i had stated elsewhere on the forum that one of my buddies had gotten himself all the necessary parts for a Dolby Atmos setup and that i was going to have a listen ..... i had also promised that i would report on my impressions of the system and how Atmos for home works ..... so last night i had a chance to go and listen to the system ..... so heres some pics
B&W ceiling speakers
front ceiling speakers from 7.1.4 setup
rear ceiling speakers - you can see the aircon on the top left which is very important to any cinema/listening room
front stage
Marantz 7009 AVR which allows for 7.1.4 with the assistance of additional power amps .... he is using an Arcam Alpha 8 for the ceiling rears ..... and in this pic you can also see the Denon DCD2000AE CD player from the stereo system and the Cary valve pre-amp from the stereo system
rear surround speakers on stands
couch where he sits to watch movies .... or listen to music
bits from the stereo aspects of the setup - heres the B&W CM10 speakers in gloss white
Manley snapper 100w per channel Valve monoblocks
okay now on to the listening impressions - there are very few Atmos discs available yet and obviously the demo of choice from all the available ones is "Transformers : Age of Extinction" so we slipped this into his Cambridge audio Blu-Ray player and fired it up - the opening scene starts of with a shot of the camera panning across from under a waterfall and it absolutely sounded as if the water was dropping over you from the ceiling and that you really were in that cavern behind the waterfall and as it played it went on to a scene where a Woman called Darcy was on her way to a geological dig in a far flung snowy ravine located in the quietest areas of the world and theres a scene where the they show you the camera panning along the ravine and the plane appears from the top of the screen and moves apparently overhead - and you hear all of this in perfect detail ie the plane seems really high up and sounds as if it moved from the back of the room to the extreme front of the room and then disappeared past that front wall .... so Atmos basically works as advertised
a few things that i would have done differently is i would have had my rear speakers a bit more back since he has them very much forward and to the side of the room and then i would have had my height speakers a bit louder so that the effect is more pronounced though some may prefer it as subtle as he has it set up at the moment .... im not sure if he ran the autosetup or not .... but as i said i would personally make the Ceiling speakers louder (but then i do like to show-off when it comes to these things :tongue: so my views are generally different to everyone elses)
i reckon most people would be very happy with the surround results he is obtaining here together with those height effects being integrated very subtly into the system but you can still hear them and it does IMHO add to the realism aspect of the movie ie planes sound high and distant and you complete soundstage makes the room seem as if its very much bigger than it really is and it makes a change to hear planes and helicopters actually above you :thumbs: and moving around in those action scenes
he also has three subwoofers so a movie like this overwhelms your senses and seems much larger than life (which is also how i like it) but one more thing i would have done with so many subwoofers is also get the subwoofers a bit softer since there are so many but with them spread around the room there is a sense of impact in scenes where things collide or crash ie if a transformer jumps from the spaceship and lands on the floor the floor of the room rumbles very perceptibly and all impacts are very solid and really hit you in the chest (personally though i would still have my LFE a little softer for daily usage but it was fun how he has it setup for a "once in a while" demo though
)
i would love to get to experience some other movies as well since Transformers is a movie that really overwhelms all your senses and i would also like to see how Atmos handles more subtle smaller scenes but this was impressive though and personally i cannot wait till i can afford to get the Atmos AVR since Atmos is a thing that really works for my own senses and i like it as opposed to many here who are only purely into stereo music which for me is another pastime altogether ie theres a time for that stereo music and i really would like a system suitable to give me this Atmos stuff as well and my current long time goals to get a similar setup to what my buddy has though my speaker positioning may be a bit different due to a differently shaped room
as i said though i would really like to hear some more content in this setup so my buddy is going to have to expect a few more visits from me over time and as the content is released .... i really hope he wont mind me pestering him so much and he probably is going to eventually get tired of me being at his place so much :walled: :EGrin:
B&W ceiling speakers
front ceiling speakers from 7.1.4 setup
rear ceiling speakers - you can see the aircon on the top left which is very important to any cinema/listening room
front stage
Marantz 7009 AVR which allows for 7.1.4 with the assistance of additional power amps .... he is using an Arcam Alpha 8 for the ceiling rears ..... and in this pic you can also see the Denon DCD2000AE CD player from the stereo system and the Cary valve pre-amp from the stereo system
rear surround speakers on stands
couch where he sits to watch movies .... or listen to music
bits from the stereo aspects of the setup - heres the B&W CM10 speakers in gloss white
Manley snapper 100w per channel Valve monoblocks
okay now on to the listening impressions - there are very few Atmos discs available yet and obviously the demo of choice from all the available ones is "Transformers : Age of Extinction" so we slipped this into his Cambridge audio Blu-Ray player and fired it up - the opening scene starts of with a shot of the camera panning across from under a waterfall and it absolutely sounded as if the water was dropping over you from the ceiling and that you really were in that cavern behind the waterfall and as it played it went on to a scene where a Woman called Darcy was on her way to a geological dig in a far flung snowy ravine located in the quietest areas of the world and theres a scene where the they show you the camera panning along the ravine and the plane appears from the top of the screen and moves apparently overhead - and you hear all of this in perfect detail ie the plane seems really high up and sounds as if it moved from the back of the room to the extreme front of the room and then disappeared past that front wall .... so Atmos basically works as advertised
a few things that i would have done differently is i would have had my rear speakers a bit more back since he has them very much forward and to the side of the room and then i would have had my height speakers a bit louder so that the effect is more pronounced though some may prefer it as subtle as he has it set up at the moment .... im not sure if he ran the autosetup or not .... but as i said i would personally make the Ceiling speakers louder (but then i do like to show-off when it comes to these things :tongue: so my views are generally different to everyone elses)
i reckon most people would be very happy with the surround results he is obtaining here together with those height effects being integrated very subtly into the system but you can still hear them and it does IMHO add to the realism aspect of the movie ie planes sound high and distant and you complete soundstage makes the room seem as if its very much bigger than it really is and it makes a change to hear planes and helicopters actually above you :thumbs: and moving around in those action scenes
he also has three subwoofers so a movie like this overwhelms your senses and seems much larger than life (which is also how i like it) but one more thing i would have done with so many subwoofers is also get the subwoofers a bit softer since there are so many but with them spread around the room there is a sense of impact in scenes where things collide or crash ie if a transformer jumps from the spaceship and lands on the floor the floor of the room rumbles very perceptibly and all impacts are very solid and really hit you in the chest (personally though i would still have my LFE a little softer for daily usage but it was fun how he has it setup for a "once in a while" demo though
) i would love to get to experience some other movies as well since Transformers is a movie that really overwhelms all your senses and i would also like to see how Atmos handles more subtle smaller scenes but this was impressive though and personally i cannot wait till i can afford to get the Atmos AVR since Atmos is a thing that really works for my own senses and i like it as opposed to many here who are only purely into stereo music which for me is another pastime altogether ie theres a time for that stereo music and i really would like a system suitable to give me this Atmos stuff as well and my current long time goals to get a similar setup to what my buddy has though my speaker positioning may be a bit different due to a differently shaped room
as i said though i would really like to hear some more content in this setup so my buddy is going to have to expect a few more visits from me over time and as the content is released .... i really hope he wont mind me pestering him so much and he probably is going to eventually get tired of me being at his place so much :walled: :EGrin:
