Dolby Atmos For Home Theater Explained

[cpp]

They are on an angle. If you look at a side view it's clear to see the back to front slope

The towers look flat

 

[gene]

The towers look flat

I agree. I don't see an angle in the towers or bookshelf. If there is an angle, it's very slight at best and certainly won't beam as drastically off axis like the diagrams suggest.

 

[herbu]

I agree. I don't see an angle in the towers or bookshelf. If there is an angle, it's very slight at best and certainly won't beam as drastically off axis like the diagrams suggest.

I suspect they would say the shaded area/path in the diagram simply highlights a subset of the actual sound for illustration purposes. How much/strong/focused it is within the shaded area is tbd, but critical to the effect.

 

[RichB]

I suspect they would say the shaded area/path in the diagram simply highlights a subset of the actual sound for illustration purposes. How much/strong/focused it is within the shaded area is tbd, but critical to the effect.

No marketing involved

- Rich

 

[agarwalro]

I agree. I don't see an angle in the towers or bookshelf. If there is an angle, it's very slight at best and certainly won't beam as drastically off axis like the diagrams suggest.

Could it be that AJ did some crossover magic (for the top driver) to intentionally have main lobe directed towards the ceiling? Almost like an an anti D'Appolito, with weaker lobe directed to tweeter axis. Now the lobes being frequency dependent, I don't know how well this idea would work in practice.

 

[gene]

Could it be that AJ did some crossover magic (for the top driver) to intentionally have main lobe directed towards the ceiling? Almost like an an anti D'Appolito, with weaker lobe directed to tweeter axis. Now the lobes being frequency dependent, I don't know how well this idea would work in practice.

No. Possibly to some extent with the DSP processing in Atmos itself but I see nothing that indicates the sort. Being able to angle the driver to a specific location on the ceiling would be a benefit that nobody is currently exploring. Stay tuned for my article.

 

[RichB]

There are angled ceiling speakers out there:

Angled LCR Ceiling Speakers for 5.1 System - AVS Forum

These could be used for to direct the sound and it might be possible to properly deflect off the ceiling when wall mounted.

- Rich

 

[cpp]

No. Possibly to some extent with the DSP processing in Atmos itself but I see nothing that indicates the sort. Being able to angle the driver to a specific location on the ceiling would be a benefit that nobody is currently exploring. Stay tuned for my article.

Good point Gene. I've seen that work performed in ceiling speakers where the user can adjust the angle to a listening position, but I'm not sure how it is going to work in a tower speaker with an angled driver that is supposed to generate a reflection off a ceiling since the angle of the reflection could very well cause the listener to adjust their listening distance and that could be an issue not to mention the height of some ceilings and their design ie. trayed ceiling which I have. It could be interesting as this technology evolves.

 

[Plexmulti9]

I agree. I don't see an angle in the towers or bookshelf. If there is an angle, it's very slight at best and certainly won't beam as drastically off axis like the diagrams suggest.

Definitely angled.... (EDIT: Click on pic)

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

Definitely angled.... (EDIT: Click on pic)

View attachment 13707 View attachment 13708

Now we can guess on the angle. I'm thinking 10 degrees angle.

 

[cpp]

Definitely angled.... (EDIT: Click on pic)

View attachment 13707 View attachment 13708

Amazing what a real picture can do.. Thanks

 

[gene]

Amazing what a real picture can do.. Thanks

Yes Andrew Jones emailed me to confirm the top baffle is angled but left/right speakers are identical.

 

[herbu]

Yes Andrew Jones emailed me to confirm the top baffle is angled but left/right speakers are identical.

Going back to Gene's original point about the effectiveness of reflected sound from the top-firing drivers, it seems whether the drivers are angled or not is sort of splitting hairs. Speaking without the benefit of an accoustical engineering background, it seems the sound from the driver will have a pretty wide dispersion angle, only a fraction will hit the ceiling at the optimum angle, and only a fraction of that will be reflected to your ear. That means no matter what the angle of the driver, the reflections will hit your ear from a host of different angles, and with a host of different timings and amplitudes, all of which will be exacerbated by the position of the speaker, chair, and height/shape of the ceiling.

My pedestrian reasoning says all this will work against the intended effect. Not to say there will be no effect, and only listening will reveal the desirability for each person. I'm just not so sure how much difference the angle will really make.

 

[gene]

Going back to Gene's original point about the effectiveness of reflected sound from the top-firing drivers, it seems whether the drivers are angled or not is sort of splitting hairs. Speaking without the benefit of an accoustical engineering background, it seems the sound from the driver will have a pretty wide dispersion angle, only a fraction will hit the ceiling at the optimum angle, and only a fraction of that will be reflected to your ear. That means no matter what the angle of the driver, the reflections will hit your ear from a host of different angles, and with a host of different timings and amplitudes, all of which will be exacerbated by the position of the speaker, chair, and height/shape of the ceiling.

My pedestrian reasoning says all this will work against the intended effect. Not to say there will be no effect, and only listening will reveal the desirability for each person. I'm just not so sure how much difference the angle will really make.

Excellently stated and I tend to agree but you will see why I am recommending this option soon.

 

[gene]

OK Guys, here is my proposal for a Steerable Atmos Speaker:
Steerable Dolby Atmos Ready Speaker Proposal | Audioholics

Please discuss in this thread and vote in the poll after reading the article:
http://forums.audioholics.com/forums/loudspeakers/91339-steerable-dolby-atmos-ready-speaker-proposal.html

Thanks.

 

[vfourmax]

New member here and I really like the concept of Atmos sound I also am skeptical of the upward firing speakers as giving the desired results.

I think in a lot of aspects I would represent what many average consumers would be, interested depending on the actual real world experience, blue collar that will spend reasonable dollars but definitely have to stay within a budget to implement. I do not have to worry about the WAF factor but want to keep things neat to a point.

I can accept the concept of adding lets say 4 ceiling mounted speakers to my current 5.1 system but I need a wow factor to invest in a new avr, new speakers and the added hassles of the wiring. Now if Atmos after making these additions will really change or enhance the feeling of choppers or fighter jets going by overhead in a war or action flick or the beating wings of a flying dragon like in lord of the rings makes me feel like ducking then yes I would be willing as a consumer to make a reasonable investment to enhance my movie watching experience.

Will I go this direction, to early to tell yet and to many questions right now. Will the Atmos software need and only work with new material enhanced for it or will it be a to do a reasonable job working with my current blu ray library? I do like the concept and I think the potential can be there to enhance the home theater experience but how it will work in the real world is still a big question. I will be following this closely!

 

[FirstReflection]

I've made it a point this summer that every time I've gone to the theater to see a movie, I've seen it in Atmos. To date, only Gravity and Dawn of the Planet of the Apes have really impressed me in terms of what Atmos brought to the experience.


I think people might be focusing a bit too much on the speakers and forgetting the real benefit here, which are the object-based soundtracks themselves. I see a lot of people seemingly still thinking of the overhead speakers in terms of "channels". We need to get away from that thinking.


The benefit of Atmos is being able to place any given sound at any given location anywhere around or above the listeners. The speakers are merely a means to an end. No one is mixing sounds into the overhead speakers. They're just deciding where they want a given sound to come from. And if that happens to be overhead, or partially overhead, then Atmos allows for that, and it will do the best it can with the speakers it has available to it.


So whether these Dolby Atmos-enabled speakers that bounce sound waves off of the ceiling sound exactly like speakers installed into the ceiling or mounted onto the ceiling doesn't ultimately matter. What matters is whether they are able to position sound objects reasonably close to where the sound mixers wanted.


So long as the reflected sound reaches our ears and is about 10dB louder than any direct sound that travelled from the upward-facing drivers in a straight line to our ears, we will localize that sound as having come from the overhead location thanks to overcoming the Haas effect. And if we can localize those sounds as having come from overhead, then Atmos can do a reasonable job of positioning the sound objects in the soundtrack.


Atmos really isn't about envelopment or even fidelity. It's about localization. That's the new hotness of it. And if the sound mixers stick to predominantly high frequencies, there's no reason why the reflections off of the ceiling can't arrive 10dB louder than the direct sounds. It's fine if we still hear the direct sounds from the upward-facing drivers. The precedence effect is overcome so long as the second sound wave arrival is sufficiently louder than the first.

 

[gene]

Ready to Break a Sweat for Dolby Atmos?

Whose ready to break a sweat to get Dolby Atmos in their homes?

 

[fuzz092888]

I'd put it in, in a heart beat. Dolby Atmos that is. In my ceiling.

 

[agarwalro]

I'd put it in, in a heart beat. Dolby Atmos that is. In my ceiling.

Righteous!

Gene, you might as well lock this thread before Adam, Alex, Rick and Fuzz turn this into an innuendo slinging competition . Ref. The Boring Thread.