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Adding Height Speakers for a Dolby Atmos Installation - Comparison Test

Posted on Thursday, September 17, 2015 3:12 PM

In June 2014, Dolby announced the availability of its Atmos® sound system for home theaters. Previously only available in commercial movie theaters, Dolby Atmos in the home provides home theater enthusiasts with the ability to reproduce height-enhanced soundtracks through the use of capable receivers, extra speakers, and Atmos-encoded Blu-ray discs.

In order to get sound coming from above, the most obvious way is to install two or four speakers in or on the ceiling. However, Dolby realized that some may not be able or willing to do that, so they came up with a way for people to use speakers that sit on top of your front speakers and reflect/bounce the sound off the ceiling to your listening position (these are called "Atmos-enabled" speakers).

Graphic showing two Dolby Atmos configurationsImage above shows two possible Dolby Atmos configurations,
as shown in the white paper,
"Dolby Atmos® for the Home Theater."

Sound & Vision Magazine published an article recently about both approaches. Darryl Wilkinson describes the concepts of Atmos, and examines the difference between using two or four overhead speakers as well as comparing the in-ceiling vs reflecting speakers.

How did it all work out? Four speakers are better than two, and in-ceiling speakers worked slightly better than the reflecting speakers. Home theater is all about tradeoffs, so articles like this provide valuable information to those looking to upgrade their home theater systems.

Click the Read link below to view the full article and read about their findings. For more information, please see our Help Document: Dolby Atmos Resources



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