J

Jack N

Audioholic
I’m currently building a dedicated home theater that will be incorporating all 3 major immersive sound formats. For Atmos and DTS:X it will be the 7.2.4 set-up. For Auro 3D it will be the 13 channel version with the VOG. These formats require a total of 17 channels all together. Will DTS:X Pro make use of all 17 channels – Will I need a 17 channel receiver/processor that can play all 17 channels simultaneously?
 
William Lemmerhirt

William Lemmerhirt

Audioholic Overlord
Yes, pro will scale up. Wouldn’t waste any time or money on Auro.
 
J

Jack N

Audioholic
That will mean another amp and a much more costly processor. Ouch! If memory serves correctly, I think Trinnov is the only one that will handle that many channels and that's definately out of my price range. Might have to stick with the manual speaker configuration in that regard.

My thoughts are kind of along your train of thought as well regarding Auro. I can easily see Pro doing some serious damage to both Atmos and Auro 3D as it'll combine the best of both worlds, if I understand it correctly. For me, I've already got the speaker wire run and most of the speaker locations built so I really won't be going out of my way anyhow.
 
TLS Guy

TLS Guy

Seriously, I have no life.
I’m currently building a dedicated home theater that will be incorporating all 3 major immersive sound formats. For Atmos and DTS:X it will be the 7.2.4 set-up. For Auro 3D it will be the 13 channel version with the VOG. These formats require a total of 17 channels all together. Will DTS:X Pro make use of all 17 channels – Will I need a 17 channel receiver/processor that can play all 17 channels simultaneously?
The problem is that there is little available in either format. There is precious little worth watching in Dolby Atmos, and less on DTS.

So the main benefit so far is the the Dolby upmixer, which is excellent, on the other hand the DTS is awful and not worth the time of day.

So fat I have bought three Dolby Atmos discs. One is excellent, one fair, and the other awful.

So right now you are doing it for the upmixer and may be for the future.

If I had not had the gear lying around to do it, I would not have.

I can tell you 17 amp channels takes up a lot of space. I need them because of active crossovers in the system. So the whole construct becomes a formidable undertaking.

Quite honestly I would not dream of doing this with a receiver. A project like this requires dedicated amps.
 
J

Jack N

Audioholic
Ya, there isn't a lot out there but I have no doubt there will be more content available as time goes on. I'm sure Auro 3D would have gradually become more popular too, but now with the release of DTS:X Pro, I have my doubts.

I haven't heard much on the DTS up-mixer. Thanks for the heads-up. Haven't heard anything but great reviews on the Auro 3D up-mixer though. Really looking forward to that.

I agree with you, a receiver trying to push 13 or more speakers is a tall order. So I've been planning on using a processor since the beginning. I got really fortunate and found a great deal on two Outlaw 7900s a while back so i have the amps already. With the advent of DTS:X Pro however, I may have to add an ATI 6003 to match the Outlaws if I decide to use all 17 channels simultaneously. So, just need a processor. Unfortunately receivers always get the latest in technologies before the dedicated processors so I may be forced to use a receiver just for it's processor capabilities. I'll have to wait and see what's available when it gets down to crunch time.
 
TLS Guy

TLS Guy

Seriously, I have no life.
Ya, there isn't a lot out there but I have no doubt there will be more content available as time goes on. I'm sure Auro 3D would have gradually become more popular too, but now with the release of DTS:X Pro, I have my doubts.

I haven't heard much on the DTS up-mixer. Thanks for the heads-up. Haven't heard anything but great reviews on the Auro 3D up-mixer though. Really looking forward to that.

I agree with you, a receiver trying to push 13 or more speakers is a tall order. So I've been planning on using a processor since the beginning. I got really fortunate and found a great deal on two Outlaw 7900s a while back so i have the amps already. With the advent of DTS:X Pro however, I may have to add an ATI 6003 to match the Outlaws if I decide to use all 17 channels simultaneously. So, just need a processor. Unfortunately receivers always get the latest in technologies before the dedicated processors so I may be forced to use a receiver just for it's processor capabilities. I'll have to wait and see what's available when it gets down to crunch time.
The Auro 3D up mixer is better then DTS, but not nearly as good as the Dolby, which is quite incredible. I actually hope the industry consolidates on Dolby Atmos for BD. Set up properly it works very well indeed. I understand it is not tolerant of improper set up, but then if it is a precise system, then you need to follow the rules.

I think that 7.2.4 works very well for a two or three row theater. I can see you might need 7.2.6 for a four or more room. I really have a hard time thinking you need more speakers than that in a domestic room, otherwise the speakers all get too close to each other and the result will be a mess due to comb filtering issues.

I know we have had one bloke here pushing for 32 channels in a domestic set up, because of localization issues. My retort to that is he needs better speakers.

Good speakers can throw images between them when spaced at a reasonable distance, poor ones with uneven FR won't.

So the old adage is more true now then ever, in that fewer excellent speakers will always best more poor ones.

My experience is that any poor speakers will stand out and draw inappropriate attention to themselves.

Truly bad speakers are to be avoided at any location, which makes this an expensive proposition.

This is what 18 channels of amplification looks like, and I don't have room for any more. Nor do I want to pay a higher utility bill for any more than these. There comes a point where a good installation starts to become impractical. We are now in danger of passing that point in my view. In truth may be we have passed it.

 
M

Movie2099

Audioholic General
Ya, there isn't a lot out there but I have no doubt there will be more content available as time goes on. I'm sure Auro 3D would have gradually become more popular too, but now with the release of DTS:X Pro, I have my doubts.

I haven't heard much on the DTS up-mixer. Thanks for the heads-up. Haven't heard anything but great reviews on the Auro 3D up-mixer though. Really looking forward to that.

I agree with you, a receiver trying to push 13 or more speakers is a tall order. So I've been planning on using a processor since the beginning. I got really fortunate and found a great deal on two Outlaw 7900s a while back so i have the amps already. With the advent of DTS:X Pro however, I may have to add an ATI 6003 to match the Outlaws if I decide to use all 17 channels simultaneously. So, just need a processor. Unfortunately receivers always get the latest in technologies before the dedicated processors so I may be forced to use a receiver just for it's processor capabilities. I'll have to wait and see what's available when it gets down to crunch time.
how much are you willing to spend on a processor?
 
J

Jack N

Audioholic
Ha! Wow! And I thought my set-up was going to have serious power!

I know what you mean about having too many speakers. I'm fairly certain I'll be able to get my system to sound fairly decent, but I definitely don't want to add any more that's for sure.

How much for a processor? I'd like to keep it under 4k.
 
M

Movie2099

Audioholic General
Ha! Wow! And I thought my set-up was going to have serious power!

I know what you mean about having too many speakers. I'm fairly certain I'll be able to get my system to sound fairly decent, but I definitely don't want to add any more that's for sure.

How much for a processor? I'd like to keep it under 4k.
You could check out the Emotiva XMC-2. That's a 16 channel processor. Comes with loads of features and will Dirac live in the near future. I believe those are going for $3k. There is another company out there that recently heard about called Acurus. But their 16-channel processor starts around $5k. Since 16 channel processors are relatively new to the market within the last few years, the price for a high end one is going to cost you close to $10k.
 
J

Jack N

Audioholic
Thanks for the tips, however I’m not considering Emotiva or Acurus because they don’t support Auro 3D. You’re right about the price of a processor that’ll handle 17+ channels, at least at this point in time. I’m hoping that’ll change by the time I’m ready to pull the trigger. Otherwise I’ll probably go with something like the Marantz 8805 and manually switch speaker wires when I have to. That would save me from having to buy another amp too.
 
Auditor55

Auditor55

Audioholic General
Ya, there isn't a lot out there but I have no doubt there will be more content available as time goes on. I'm sure Auro 3D would have gradually become more popular too, but now with the release of DTS:X Pro, I have my doubts.

I haven't heard much on the DTS up-mixer. Thanks for the heads-up. Haven't heard anything but great reviews on the Auro 3D up-mixer though. Really looking forward to that.

I agree with you, a receiver trying to push 13 or more speakers is a tall order. So I've been planning on using a processor since the beginning. I got really fortunate and found a great deal on two Outlaw 7900s a while back so i have the amps already. With the advent of DTS:X Pro however, I may have to add an ATI 6003 to match the Outlaws if I decide to use all 17 channels simultaneously. So, just need a processor. Unfortunately receivers always get the latest in technologies before the dedicated processors so I may be forced to use a receiver just for it's processor capabilities. I'll have to wait and see what's available when it gets down to crunch time.
There isn't going to be any significant content in the future, its a pipe dream that's been sold to the public by shrewd marketers. I doubt there's going to be any DTS-X content on streaming services for DTS-X Pro to take advantage of, so I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for it. If it did happen it would be so far in the future that they would be ready to move you to the next format , like speakers or channels on the floor, which would render your current equipment obsolete. Why waste money on 13.2, its ridiculous overkill. How you going to have more over head channels than the bed (5.1).
 

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