Recommendation for new speakers for home theatre/atmos system.

[bmb0429]

Hello all looking to set up a new atmos speaker system in my new house. Any recommendations would be greatly appreciated as far as placement and speaker brand. I have a large listening room approx 20x20 feet with 10ft ceilings and will be running an Anthem Receiver. I am looking at having a front center channel, left and right tower speakers, rear or side surrounds and a subwoofer. As far as the rear surrounds or rear surround side speakers, I would prefer using all in ceiling with 4 Atmos speakers..

I have the ability to have rear surrounds, tower or bookshelf speakers on stands, but I would rather use all ceiling speakers to avoid running speaker wires under an area rug. I am planning to have a contractor install the ceiling speakers and retexture the ceiling for the installation. I don't have the ability to use side surrounds in wall because of the layout of the room.

So questions.... Can you use in ceiling speakers as rear surrounds and still have good sound??
Speaker recommendation.......I have been looking at the Kef new Q series and have listened to them and was impressed. I also have been drawn to the Revel Concerta Series because of all the great reviews but have been unable to listen to them. The Revel Performa F206 is also an option but a bit pricy. I am using the system for mainly movies, but will also use it for music. Any recommendations? Thank you for all of your time!

 

[everettT]

Your probably not going to wanna do the inceiling surrounds with atmos, it will sound poor. Unless your room is long with spaced seating, just do 5.x.4 and skip the rear surrounds.

 

[bmb0429]

Thank you for your feedback I appreciate it! Do you have any recommendations on speakers Revel Vs Kef?

 

[shadyJ]

Agreed about not using in-ceiling speakers for side and rear surround channels. That would defeat the point of Atmos.

Both Revel and KEF are solid brands for loudspeakers. I would skip their subwoofers though. For subs, look at Outlaw Audio, Hsu Research, SVS, Monoprice Monolith, among others.

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

Yeah, 5.1.2 or 5.1.4 seems good.

What is your total budget for all the speakers?

 

[William Lemmerhirt]

Yeah, for sure don’t use IC for rear/side surrounds. As shady said, it will defeat the purpose altogether, and if you’re investing in a quality system, there’s no point in taking a shortcut but still spends bunch of money only to have a mediocre performance. Speaker cables can be run under crawl spaces or tucked under base trim etc. I agree that they’re unsightly but atmos is worth getting right.
Also, a square room is tough on LF acoustics so I would try to not place my seating near the center of the room. Maybe a 1/3 or 1/5 of the way from the rear wall.
Here’s a good guide for speaker placement.
https://www.dolby.com/us/en/technologies/dolby-atmos/dolby-atmos-home-theater-installation-guidelines.pdf

 

[bmb0429]

Yeah, 5.1.2 or 5.1.4 seems good.

What is your total budget for all the speakers?

Around 5 to 7K

 

[DigitalDawn]

As others have said, you cannot use in-ceiling surrounds, or in-ceiling front speakers with Atmos. The two "layers" need to be completely separate.

Triad Speakers was one of two companies Dolby Labs used to help develop Atmos. Take a look at the Silver LCR and Silver Surround plus the InCeiling Silver Satellite for the Atmos layer, as these models would be a good fit for your 4000 cubic foot theater.

www.triadspeakers.com