceiling, in lieu of having actual overhead speakers, but they are only one way of getting Dolby Atmos height channels - just one of the possible ways. Ideally, you would have speakers installed directly overhead. In listening to the creators of the tech talk about it, they came up with the bouncing off the ceiling idea because they realized that the majority of consumers would not be in a position to install ceiling speakers. I'm using the alternative of speakers mounted high and pointed down towards the listening area, which is another way of doing it. Not ideal, but the best option in my room, where I cannot install in the ceiling and the ceiling is uneven, making bouncing sound problematic. The Dolby Atmos protocols can actually accept up to 10 height channel speakers. The idea is that the AVR uses the placement of the speakers wherever they may be and attempts to use them to create 3D object-based sound with whatever speakers you have, placed wherever they''re placed. Some setups will allow this to be more effective than others, but it's flexible and works with what you have. Examples below: The last one is using "Atmos Enabled" speakers, but all above options are examples of setups for Atmos.

Watched Deepwater Horizon last night. Wow, it was totally a demo disc for Atmos. Very impressive. Then I went back and forth on scenes from the Matrix UHD vs the old Blu Ray release. The Atmos mix is definitively, hands down superior in every way. So good. Really came out of last night feeling like the hours of research and hours of setup and large pile of money was worth it, so yay for that.

So far, they're pretty awesome, though I've only got to spend a tiny bit of time with them so far.

Thanks very much. I own every one of those, so I'll have to give them a rewatch soon!

Follow-up thread with pictures of everything set up. Thanks again to everyone who offered some advice in this thread.

On Tuesday December 5th, at 12:37am after 18 hours of labour over 3 days, my new home theatre was born. It is healthy and quite lively and weighed in at 239.8lbs. At the heart of this new sound system is an Onkyo TX-NR787 Receiver powering the Atmos and DTS-X capable 5.1.4 setup. Centre Channel is a Polk S35, with twin Polk S60 tower speakers for the Left and Right Channels. Surrounds are handled by Polk S20 Bookshelf speakers and Subwoofer is a beefy Polk HTS 12. Since they all fall within the same “Signature” line, they are nicely timber matched. For the height channels, I repurposed the satellite speakers from the old Sony HT-DDW795 system that was my previous home theatre for the last decade and wall and ceiling mounted them angled towards the central seating positions. The home theatre system is a nice compliment to the 65” LG B7 OLED 4K HDR TV, so that the benefits of 4K UHD Blu-rays can be fully realized in both video AND audio. The other children are excited to enjoy the new 3D positional soundscape, and we hope they will have many happy memories together over the coming years! I thought I would share some photos of the man cave, because everyone loves to share photos of their newborns. Behind the couch has a good chunk of the movie and game collection, though far from all. 95% of my games are digital downloads these days though. The movies are generally ordered alphabetically within genre - unless they are part of a series, in which case they are grouped chronologically with the series together, such as the MCU movies or Disney animated movies or X-Men movies. If anyone has some suggestions for great Atmos or DTS-X movies to put the system through its paces, let me know in this thread! Thanks

So, to update this tale, my annual bonus came in substantially larger than expected, so I had my wife's blessing to get some speakers as well. Took advantage of some sales to get a Polk S35 for centre channel, S60's for L/R and S20's for rear surround. I will use the old L/R & Rear L/R speakers from the old HTIB as height speakers for now. Some components are a week out in arriving... gonna be a long week... Now, I just need to do some measuring and figure out what gauge of speaker wire to get... I've never purchased speaker wire before... yay, more research...

Thanks for the info. I will definitely keep the Polk notes in mind next year when I'm evaluating speakers to fill out/replace the existing ones. The Monoprice Monolith 10" sub looks good, but it is over $900 in Canada which is more than twice what I'm paying for the Polk.

I would love to pick up some additional speakers, but the budget is already spent with the receiver and sub. New speakers will have to wait until next year. EDIT: I did some poking around online on that Klipsh sub and the Polk I've ordered seems to be better reviewed for both sound and reliability. I appreciate the suggestion though.

Thanks!

Thanks, I just ordered those on your suggestion (though they're $15 Canadian from Amazon.ca - lame). I looked under one of the speakers and it said 6ohms, but the receiver seemed to indicate it could work with lower ohm speakers (it says 100W per channel to 8ohm speakers and 220W per channel to 6ohm speakers). The owners manual also makes note of a setting to turn on if you're using a speaker with 4 ohms. From the Manual online: Set the impedance (Ω) of the connected speakers. "4ohms": When any of the connected speakers have 4 Ω or more to less than 6 Ω impedance "6ohms": When the connected speakers all have 6 Ω or more impedance My plan was to add ceiling speakers next year and then upgrade the center channel speaker after that, then the L & R speakers and finally the rear surround speakers. You're suggesting maybe this isn't a good way to go though if the speakers aren't designed to be used together?

My biggest concern is that there's some obvious error with my plan I'm just not aware of. Like, for instance, I'm going to get the new receiver and they won't work with the old HTIB speakers because of something I should know and don't.

That's a good thought and it gives me pause. However, I would generally plug consoles directly into my TV anyway to avoid any added input lag. I would then pass the audio through to the receiver via ARC. Waiting to get a 9.2 receiver with HDMI 2.1 sounds like it would be a big step up in cost. I don't expect to be replacing my TV for another 7-10 years.

I appreciate those comments. I did look at some cheaper receivers. The problem with that Denon receiver is that it only does 7.2, while the Onkyo I'm looking at is 9.2. As a result, the Denon could never do the 5.2.4 setup I'm shooting to eventually have. It would top out at 5.2.2, which I understand can't create the same pinpoint 3D sound placement that a 5.2.4 can achieve. Also, the cheapest I've seen that one in Canada is $515 on sale from the normal $800, so it's only $185 cheaper than the Onkyo, which doesn't buy me a lot of speaker.

While I follow TV tech pretty closely, I have always neglected the sound part of my setup and not really put much time and care into my home theatre audio setup. Not having much experience in this area, I'm hoping those in the know can tell me if there are any fatal flaws in my plans here. Thanks in advance. Years ago, I purchased a cheap clearance HTIB (Sony STR-K790) and have continued using that to this day - connected via optical. It doesn't even have a single HDMI port on it - in or out. Now as I'm enjoying 4K UHD Blu-ray movies on my Panasonic DMP-UB900 and LG 65B7 OLED, I'm wishing I could enjoy the Dolby Atmos and DTS-X immersive sound experience. I don't have a huge budget to play with. The wife has given her blessing on $1,200 (Canadian, not US) for Christmas this year. I've started looking at various soundbar solutions, but I do not have an ideal space for bouncing sounds off walls and ceiling. The rec room where everything is situated has lots of other stuff in it. Coat racks, piano, uneven ceiling a curved wet bar, etc. My thought then, is that a proper 5.2.4 system will be far more effective in this sort of environment. Getting such a system within my budget seems to be not very feasible, so my new plan is to play the long game and build the system up in steps. Firstly, I feel like the place to start is with a new receiver with the ability to drive all of those speakers, decode the Atmos and DTS-X signals and connect to my gear via HDMI, including ARC. My plan is to get the receiver and connect it to my existing speakers and then for future birthdays and Christmases I can add on additional speakers for the height channels and then eventually upgrade the original speakers. To that end, I've found a Black Friday deal on an Onkyo TX-NR787 receiver, which usually retails in Canada for $1,000 - $1,200 on sale for $700. This receiver seems to be generally well-reviewed for it's price range and has everything I will need to eventually have a serviceable 5.2.4 setup. The only snag I can see with it is that I don't believe it will work with the subwoofer that I already have with the STR-K790, since it is passively powered, using the same speaker wire connection as the other speakers and it looks to me like the Onkyo TX-NR787 will require me to have a powered sub. So my thought on the sub is to get a POLK HTS 12, which also seems to be well-reviewed for its price range and is also on a Black Friday sale for $450 (down from the normal $650 CDN). I'm thinking this should keep me under the $1,200 budget and give me a working 5.1 setup with the ability to expand into Dolby Atmos and DTS-X in the next couple of years. Am I missing anything crucial? Is this going to work? Am I going about it all wrong?

Lol, I guess I'm a pretty middle-of-the-road kind of guy.

I generally enjoy cut scenes. Depends on the type of game, or course. I enjoy cinematic games, like Uncharted. Those sorts of cut scenes are awesome in my books. A nice mix of cinematic cut scenes sprinkled into a story-based game really elevates the game for me. The Halo games and Horizon Zero Dawn have a nice balance. Now if I'm playing something like Rocket League or Tetris, no, I just want the gameplay and don't get in my way with anything else... but great cut scenes in narrative games are great.

Train and review work of junior accountants in public practice.

Pan - 6.5/10 - It was decent. I thought Hugh Jackman did a great job. The actor playing Hook - not as strong. The tone seemed a bit all over the map. I enjoyed it, but it wasn't amazing.

Pan - I felt like the black levels and contrast could have been better, but the film does shine brightly when there are vivid colours and bright lights on screen... so it's a mixed bag.

I've heard good things about that disc, though don't have it myself. I'm in exactly the same boat

John Wick 2 - 8/10 - I really enjoyed the movie, though I feel like the first one was better. The action was fun. I wasn't sure about how I felt about the ending and whether events will lead to a better or worse John Wick 3 when it comes out next year... I guess I'll find out!

John Wick 2 - well, this was way more impressive than I expected. I'd heard it had some really nice scenes, but I didn't realize how many opportunities for nice HDR would present themselves through the movie. I expected it to be more about shadow detail - which is excellent - but there are lots of neon lights and light sources and shiny things throughout. Everything looks crisp and sharp. A very nice 4K UHD disc!

I would not expect so. In almost every instance the difference between HDR10 and Dolby Vision is nominal, where Dolby Vision cranks things up just a hair better than the HDR10. Were you watching it off a disc or streaming?

Boss Baby - While this is a razor sharp image with fantastic colour, the one thing working against it is that it is only a very marginal improvement over a very very competent standard blu ray disc. They do not really push the HDR to pop out specular highlights, of which there are many opportunities. Far from being a bad looking transfer, and still the best way to watch the movie, you're really not missing much if you just get the 1080p disc. Blade Runner 2049 - I finally got around to watching this. What a pristine transfer of a film where every scene features absolutely amazing cinematography. This movie just drips with vivid colour. WCG is put to good use in avoiding any banding in colour gradients. Shadow detail is phenomenal. Spectral highlights pop. This is a jaw-dropping movie.