DTS:X and Neural:X Demo Results on the Denon AVR-X7200WA Receiver

[gene]

The wait is over. DTS:X is finally here and the Denon AVR-X7200W/WA has the distinction of being the first AVR to get the DTS:X firmware update. With our Denon X7200WA on-hand, we took DTS:X for a spin, providing the real story about its supported speaker layouts, and our listening impressions of DTS' next generation audio codec.

We also checked out DTS Neural:X, which coverts legacy content to 3D audio; & interactive dialogue control for up to 11.2 channels.

Read: Listening Evaluation of DTS:X on the Denon AVR-X7200WA Receiver

Have you upgraded to DTS:X yet? If so, please share your experiences in this thread and be sure to vote in our poll.

 

[Cos]

I have had DTS:X upgrade downloaded since 2/9 on my AV8802A. It was a free upgrade and I haven't had the chance to set up or test out. I will get to it, but I probably won't go through the hassle until their is more content.

 

[TheoN]

@Cos if you have the chance, you should play around with Neural:X. It's fantastic and a great intermediary step until more native content is out there.

 

[Latent]

Thanks for the review theo/gene.

It seems that it doesn't really know where your speaker is in the room and you just have a few options for type of overhead speaker position. So if you setup a surround left speaker it just assumes it is in the ideal position with no real adjustment options. In reality it could be anywhere from 80 to 120 degrees depending on room and maybe a different angle than the right speaker due to room limitations. Also surround speakers can be at ear level for Atmos or multichannel music setups or 2 feet above ear level for diffusion. Are there any options in the denon to set any of this?

Be interesting to see if yamaha has solved this in their rx-a3050 which has 3d position detection of speakers during auto mic setup. This is a feature not really useful without dts:x enabled it seems. And we don't know if it will actually be used by dts:x yet really.

The ability to make it output the sound out of virtual speakers in the ideal positions from our limited speaker positions would be a nice feature. I already use a basic version of this on my 5 year old yamaha setup with front presence speakers providing dialog lift to get the center channel up to my tv which works well.

In the future are we also going to see them adding even more channels now that dts:x let's them like supporting 7.1.8 by having 4 in ceiling speakers plus 4 high on wall presence speakers. Or just switchable setups where only some are driven depending on source and sound mode.

 

[TheoN]

@Latent That's correct. DTS:X in practice will be applied to one of the speaker layouts presented by your AVR. I do not believe that the RX-A3050 (and I may be wrong) has a 3D spacial microphone that can correlate an X Y and Z axis. It looks to me to be their standard YPAO microphone. If you have more info on that, please let me know and I'll take a look. There was nothing in my conversation with DTS directly to indicate otherwise. There will be no such thing as 3d position detection. DTS constantly refers to flexible layouts. You can't put your speakers anywhere and have DTS:X auto-configure itself.

Right now, even though DTS:X can scale (as can Atmos) you're limited to a maximum of 7.1.4. There is no support for anything more. Technically, with my Beale Street Audio layout, I could support 7.4.11 but there's no support for that right now. In fact, even though the Denon has 13 pre-outs, you can only use 11 at any one time so that the max is only 11.1 channels.

What's become pretty clear to me at this point is that what we actually see in practice is up to the manufacturers. Speaker and layout support is not a limitation of DTS:X.

 

[Latent]

Yeah the a3050 comes with the same simple mic but it also has a plastic triangle base with a shaft that allows 4 positions a foot apart to place the mic. You measure 4 times at the different mic positions and the delay differences give it 3d speaker position info.

Now you need to wait for them to sort out their firmware update and then you could test and compare denon and yamaha flagships with speakers placed in sub optimal positions to find out if 3d speaker pos info is used and useful.

 

[TheoN]

@Latent thanks for that. When I was with Yamaha this summer for the MusicCast announcement, I spoke with them about DTS:X. I asked them if there were plans for this type of spacial mapping and the conversation about a multi-axis microphone came up but it was very vague and no details. Thanks for sharing that pic. That's very helpful! I'd love to regroup with Yamaha and DTS:X on this.

 

[Scott M]

Ever since hearing Dolby Atmos in a movie theater a couple years back, I have been waiting to upgrade my 7.1 home theater. I almost jumped in when Atmos for home first came out, and I started looking at where I wanted to put the speakers and all. Right when I was ready to buy a Denon AVR x5200w, DTS came knocking, promising all this great stuff, so much better than Dolby, so I figured, I can wait a little longer.

Well, not it seems, the wait has really been for nothing. I have now seen 3 or 4 reports saying how great DTS-X is, and the better Neural-X vs DSU etc. but it all just seems like people wanting to prove they were right.

I just joined this site after following the threads for over a year and I just had to step in and say my 2 cents here.

Audioholics blasted Dolby for Atmos right out of the gate, even without hearing it, said it was a gimmick. And totally joked abut the up firing speakers. Fine, have some fun. Dismiss something you have not tried, all that. But then when you listened to it, you said it was DOA already, still a joke. The upfiring sort of work, but not as good as overhead. Have you guys heard a room with the new Klipsch Atmos speakers? I was all set to cut holes in my celing, but WOW! the Klipsch ones really work. I thought the KEF and Pioneer were even pretty good, but those were not quite enough to make me go with it. I am still leaning toward putting real speakers up there, and I have an open attic space to work with, so easy wiring. I have to run a new cable to my projector anyways. After a year of saying Atmos is not worth it, DTS-X announces their copy of it. And let's face it, they jumped the gun and shouted we can do it too. Yeah, they may have showed earl prototype stuff before Atmos was out, but it was not ready for prime time. and even now, with a year of delays, there are reports of odd bugs with the rushed out DTS-x firmware. I think DTS had to try something way before they were ready to hopefully slow down people from buying AVR's that would not be able to upgrade to DTS-X. And that did happen. I was one of the fools who decided to not buy and see what was coming. And maybe I can thank them a little, because maybe the HDMI and HDCP update will be helpful, even if my great 1080p projector is just 1.4a.

But holy crap, just the mention of the letters DTS, and the people here at Audioholics wet their pants at how much better it was going to be than what Dolby had been doing for over a year. All this talk of the dialog level control and ANY SPEAKER PLACEMENT!!! Whoo Hoo. And when it finally shipped, what did we really get?

It uses the same speaker position you already had available for Dolby Atmos. Big surprise. The only added one is it will use the side height speaker position, if you already paid for the Auro upgrade. I guess that is new. In the real world, the number of true rendered positions for DTS-X is less than the 34 positions Dolby Atmos can place a speaker. I read somewhere DTS-X does "know" 32 positions, but 2 are sub woofers, and 3 are below the screen. And the rest are basically 9.1 rings stacked. With Atmos, it is also limited by what the AVR makers give you access to. It has a ring of 24 positions around you. I really hope they put that accessible to the end user in some way. Find which 15 degree step is closest and use it. DTS-X is more like 40 degree steps at best. If I am wrong, show me the white paper of what it can really do.

On review on another site, they measured the volume of the sound out of a height speaker, and since it was louder, they proclaimed DTS Neural-X was better than true Dolby Atmos, WHAT???

I don't really care about up mixers, they are all a mixed bag, some sound good on some sources, some don't. The more it tries to steer around, the more likely of an odd artifact. I want to hear the Native immersive sound, I heard in the theatre, and that is what Dolby Atmos is bringing. The lead that DTS caught on Blu Ray was nothing to do with it sounding any better. It was cheaper and faster for studios to use it, and thanks to the far higher bit rate DTS used to have on DVD's with Lossy codecs, they had a following. DTS HD MA and Dolby True HD are both bit for bit lossless in their 5.1 and 7.1 configuration, so if they encode the same mix, they will sound THE SAME. In fact, they sound also be completely indistinguishable from the same sample rate and bit depth uncompressed PCM tracks. The only difference is that the Dolby codec usually has a -4 db dialog offset setting so with no change, the DTS track plays 4 db louder. And many people said it sounds fuller, well, turn it to the same level when you switch the source.

Add in the new Object based audio. Dolby has been completely open about wha tit does and how it all works. DTS-X, "ours does it all, and more, and does it better". So we all waited, and waited, and waited some more. Finally, the first sort of working firmware is out, and the new....

OMG! it is so much better, so glad we waited, how did we live without this?
Well, until people really started to listen to it. reports of poor separation, background noise, buggy UI. Possibly not even being objects at all, and really just 11.1? And comparing 2 or 3 movies in DTS-X that don't have a comparable Dolby Atmos version is like comparing the audio quality of a Beethoven DVD-A title to something from Rush on SACD. Both could be fantastic examples, but how can you say if the recording medium had anything to do with it?

From my listening to "American Ultra" yes, it has A LOT of sound in the tops, but I did not hear much separation at all. It was just sound coming out of everywhere with a little bit of panning. "Mocking Jay 1" in Atmos is a completely different experience. Little sounds all around, totally discrete at times, and flowing around you at other times, the mix is wonderful. Even played in 7.1, "Mocking Jay 1" is an amazing track. That was how I heard it for a long time as I waited on upgrading my room. I am so glad I was able to go hear an upgraded 7200 now, and know that I will no longer be worried if my choice will ever have DTS-x in my room. Instead, I want a box that will do 13 channels. I really want a ring of 9 and 4 heights. I waited this long, THANKS, I can see what is in the next batch.

DTS pushed out a "not ready for release" beta product, with a bunch of false promises. And yet people are still raving they will be better than what Dolby can do... I just don't get it.

I am not some Dolby loyalist. I let my ears and wallet decide what really works. When I first saw talk of SRS Labs MDA project, I actually though, wow, something is coming that will push Dolby and DTS out of the spot light. I think that first article on MDA was back in 2012. It was ground breaknig, before Auro or Atmos made it into a theatre. It seemed like a holy grail to mix sound for movies and music. But before the year was out, Auro made it's debut, followed by Dolby Atmos in the Cinema. No word from SRS. Then DTS bought SRS and spent 3 years trying to make MDA work. And here we are.

Who has the ability to make a nice immersive object based mix, and have it encoded in Auro, Atmos, and DTS-X. from the same mix, with no other processing? Let's really see what the codec can do. Obviously, the mix may not be able to be identical, but if you look at what the mixing consoles can do these days, it should be pretty close. Take a look at the web site for Harrison.

can't post a link so you know what to add to this
: / / harrisonconsoles /site/objectpanning h tml

So it seems prety easy to make an Atmos and Auro version. And if DTS-X / MDA is really object based, it should be easy to output to their encoder as well.

And one last funny thing here on Audioholics.
Dolby was totally dumb for even suggesting the upfiring speakers, yet DTS is praised that they can also use them. Hmmm. If they are really so bad, wouldn't they not allow it, if it is so much better? Or now, you will say, DTS can even do Dolby's HRTF better than Dolby, yeah, that's it.

I know, this is my first post here and I had to vent for this long. I sat on the side lines groaning. Hoping this DTS-X was really going to bring new capabilities and get my 9.1.4 up and working sooner, but no go. The vapor ware just got shoved out as a buggy beta.

 

[TheoN]

@Scott M thanks for the post and welcome. Wow, there's lot's here that you post and perhaps I can outline a few things for your feedback:

1. I have concurrent Dolby Atmos, Auro-3D, and DTS:X setups. Everything is discrete in-ceiling Beale Audio speakers up top and floor standing is SVS Ultras. I do not use up firing Dolby Atmos speakers After personally sampling all three formats, I love all three and I love the material I've heard from all three. In the initial Denon X7200WA review, I highlighted Dolby Atmos extensively. Here, I focused on DTS:X. When you see the publication of the forthcoming articles on setting up immersive audio, you'll see me focus more on Auro-3D. Many of these articles have already gone so much longer than usual because we're covering fresh material.
2. In my personal view, I find it very tough to tout one audio technology as decidedly superior over the other without the same exact source. We just don't have that. I don't think I've ever stated that in a review. That's why even testing Neural:X is tough. What's technically correct?? In forums, that very simple point gets glossed over. Thinking about that carefully, the closest thing we could find is using native Auro-3D content so we know what the immersive mix is supposed to sound like, playing that through the Denon X7200 with discrete 11.1 speakers and then switching to Neural:X with a 7.1.4 setup. As you said, the rendering and its effectiveness depended on source content. I've said it many times that I'm not a fan of artificial upmixers, but Dolby, Auro-3D, and Atmos have done an amazing job with their respective technologies.
3. I've had one set of Dolby Atmos up firing speakers in a lower-end system come through my listening room. They did a nice job for what they attempt to do but I much preferred discrete speakers. I was not advocating for Dolby Atmos up firing speakers. I was simply being practical and realistic. Because of aesthetics, architecture, cost, or spousal permission, some people can't do discrete speakers. Dolby Atmos speakers are your next best thing. I'm simply reporting a fact here that DTS:X supports them. That will be welcome news for many who need to go in this direction. Gene and I have talked about doing a comparison between the two down the line to talk about pros and cons. Some fellow reviewers have heard up firing demos that have been great. Others have been skeptical and with good reason. I think most will agree that if you have a choice between discrete or up firing to go with discrete.
4. To your comment about "DTS-X is more like 40 degree steps at best. If I am wrong, show me the white paper of what it can really do." All I can do here is relate to you that DTS:X doesn't have a specified layout in any of these firmware updates. Instead it does map to the speaker layout in the AVR. That's why whatever your AVR gives you is what you can support with DTS:X.
5. To your comment, "But holy crap, just the mention of the letters DTS, and the people here at Audioholics wet their pants at how much better it was going to be than what Dolby had been doing for over a year." As I said above in #1, I've enjoyed all three formats tremendously. In fact, Mad Max Fury Road and Fifth Element are just great in Atmos. I don't believe that in my review I gave an impression to the contrary.
6. It's very hard for end-users to understand but you can't always write down everything. In fact, lots of these articles need to get edited and edited down significantly. Many don't know that with Audioholics, most articles go through two peer review cycles. It's also not uncommon for technical articles to go directly to researchers and engineers. There's a level of attention here that's appreciated much of the time, but missed other times. And, sometimes when things get edited down, the context of the original text is no longer there. If there's a mistake, let me or someone know. We appreciate someone catching that so that we can address it if needed.

Again, welcome aboard. Thanks for the comments. They are much appreciated. I'll re-read them in greater detail later on in case I've missed anything major.

 

[Latent]

Also like

@Latent thanks for that. When I was with Yamaha this summer for the MusicCast announcement, I spoke with them about DTS:X. I asked them if there were plans for this type of spacial mapping and the conversation about a multi-axis microphone came up but it was very vague and no details. Thanks for sharing that pic. That's very helpful! I'd love to regroup with Yamaha and DTS:X on this.

Yeah lets hope they have done something useful with this 3D position info. It may be that they only use this info to help decide which pre set position each channel belongs to. This would mainly apply to the presence/atmos speakers as they can be either high on the front/back walls or in the ceiling and the auto config setup can pick the right option for you. But if this is all they do then It is a big waste of effort for what is a 10 second setting change.

Another thing to point out is their is no real requirement that they do this 3d position auto scan as it would be simple enough to allow the end user to enter the position info. The simple mic setup will find the exact distance to the speaker form primary listening position already and if you added extra adjustable settings for each channel to set the 0-360 angle and height in feet/meters from the floor (plus a separate single setting for mic calibration height to adjust all the entered heights with) it has all the info it needs to locate exact 3D position. Working out the angle and using a tape measure to measure the speaker heights and key them is only going to take 15 minutes. Also you could tweak the angles as required slightly from reality to tweak the surround mixes forward or back a bit if you want. Would also be nice to have an extra height setting for listening height that is set separate from the mic calibration height. This would allow you to measure with the mic at whatever height you can manage if you can't get to ear level easily and then after the fact without having to re do the calibration you can tweak the listening ear level up and down and it just does the maths to recalculate speaker delays and relative 3D positions.

Another cool option that would be good per speaker would be to be able to set a setting for how dispersed or directional the sound from each speaker is. So you can differentiate between dipole/bipole/normal speakers. The sound from object based sound mixes has a direction but it also has a level of dispersion set which decides how many speakers around that direction will output sound and at what volumes etc. If the AVR also knows the dispersion level of that speaker then it can more accurately convey the source.

 

[Thomas Kemp]

Bummed by lack of DTS:X support in the AVR-X4100W.

For the eight months or so I have been contacting Denon every month or so to determine if there was going to be a DTS:X firmware upgrade for my receiver. While they made no official commitment during those calls the comments were very positive indicating that "it was looking good". The last couple of calls were equally positive maybe a little more so indicating "we expect the support announcement any day". That left me with the strong impression that the AVR-X4100W could support the DTS:X firmware upgrade. It appeared that the only question was would Denon invest the time and effort to make it work.

I have now been told by Denon that the upgrade is not available and will not be available for my receiver. To say I was disappointed may be the understatement of the decade. I am guessing that it was a marketing decision trying to get customers to buy the latest and greatest. I understand the issue of technology moving ahead having been in the technology field myself for over 50 years BUT to be denied the capability in an AVR that is barely one year old leaves me with a very bad feeling. Yes, it may simply be my bad luck in having upgraded most of my gear too early when I bought my 4K Samsung TV about a year ago. I have had Denon AVRs for a long, long time and I bought my youngest grandson one for this past Christmas but I may think twice before choosing Denon again the next time I buy an AVR.

 

[Latent]

Yeah it is a pain they don't support these older models that probably could if they really put in the effort. To be fair to denon they are no different than all the other manufacturers that have all only done dts on the last generation released last year. But the marketing guys shouldn't have been getting your hopes up though!

 

[AKK]

TheoN: A very good post-mortem analysis on DTS:X and Neural.. I appreciate your efforts..However, did you get a chance to check a 13 speakers config? I have X6200W, and hoked up 13 speakers as 9.2.4 (7.1+WIDES+4 Ceilings).. If I choose Dolby Surround/Atmos, It intelligently uses 7.1.4, Ignoring wides, while DTS Neo X ignores the ceiling and uses 9.2. So with the DTS:X Neural, is the situation likely to change? Is the receiver switches intelligently between Ceiling and Wides?

 

[Sal1950]

I'll be sticking with my 5.2 system indefinitely as far as I can see.
Besides the fact neither my finances nor the size of my home lends
itself to any more than that I think the market is just going wild.
How many different systems and configuration can the market support
or does anyone need? This mess of Atmos, Auro, DTS-X on top of straight
7, 9, 11.1 configurations is just insane. Except for a few highly dedicated
videophiles no normal person would ever be able to begin to figure
this all out, it has become the norm to have to hire out install and setup.
Still the available combinations are beyond mind boggling and IMHO completely
unnecessary to get a SOTA home theater presentation.
I just can believe how insane it's all become. There just has to end up being
some format wars and culling some of this down to a manageable number and some
standards set or the market just might implode? JMHO

 

[seank]

I choked when reading "In testing different speaker layouts and looking at the updated Denon user manual on page 339" Page 339? Really?

 

[TheoN]

I choked when reading "In testing different speaker layouts and looking at the updated Denon user manual on page 339" Page 339? Really?

Hi @seank! Because of the manual length? Yes, it's pretty crazy. Sometimes readers don't know the full context of some things. In this particular case, this sentence is part of a longer email thread with Denon asking about different speaker layouts supported by the AVR with DTS:X. I asked if Denon had a matrix put together to show me what speakers were supported. Denon pointed me to the matrix in that section. There's no printed manual. It's all digital at this point.

 

[TheoN]

TheoN: A very good post-mortem analysis on DTS:X and Neural.. I appreciate your efforts..However, did you get a chance to check a 13 speakers config? I have X6200W, and hoked up 13 speakers as 9.2.4 (7.1+WIDES+4 Ceilings).. If I choose Dolby Surround/Atmos, It intelligently uses 7.1.4, Ignoring wides, while DTS Neo X ignores the ceiling and uses 9.2. So with the DTS:X Neural, is the situation likely to change? Is the receiver switches intelligently between Ceiling and Wides?

Hi @AKK. In my early conversations we discussed 13 speakers but I ended up only connecting an 7.4.4** because I didn't have timbre-matched wides. In working with SVS for this, I only got a 7.1 Ultra setup configured. I was initially excited seeing 13 pre-outs but Denon told me that the X7200WA only supports 11 active speakers at a time. That was a real bummer for me considering I had a complete 13.1 Auro-3D setup ready-to-go.

Now, are you specifically asking about speaker terminals and the ability to keep the speakers plugged in and have the Denon activate the appropriate speaker terminals? If I understand your question properly, here's my response (correct me if I missed the mark).

DTS:X simply sits on top of one of the existing speaker layouts. Denon specifically indicates in the manual that DTS:X users should use AMP Assign 9.1 or 11.1 for the unified layout. I used the 11.1 AMP Assign mode almost exclusively per Denon's recommendations. I believe that once you upgrade to DTS:X Neural:X will want to use the 7.1.4 configuration because it's trying to render the spacial sound field, give that a priority, and can properly support all the height speakers.

The updated Denon user manual doesn't offer much insight, but Page 52 states that the output will switch automatically.

My question back to you would be: If you have a 7.2.4 setup, would you want to use that as your default configuration? In testing Atmos, Auro-3D, and now DTS:X, I personally prefer enabling all height speakers versus adding width speakers.


**I don't specifically mention in the review that I've been switching and using both the SVS Ultra sub plus in-ceiling Beale Street subs. I've been using anywhere between a 7.1.4 and 7.4.4 config.

 

[TheoN]

I'll be sticking with my 5.2 system indefinitely as far as I can see.
Besides the fact neither my finances nor the size of my home lends
itself to any more than that I think the market is just going wild.
How many different systems and configuration can the market support
or does anyone need? This mess of Atmos, Auro, DTS-X on top of straight
7, 9, 11.1 configurations is just insane. Except for a few highly dedicated
videophiles no normal person would ever be able to begin to figure
this all out, it has become the norm to have to hire out install and setup.
Still the available combinations are beyond mind boggling and IMHO completely
unnecessary to get a SOTA home theater presentation.
I just can believe how insane it's all become. There just has to end up being
some format wars and culling some of this down to a manageable number and some
standards set or the market just might implode? JMHO

@Sal1950 agreed! Your point is well-taken. That's why Denon and Marantz have created the unified speaker layout. It works really well. Just install front and rear height speakers and you can support all three immersive formats without a problem.

 

[Scott M]

From a lot of research I have done, it seems that the current round of DSP chips used in the mainstream consumer AVR's can only process 11 full range output at once. It does not matter if it is DTS-X, Neo X, Neural X, Dolby Atmos, DSU, or whatever.

As fort he Denon x4100, does it have a sticker on the front that says "DTS-X ready" ?
I just checked the Denon web site, and it says NO on DTS-X. But if it had the sticker when you bought it, you may be able to get them to give a good trade in on one that will do it. But if it never had the sticker, it is what it is.

Three of my friends already went with Dolby Atmos, and the one just upgraded his 7200 for DTS-X. I am still rocking my 7.1 setup, but not for much longer. My 7.1 setup does sound great, but I also know what I am missing. If you are happy with what you have, 5.2 or whatever,m there is not pressure to upgrade. One friend of a friend, just added Dolby Atmos up firing units to his front speakers and raves about the improvement. But others do not think they are worth the trouble. That is all personal preference. My preference is, I want both wides and 4 tops, but I don't have a Trinnov budget. So...

I am watching all the talk and seeing if a 13 channel unit will be out in any reasonable time frame. But I also don't care if it does DTS-X at this point. My experience on my friends 7200 was a disappointment. After reading a bit more, he does want to re-try DTS-X with his in ceiling speakers set as FH and RH and see if it is any better. "American Ultra" sounded ok in DTS-X using the Klipsch up firing 7.2.4 setup all set to Dolby front/rear as the manual suggests, but the separation and localization just seemed vague, even thought there was a lot of sound from the top, it was just all over. I am sure a lot of it was the mix, but others have raved how good it sounds, and we did not see that. Some of the Dolby Atmos mixes have not been great, but our biggest complaints have been too focused sound actually grabbing your attention once in a while, but the better mixes have not had that problem. With Dolby Atmos, you can hear the detail of the mix, for good or for bad, it does deliver what was recorded. I hope DTS-X is doing this as well, but we only had one native mix to listen too. After all the delays and hype, I guess we expected too much. My friend said he just got "Ex Machina" so I will probably go over and check that one out too.

My main issue with my rant was not that DTS-X did not work or sound ok, it was that it was so much hype and all the delays, and I heard nothing new that Dolby Atmos is not capable of doing if it was given the same mix. We have not messed with comparing the up mixers yet, but I am sure we will. As good as DSU works on some titles, I kind of miss how natural Pro Logic IIx just worked on all movies and the music mode was just smooth and clear. Does DSU have options to not use heights on Denon? But the real missing pin was about the speaker placement. DTS and all their followers kept saying on and on about how it works with ANY speaker layout. And now here it is and in the flagship Denon unit, they did not add a single speaker position choice to the menu. No way to tell it where a speaker is other than the same menu we have had with Atmos for over a year. And we did hear from Dolby that they can offer more positions, but all along they were saying it was up to the AVR makers to decide how to handle the choices. DTS, went on and on how they would not have rigid limit like Dolby, and yet, wow, oh, yeah, it is still up to the AVR makers, and they did not change anything.

I really would like to finally see a real white paper about how it works and what the limits of the home version are. Dolby has been very clear and open, while DTS has been all smoke and mirrors. I have seen rumors about fewer possible speaker render locations and less active objects etc., but I have not seen any facts from DTS. Even Dolby is a little vague on the number of active objects, but at least we have a solid clear description of the render outputs and possible positions. And if you have the money, a Trinnov can give you 32 speakers today. A Trinnov running DTS-X though, still drops to just 11.X, is that true? This is not a DSP limit,, if it is real, it has to be something in the code.

I can't say where I heard it, but I got to hear the old Dolby Atmos demo blu ray disk play out on a Dolby CP-850 cinema processor into something like a 17.3.8 speaker arrangement. I may be a few off, the speakers were mostly concealed. I walked the walls to try and hear each point of sound, but the tops were tough, may have been more than 8, it was about a 15 foot ceiling. This was a very high end but private room that could play pro cinema DCP as well as consumer stuff. I was shocked that the pro box actually had 2 HDMI in and 1 HDMI out to loop through to the projector. No idea what level of HDMI and HDCP it handles, but from an Oppo Blu Ray to a Barco projector it was playing just fine. Going between the cinema DCP version of the Dolby clips to the consumer blu ray version, it was a little different, but I was really amazed how well it held up and it was quite obvious that all 25 or so feeds in the room were certainly discrete and had smooth pans all through them. I wonder if the CP-850 costs more than the Trinnov Altitude? Of course, the CP-850 "only" has 16 analog outputs on the box. They were feeding network audio into another DAC to the stack of power amps. With the front channels tri amp'd and 4 LFE amps etc., it was quite a stack of power amps too. Trying to compare any AVR with this much gear is obviously apple to grapefruit. One of the biggest shocks about this room was how quiet it was also. I could not tell if any gear was even on, no hiss, no noise, of any kind, even the background room noise was so low, I could feel my heart thumping in my body. It was really too quiet. But it was all on, at reference level, and the sound just came from nowhere, and was beyond immersive. How can over 20,000 watts of audio power in a fairly small room, not have any hiss? The guy who showed me the room did tell me not to say anything, but I had to give a hint at the potential of the consumer Atmos codec. The "Baliando" music video had sounds all over the place, with so much more separation, that a 7.1.4 system will never sound like this did. Too bad we did not have a DCP version to compare. But this really showed me why I want to have wides and at least 4 up top. Come on Denon, or whoever... 9.2.4 Atmos PLEASE!

 

[Latent]

@Latent thanks for that. When I was with Yamaha this summer for the MusicCast announcement, I spoke with them about DTS:X. I asked them if there were plans for this type of spacial mapping and the conversation about a multi-axis microphone came up but it was very vague and no details. Thanks for sharing that pic. That's very helpful! I'd love to regroup with Yamaha and DTS:X on this.

Hi Theo, from the yamaha manual it has the following:

YPAO 3D measurement
The direction (angle) of frount, surround and presence speakers, and the height of presence speakers as seen from the listening position is measured, and compensation is applied to maximize the 3D sound field effectiveness of the CINEMA DSP.

Which suggests it does exactly what we would want it to do but possible only for CINEMA DSP effects. So not sure if it would also effect the atmos/dts:x sound modes or just used for their DSP modes that make it sound like your in a special room.

From reading the manual it seems that once the auto mic calc is done you can manually adjust the angles of all speakers and for the 4 presence speaker you can set their height above the listening position. So I'm assuming it treats the rest of the speakers as ear level speakers for mixing audio to them etc.

Also it seems this feature was also in the 2014 model RX-A3040 and is not new to the 3050. The RX-A3030 from the year before this had a similar system but it only measured the speakers angle and adjusted for this and not the height of the presence speakers.


And on another topic:
One other thing that would be great to test now that DTS:X and Atmos are both now out there is to compare the three height speaker placement options (Ceiling, High on wall and Bouncy) with these new sound modes so people have something to go on when making positioning decisions. So much confusion out there right now.

My personal preference would be to use mini speakers like those found in 5.1 HT setups. maybe not the cube speakers but the slightly bigger ones produced by good brands. They can do a really good job at everything over 110hz or so and modern AVR's have base management with per speaker crossover settings to make them work well. Mount them up high on the front and rear walls and your done. I use some old JBL 75SAT speakers as my current front presence speakers which seem to work well but my AVR is way too old to do the new formats.