Integrating Atmos and DTS:X in one set of 4 ceiling speakers, given the different time delay of the two placements

[Philnick]

If I position my overhead speakers at the Atmos-specified locations, I'm concerned that the receiver's auto room correction, which determines where the speakers are, will do the time delays correctly for Atmos but wrong for DTS:X.

Conversely, if I put the speakers where DTS:X prescribes, the time delays would be wrong for Atmos!

Or does the object-based nature of the two systems automatically take the detected distances into account and compensate for that differently for each system?

PS I have an older Yamaha RX-A3070 which has Atmos and DTS:X circuitry (but not Auro). How would I get it to apply DTS or Dolby DSU upmixing to a soundtrack rather than what I'm told are anemic native mixes? What occurs to me is that I could set my Blu-ray player not to bitstream but to send 7.1 LPCM to the receiver, so that I can apply the my choice of upmixer.

I'm just about to place speakers in my rebuilt theater, and don't know where to place the ceiling speakers now!

 

[William Lemmerhirt]

If I position my overhead speakers at the Atmos-specified locations, I'm concerned that the receiver's auto room correction, which determines where the speakers are, will do the time delays correctly for Atmos but wrong for DTS:X.

Conversely, if I put the speakers where DTS:X prescribes, the time delays would be wrong for Atmos!

Or does the object-based nature of the two systems automatically take the detected distances into account and compensate for that differently for each system?

PS I have an older Yamaha RX-A3070 which has Atmos and DTS:X circuitry (but not Auro). How would I get it to apply DTS or Dolby DSU upmixing to a soundtrack rather than what I'm told are anemic native mixes? What occurs to me is that I could set my Blu-ray player not to bitstream but to send 7.1 LPCM to the receiver, so that I can apply the my choice of upmixer.

I'm just about to place speakers in my rebuilt theater, and don't know where to place the ceiling speakers now!

Well, I used the Dolby guidelines and most I’ve seen do. Dts is supposedly speaker agnostic, meaning they say you can put them anywhere but I seem to remember early on that dtsX was basically to be layed out like Auro3d. Anyway, the Atmos locations work just fine for dtsX. If you tell the AVR where the speakers are, the renderer will know what to do. You will have a great experience.
Also, I wouldn’t listen to anyone saying they’re anemic, or whatever. Try them out yourself and decide. If you find a native track doesn’t have enough overhead sound(which is only part of what Atmos is about)you can either set the player to pcm, or on some disks, select the non Atmos track. My personal opinion is to select the native track, as it will be able to use objects if they’re are any used in the track. However I understand people want to hear their new Atmos speakers, but imo it’s kinda like using all channel stereo...

 

[Philnick]

Thanks!

 

[TLS Guy]

If I position my overhead speakers at the Atmos-specified locations, I'm concerned that the receiver's auto room correction, which determines where the speakers are, will do the time delays correctly for Atmos but wrong for DTS:X.

Conversely, if I put the speakers where DTS:X prescribes, the time delays would be wrong for Atmos!

Or does the object-based nature of the two systems automatically take the detected distances into account and compensate for that differently for each system?

PS I have an older Yamaha RX-A3070 which has Atmos and DTS:X circuitry (but not Auro). How would I get it to apply DTS or Dolby DSU upmixing to a soundtrack rather than what I'm told are anemic native mixes? What occurs to me is that I could set my Blu-ray player not to bitstream but to send 7.1 LPCM to the receiver, so that I can apply the my choice of upmixer.

I'm just about to place speakers in my rebuilt theater, and don't know where to place the ceiling speakers now!

As I understand it you should use the Dolby placement, as DTS is more position agnostic.

That is what I have done anyway, but I'm probably a couple of months away from being able to tell you how it works out.

 

[Philnick]

I've decided to use the Atmos locations, as suggested above, though the speakers won't be in the ceiling but hung just below it and aimed at the couch.

The claim of "anemic Atmos tracks" was made in the recent video by Gene with a guy from Auro3D who urged folks to use Auro3D on Atmos soundtracks, so I guess I'll take that with a grain of salt. (I don't even have Auro3D decoding in my Yamaha,)

 

[William Lemmerhirt]

I've decided to use the Atmos locations, as suggested above, though the speakers won't be in the ceiling but hung just below it and aimed at the couch.

The claim of "anemic Atmos tracks" was made in the recent video by Gene with a guy from Auro3D who urged folks to use Auro3D on Atmos soundtracks, so I guess I'll take that with a grain of salt. (I don't even have Auro3D decoding in my Yamaha,)

I think you’ll be happy with that installation. I have absolutely been.
I think the guy from auro is a little bitter since his technology is basically DOA in the USA. And insult to injury is that some studios aren’t using Atmos to anywhere near its potential. That’s something that frustrates me, because Atmos is kind of a big investment and then you have mixers that are asleep at the wheel. Anyway, I still encourage people to go forward with it because when you get a film that’s done right, damn it’s good.
Maybe the guy from auro hasn’t seen hacksaw ridge in atmos yet!

 

[TLS Guy]

I've decided to use the Atmos locations, as suggested above, though the speakers won't be in the ceiling but hung just below it and aimed at the couch.

The claim of "anemic Atmos tracks" was made in the recent video by Gene with a guy from Auro3D who urged folks to use Auro3D on Atmos soundtracks, so I guess I'll take that with a grain of salt. (I don't even have Auro3D decoding in my Yamaha,)

I think you made absolutely the right decision. I should expand on my thoughts on this.

I'm suspicious of Auro 3D on technical and mathematical grounds. I have to wonder how much of the hype is generated by lavish "liquid" lunches.

Dolby Atmos and DTX are object based and Auro 3D is channel based. In my view being object based is a much better idea. Any point in room can be defined by just 3 data points. These are the xyz coordinates.

So you need an audio track and a coordinate track. This keeps it simple as long as you can keep the audio and coordinate data in perfect synch.

I fully expect a channel based system to go the way of SACD which is another awkward system. No one uses DSD for production. All have worked in PCM and just converted to DSD at the end. So I would expect a similar fate to Auro 3D before it expires. In addition Dolby has far greater staying power and resources.

DTS has stolen a march though as it is more flexible as the system can learn and adapt to where the speakers actually are. So that is why it can work with the Dolby configuration.

The bottom line is that my advice is not to put any significant resources into optimizing Auro 3D. I certainly have not, although my new pre/pro does support. I'm not devoting more speakers and amps to it though.

 

[Jon AA]

In my view being object based is a much better idea. Any point in room can be defined by just 3 data points....DTS has stolen a march though as it is more flexible as the system can learn and adapt to where the speakers actually are.

There's certainly some merit to that in theory, but the practical reality is something else, at least currently. When the vast majority of DTS:X releases for the home contain no objects at all, it becomes rather moot.

Even the Atmos home releases that aren't fixed Disney prints contain far fewer objects than the theatrical releases. Though Atmos easily does have the most home releases with objects, they're the most strict about speaker placement/compatibility.

I'd like to see the day where we'd get tracks with nothing but the LCR being channels and everything else being objects so whatever surround/height setup a guy had would be fully utilized properly...but we're not there yet. Seeing what Disney, etc, does with the Atmos format ("dumbing it down") I'm not holding my breath that'll happen any time soon for the home listener.