• Dolby Atmos 5.1.2 Speaker Placement

Dolby Atmos® Home Theater Installation Guidelines September 2014. 2 Contents 1. Background on Dolby Atmos. Standard Setup for Both Overhead Speakers and Dolby Atmos Enabled Speakers 4. Additional Speaker Placement Guidelines Listener-Level Speaker Placement Guidelines Overhead/Height Speaker Placement Guidelines. What is also interesting to point out is that since Dolby Atmos can be embedded within a Dolby Digital Plus structure, implications are that you may see Dolby Atmos used in streaming and mobile audio applications. Dolby Atmos Speaker Placement Options. Dolby Atmos Speaker Setup Examples - 5.1.2 and 5.1.4 - vertical and ceiling options.

Just a few short years ago, Dolby Atmos still seemed like the tech of the future. Sure, it had been in theaters for a while, but mainly only higher-end theaters, and while it was coming to the home theater, who really wanted to deal with all those speakers? Now things have changed and Atmos is everywhere. It’s tough to find even a low-end A/V receiver that doesn’t support Atmos (and its main competitor, DTS:X), and it’s even available in soundbars for those looking for a succinct option.

Still, we haven’t even begun to hit full adoption of Dolby Atmos, so you may be left wondering what it is, and what terms like 3D and object-based sound mean. How many speakers do you need? Do you need a new receiver? We’ve got that answers to that and a whole lot more.

There’s a lot of info to absorb here, so we’ve broken it all down below and will continue updating this article as things evolve.

Dolby Atmos in the theater: How is it different?

In theaters, Dolby Atmos significantly expands the speakers used, as well as the way surround sound is employed, opening up new possibilities for movie-makers to provide a more realistic, immersive sound experience. Until now, theaters have been able to reproduce a maximum of eight individual tracks of surround sound, spread out among varying numbers of speakers.

For example: With the 7.1-channel surround sound still used in most theaters, you get three channels up front (left, right, and center) two side surround channels (left and right), two rear channels (left and right), and one subwoofer channel. When designing a film’s soundtrack, directors are guided by these different channels to steer sound effects around the room. But no matter how many speakers get placed in a certain area — say, the left side of the room for the left surround channel — all of those speakers were restricted to one channel of sound, so they all played the same sound at the same time.

By contrast, Dolby Atmos is capable of processing up to 128 channels of sound, which can be routed to up to 64 individual speakers. This way, sound engineers can essentially leave the channels behind, instead placing “sound objects” in pinpointed locations and moving them throughout the theater. With Atmos, the ceiling can also be lined with any number of full-range speakers that work in concert with all of the other speakers in the room so these objects can be placed just about anywhere within a virtual hemisphere. In a way, you can chase the sound with your ears, tracking it and correlating it to the on-screen action. For example, if it rains in the movie, the rain comes from directly above you. If a helicopter flies overhead and to the right, the sound will start in the back of the room, move overhead, and disappear off to the right side.

Of course, for the home theater, Atmos is scaled down considerably.

How does Atmos work in home theaters?

Dolby Atmos 5.1.2 Speaker Placement

We’ve got some good news: If you already have a surround sound setup, you probably won’t have to replace all or even most of your home theater components to enjoy Dolby Atmos at home. Existing Blu-ray players are able to deliver Dolby Atmos sound information from new Atmos-infused Blu-ray discs, and most of your existing speakers can remain as the foundation of your surround system. You may, however, need to replace your A/V receiver (unless you own a model that can add Atmos support via a firmware update), and you will need to add some speakers to the room or, in some cases, re-purpose existing speakers. You may also need to upgrade your streaming device of choice if you’re looking to stream movies in Dolby Atmos.

Dolby Atmos A/V receivers

Pioneer, Onkyo, Integra, Denon, Marantz, and Yamaha were the first manufacturers to announce models featuring Dolby Atmos, but now the feature is so common that every single receiver on our list of the best A/V receivers you can buy features the technology, even the cheapest ones. Generally many receivers that support at least 7.2 channels offer Atmos support, even those that go for less than $300. There are exceptions, of course, but the point is that you can get your hands on an Atmos-compatible receiver without breaking the bank.

Atmos-enabled receivers will have the processing capabilities to handle Atmos-encoded Blu-ray discs and streaming content, along with the other leading technology in object-based sound, DTS:X, and often others like Auro 3D, as well. They’ll also pack the amplifier assignment needed to accommodate Atmos-specific speakers as well. Additionally, Atmos speaker channels will get discrete sound information — sounds won’t simply be “derived” from other channels as is the case with Dolby’s Pro-Logic IIz surround processing.

Dolby Atmos soundbars

Maybe you want the immersion that Dolby Atmos brings, but you either don’t have the space or just don’t want a full home theater audio setup. Atmos-enabled soundbars debuted in 2015, and companies like Sony, Samsung, LG, and more offer them, and LG even offers Atmos-compatible soundbars with its impressive OLED TVs. How they work can differ from soundbar to soundbar, and different models can be more or less immersive, but all of them include upward-firing drivers similar to those used in many standard Dolby Atmos speaker configurations. If you want to know more, we have a separate guide featuring all the information you could want on Dolby Atmos soundbars.

Streaming boxes and game consoles

Unlike Blu-ray players, streaming boxes need to specifically support Dolby Atmos. For the time being, not many streaming services offer Dolby Atmos movies or TV shows, and only a relatively small number of streaming devices support Atmos. The Roku Ultra and Roku Premiere — both of which also support 4K video and HDR (high dynamic range) — support Atmos playback, as does the latest-generation Amazon Fire TV. Apple has said it will bring Dolby Atmos to the Apple TV 4K via a firmware update, but there has been no indication of when this could happen.

When it comes to game consoles, the situation is a little murkier. The PlayStation 4 supports bitstream audio output, so it should support Dolby Atmos-enabled Blu-rays, while the Xbox One S and Xbox One X feature UHD drives and have received an Atmos update, supported on both Blu-ray and 4K UHD Blu-ray (though Microsoft has admitted there are some hiccups there at present). When it comes to games, however, the PS4 line — including the PlayStation 4 Pro — does not support Atmos, which first came to games with the release of Star Wars Battlefront. The entire Xbox One lineup, including the Xbox One, Xbox One S, and Xbox One X does support Atmos gaming, as do Windows 10 PCs.

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Atmos speaker configurations

As mentioned above, Atmos in commercial theaters expands the capabilities of the side and rear surround speakers significantly, but in the home theater environment, the front left, right, center, side surrounds and rear surrounds are treated the same. For now, the additional sounds will be coming from above.

There are a number of ways to get Atmos height channels into your living room. Many supported (and we’d argue, preferred) configurations see speakers added to the ceiling. But for those scenarios where ceiling speaker placement is not possible, there are a number of options.

For basic 5.1.2 Atmos (the “.2” representing front left and right height channels) there are a couple of ways to go. One way is to get a pair of “Atmos-enabled” front left and right speakers or surround speakers, like those used in the Pioneer Elite Dolby Atmos speakers, or the more nimble Sib Evo from Focal, both of which fire sound at the ceiling at an angle, bouncing it back down to the listening position. Another way is to set a pair of speakers called “Atmos Modules” on top of the front left and right speakers and/or surround speakers, like Klipsch’s R-26FA and R-14SA. In either case, these speakers will aim discreet sounds up at the ceiling to be reflected down toward the listener, thus simulating a ceiling-placed speaker.

In either case, the idea is to add real overhead sound sources, expanding the enveloping effect folks look for in a surround environment.

With these new configurations comes a new numbering scheme. No longer do we just have 5.1, 7.1, and 9.1. Now there’s 5.1.2, 5.1.4, 7.1.2, etc. Here’s a run-down of the various formats:

Watching Dolby Atmos movies at home

Dolby Atmos officially arrived on Blu-ray in 2014 with the release of Transformers: Age of Extinction. Since then, the format has been supported on more than 100 releases and counting, both in standard Blu-ray and Ultra HD Blu-ray formats. The rate of release was initially slow, but as more home theater enthusiasts are buying Atmos-compatible A/V receivers and soundbars, it’s becoming more and more common, again, along with DTS:X. For example, Star Wars: The Last Jedi is Disney’s first Dolby Atmos-compatible release.

When it comes to streaming, your options are currently limited. Netflix added support for Dolby Atmos in 2017, but only a handful of titles are actually available in the format, and the supported hardware is limited to LG OLED TVs, Xbox One consoles, and Windows 10 PCs. Vudu has supported Atmos since 2015, and now offers more than 30 titles in the format. Vudu is also less restrictive than Netflix, supporting Atmos on any streaming device that is compatible with the format.

Is Dolby Atmos worth the upgrade?

It’s still (relatively) early days for Dolby Atmos in the home, despite how quickly the technology has taken off. With that said, it absolutely adds an extra level of immersion to your viewing experience, even if it may not be quite as impressive as Atmos can be in theaters. Anything that adds to the “you are there” effect is a win in our book. So as long as you don’t find it prohibitively expensive, we say go for it.

Dolby Atmos is a surround sound format introduced by Dolby Labs in 2012 for use in Cinemas that provides up to 64-channels of surround sound by combining front, side, rear, back, and overhead speakers with a sophisticated audio processing algorithm that adds spatial information. The intent of Dolby Atmos is to provide a total sound immersion experience in a commercial cinema environment.

Following on the heels of initial success in cinemas (2012-2014), Dolby partnered up with several AV Receiver and speaker makers to bring Dolby Atmos experience into the home theater environment.

Of course, only the uber-rich can afford what it would take to install the same type of Dolby Atmos system that is used in the commercial environment, so Dolby Labs provide provided manufacturers with a physically scaled down version that is more suitable (and affordable) to consumers in terms of making the needed upgrades to access the Dolby Atmos experience at home.

So, how can Dolby Atmos be effectively scaled down without losing its impact?

Dolby Atmos Basics

With surround processing formats already found on many home theater receivers, such as Dolby Prologic IIz or Yamaha Presence, you can add a broader front sound stage, and Audyssey DSX can fill in the side sound field - but as sound moves from channel to channel and overhead - you can experience sound dips, gaps, and jumps (now the sound is here, now the sound is there) - in other words, as that helicopter flies around the room, Godzilla wreaks destruction, and, let's face it - rain and storms never sound quite right, the sound may appear wobbly rather than smooth as the filmmaker intended. In other words, you may not experience a continuous wrap-around sound field when there should be one. However, Dolby Atmos is designed to fill in those surround sound gaps.

Spatial Coding: The core of Dolby Atmos technology is Spatial Coding (not to be confused with MPEG Spatial Audio Coding) in which sound objects are assigned a place in space rather than to a specific channel or speaker. Upon playback, the metadata encoded within the bitstream included in content (such as a Blu-ray Disc movie) is decoded on the fly by the Dolby Atmos processing chip in a home theater receiver or AV processor, which makes the sound object spatial assignments based on the channel/setup of the playback equipment (referred to as playback renderer - such as the aforementioned home theater receiver or AV processor/amp).

Setup: To set up the best Dolby Atmos listening options for your home theater (provided you are using a Dolby Atmos-enabled Home Theater Receiver or AV Processor/Amp combination), the menu system will ask you the following questions: How many speakers do you have? What size are your Speakers? Where are your speakers located in the room?

EQ and Room Correction Systems: So far, Dolby Atmos is compatible with existing automatic speaker setup/EQ/Room Correction systems, such as Audyssey, MCACC, YPAO, etc..

Get High: Height channels are an integral part of the Dolby Atmos experience. To gain access to height channels, the user can install either speaker mounted in, or on the ceiling, or employ two new types of more convenient speaker setup and placement options.

One of these options is to add after-market speaker modules that rest on top of your current front left/right and/or surround speakers, or a speaker that can both front and vertically firing drivers encased within the same cabinet (refer to photo example).

The vertical driver directs sound that would normally be produced by ceiling mounted the speaker to the ceiling, which is then reflected back down to the listener. The demos I heard showed very little difference between this type of speaker design vs using separate ceiling mounted speakers.

However, it is also important to note that although the all-in-one 'horizontal/vertical' speaker reduces the number of individual speaker cabinets, it does not reduce the amount of actual speaker wire clutter as the horizontal and vertical channel drivers have to be connected to separate speaker output channels coming from your receiver. The eventual solution to all the speaker connection complexities might just be self-powered wireless speakers, but this topic will possibly have to be addressed at a later date as no wireless Dolby Atmos-enabled speakers are available as of the most recent update to this article (information will be added when it becomes available).

New Speaker Configuration Nomenclature: Get familiar with a new way to describe speaker setup configurations. Instead of 5.1, 7.1, 9.1 etc.. you will see descriptions such as 5.1.2, 7.1.2, 7.1.4, 9.1.4, etc.. Speakers laid on in a horizontal plane (left/right front and surrounds) are the first number, the subwoofer is the second number (maybe .1 or .2), and the ceiling mounted or vertical drivers represent the last number (usually .2 or .4) - More details on this in the next section of this article.

Hardware and Content Availability: Dolby Atmos-encoded content on Blu-ray Disc is available (refer to our listing). Dolby Atmos is compatible with current Blu-ray and Ultra HD Blu-ray disc format specifications.

Dolby Atmos-encoded Blu-ray Discs are playback-backward compatible with almost all Blu-ray Disc players.

However, to access the Dolby Atmos soundtrack, the Blu-ray Disc player has to have HDMI ver 1.3 (or newer) outputs, and the player's secondary audio output setting must be turned off (secondary audio is usually where things such as the director's commentary are accessed). Of course, a Dolby Atmos-enabled home theater receiver or AV processor must be used as part of the chain.

Dolby TrueHD and Dolby Digital Plus: Dolby Atmos metadata fits within the Dolby TrueHD and Dolby Digital Plus formats. So, if you cannot access the Dolby Atmos soundtrack, as long as your Blu-ray Disc player and home theater receiver are Dolby TrueHD/Dolby Digital Plus compatible, you still have access to a soundtrack in those formats, if they are included on the disc or content. What is also interesting to point out is that since Dolby Atmos can be embedded within a Dolby Digital Plus structure, implications are that you may see Dolby Atmos used in streaming and mobile audio applications.

Processing For Non-Dolby Atmos Content: To provide a Dolby Atmos-like experience on currently available 2.0, 5.1, and 7.1 content, a 'Dolby Surround Upmixer', that borrows on the concept employed by the Dolby Pro-Logic audio processing family is included in most Dolby Atmos-equipped home theater receivers. In other words, in lieu of native Dolby Atmos-encoded content, you still have the availability to experience an approximation via the 'Dolby Surround Upmixer'. Look for this feature on Dolby Atmos-equipped home theater receivers.

Implications For The Consumer: Moving beyond all the technical info, the big takeaway from my experience so far with Dolby Atmos is that it is a game changer for home theater audio.

Starting with sound recording and mixing, to the final listening experience, Dolby Atmos, although still requiring speakers and amplifiers to reproduce sound, none-the-less frees that sound from the current limitations of speakers and channels and surrounds the listener from all points and planes where sound can be placed. Astrology for beginners free.

From a bird or helicopter flying overhead, to rain falling from above, to thunder and lighting hitting from any direction, to reproducing the natural acoustics of exterior or interior environments, Dolby Atmos produces a highly accurate natural listening experience.

Dolby Atmos Speaker Placement Options

There are four things you need to access the Dolby Atmos Experience, a Dolby Atmos-equipped home theater receiver (Dolby Atmos equipped receivers has to provide at least 7 channels or more of built-in amplification - see examples at the end of this article), A Blu-ray Disc player (most Blu-ray Disc players are already compatible), Dolby Atmos-encoded Blu-ray Disc content, and, of course, more speakers.

Oh No! Not More Speakers!

If home theater speaker configurations weren't already complicated enough, you might want to buy a large spool of speaker wire if you plan to the enter the World of Dolby Atmos. Just when you thought you could handle 5.1, 7.1, and even 9.1 - you may now have to get used to some new speaker configurations as shown in the above photo, such as 5.1.2, 5.1.4, 7.1.2, or 7.1.4.

So what the heck do the 5.1.2, 5.1.4, 7.1.2, or 7.1.4 designations actually mean?

The 5 and 7 represent how the speakers are normally configured around the room in a horizontal plane, the .1 represents the subwoofer (in some cases, the .1 might be .2 if you have two subwoofers), while the last number designation (in the examples provided - represent 2 or 4 ceiling speakers).

So what do you have to get to be able to accomplish this? A new (or, in select cases, upgraded) home theater receiver incorporating or adding Dolby Atmos Surround Sound decoding and processing capability, and, of course, more speakers!

Easy-to-Add Speaker Solution Possibilities

Dolby Atmos requires adding extra speakers, but Dolby and their manufacturing partners have come up with some solutions that may not mean you actually have to physically hang or place speakers inside your ceiling.

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One solution that will be offered are small Dolby Atmos-compatible vertically firing speaker modules can be placed right on top of the front left/right and left/right surround speakers in your current layout - it doesn't get rid of the extra speaker wires, but it does make it more attractive than running speaker wire up your walls (or having to go into the walls).

Another option being offered are speakers designed to include both horizontally and vertically firing drivers within the same cabinet (practical if you are putting together a system from scratch or switching out your current speaker setup). This would also decrease the physical number of actual speaker cabinets needed, but just as with the module option, it doesn't necessarily cut down on the number of speaker wires you need.

What makes the speaker module or all-in-one horizontal/vertical speaker system work is that the vertically firing speaker drivers are designed to be highly directional, enabling them to project sound so that it bounces off of the ceiling before dispersing into the room. This creates an immersive sound field that appears to come from overhead. Average living and home theater rooms would have speaker-to-ceiling distances that should work, however, rooms with highly angled cathedral ceilings might be an issue and vertical sound projection and ceiling reflection would not be optimal to create the best overhead soundfield. For that scenario, strategy-placed ceiling speakers may be the only option.

More Info

You can get home theater receivers equipped with Dolby Atmos,priced from $400 to $1,299 and $1,300 and Up.

BONUS: Dolby Atmos Technical Documents