{"id":67212,"date":"2014-12-30T11:00:42","date_gmt":"2014-12-30T19:00:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.highdefdigest.com\/blog\/?p=67212"},"modified":"2016-09-23T12:34:52","modified_gmt":"2016-09-23T19:34:52","slug":"dolby-atmos-installation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.highdefdigest.com\/blog\/dolby-atmos-installation\/","title":{"rendered":"Gearing Up for Atmos"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’ve been planning to upgrade my surround sound system to Dolby Atmos ever since the format was first announced for home use. Due to a variety of delays, some financial and some personal, I put off the installation of an Atmos-capable A\/V receiver until after Christmas this year. Now, finally, the time has come to connect the new equipment and step up to the next generation of home theater audio!
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I’ve explained the concept of Dolby Atmos in previous articles (here<\/a>, here<\/a> and here<\/a>). For home theater purposes, the main takeaway is that Atmos fills your room with sound from two auditory planes. The format is built off a traditional base of 5.1 or 7.1 speakers at ear level, and then adds a second layer of sound from overhead. This can be achieved either by mounting additional speakers high in your room, or by using special “upfiring” Atmos-enabled speakers (or speaker modules) that project sounds from ground level to bounce off your ceiling.<\/p>\n

The home theater version of Atmos is a flexible format that can accommodate a number of different configurations, from a minimum 5.1.2 layout (that’s 5.1 channels on the ground and 2 height channels) to a theoretical 24.1.10 discrete speakers. For both practical and financial reasons, support for really high speaker counts will be the domain of high-end, extremely expensive boutique products. The majority of current-generation Atmos receivers top out at 7.1.4. Realistically, that should be plenty, even for large home theater rooms.<\/p>\n

The Hardware<\/h2>\n

Because I’m coming from a 7.1 system, I chose to go for a full 7.1.4 Atmos configuration. To do that, I needed two new pieces of gear (in addition to the new speakers, which I’ll get to shortly).<\/p>\n

\"Denon<\/a><\/p>\n

I’ve been a loyal Denon customer for many years, so the Denon AVR-X5200W receiver<\/a> was a natural upgrade path. However, although it can decode up to 7.1.4 channels for Atmos, the receiver only has nine channels of built-in amplification. In order to power all eleven speakers, I also needed a separate two-channel external amp. For that, I went with the Emotiva UPA-200<\/a>. Admittedly, that particular model is probably overkill just to drive a pair of height speakers. (The AudioSource AMP-100<\/a> is a popular, inexpensive alternative for that.) As such, I’ve decided to use the Emotiva amp to power my main front left and right speakers, while the amps in the receiver will handle everything else.<\/p>\n

Speakers<\/h2>\n

Honestly, buying a new receiver and amp was the easy part. Upgrading my speakers was more complicated for me. I’ve been pretty happy with the speakers that were already in my system, and had neither the desire nor the budget to replace all of them. Unfortunately, the manufacturer, Cambridge Soundworks, has suffered a downturn in recent years and exited the home theater market a while back. Because the company doesn’t make HT speakers at all anymore, it’s not possible for me to buy matching Atmos-enabled upfiring modules from the same brand. While I could just add new speakers or modules from a different company, I prefer not to mix-and-match speakers across separate brands, because I worry about timbre mismatching and don’t entirely trust EQ manipulation in the receiver to guarantee a consistent sound. <\/p>\n

After thinking this over, I found that my best solution was to monitor Craiglist and eBay for used Soundworks speakers that could complement what I already have. Eventually, I acquired a set for a fairly reasonable price, which worked out nicely.<\/p>\n

That wasn’t quite the end of the hassles, though. I agonized over speaker placement for a long time. Because my room was only wired for 7.1 when I built the home theater, and because my Surround and Surround Back speakers were already mounted in place and unmovable, I had to work around my former layout when planning the new one. This resulted in some compromises. <\/p>\n

The height channels in an Atmos system offer the following options for placement:<\/p>\n