How To Get Dolby Atmos: How Many Speakers And Where To Place Them

[@kevinlavallee2432]

you know he's Canadian when he says "aboot" instead of 'about"! Great stuff. Love our northern cousins.

[@AxiomHomeTheaters]

Thanks Kevin :)

[@PKWeaver74]

I was curious as to what I would need to go to Dolby Atmos and this video provided the answer eloquently. 1: A remortgage or lottery win. 2: A new home with larger rooms. 3: An even more understanding spouse. (The first three are implied the rest are explicitly stated please watch the video).

[@nickbuol]

Nice job Andrew. I still think that I was the one of the first Axiom user to go Atmos way back in the beginning of 2016 and certainly was the first to put on walls up on the ceiling, back before the option to do so existed. I guess I have the beta on-wall M3s mounted to the ceiling. LOL. For those wondering, my room has a lot of sound proofing technology and the was no way that I wanted to put 4 holes into my ceiling (double layers of 5/8 drywa with Green Glue) and no way to ensure that I would miss hitting my ceiling joists or my whisper clip/hat channel system, so on the ceiling instead of in the ceiling was the way to go. No regrets at all. Powering my 7.1.4 setup (with dual subs) with another Canadian product. An Anthem MRX-1120. Love it.

[@AxiomHomeTheaters]

Thanks for being a great innovator and first adopter! Your set-up sounds perfect 👍 Don't hesitate to ask us any questions you'd like us to do a KZbin video answer on.

[@ernestol.2417]

Thank you for the no bs content. Love it

[@AxiomHomeTheaters]

Glad you like the content, thank you for watching.

[@jacobsteele7138]

I have it and yes it was expensive. Worth it. Sometimes yes many times no!

[@AxiomHomeTheaters]

Thanks for sharing, it's always a win when you find it worth the expense and can kick back and enjoy your set up.

[@Mudweizer]

Great information, keep it coming 😎

[@AxiomHomeTheaters]

Thanks Chris 👍

[@sergioomar9090]

Excellent video!!

[@AxiomHomeTheaters]

Thank you!

[@Samitocas]

Like always Andrew another great video. But believe me, i have much more than Dolby Atmos, with the Omnipolar speakers i have a sound all around me.

[@AxiomHomeTheaters]

Nice!

[@johnwest360]

Thank you Sir. Very informative

[@AxiomHomeTheaters]

Glad it was helpful, thank you for taking the time to comment.

[@trevorm574]

A 5.1.2 Atmos setup is a better choice than a 7.1 Dolby True HD setup and typically in ceilings are a little cheaper than rear channels would be. Go for it folks!

[@AxiomHomeTheaters]

Thanks for sharing your experience with Atmos. The changes in Home Theater are fast and furious, so it's always good to hear what's working for people 👍

[@SandeepPillai]

Hi Andrew, thanks for the info. Am I right that the in-ceiling speakers should be installed between front and rear speaker area whereas if one is going for the elevation/on-ceiling mounted speakers, this needs to be behind the front speaker and behind the rear-speaker on the wall, to achieve similar results ?

[@AxiomHomeTheaters]

Yes, that is basically correct if your talking about height channels, but if the elevation speakers are going to be used at Atmos channels, they should go in similar locations to the in-ceilings. To see examples of the correct placement, see the Dolby Atmos official website. They show a number of examples with the suggested angles to calculate the distances.

[@terrydrums]

"Full Metal Bracket" is my favorite Kubrick movie.

[@vikassm]

Stanley Kendrick?

[@devmn76]

best information.....

[@AxiomHomeTheaters]

Thank you 👍

[@kevinpatrickburke]

Hay Axiom, thanks for putting together this video on the system requirements for Dolby Atmos. I have been considering upgrading my existing system which can do TrueHD audio & the likes of THX-Master audio. I have asked several 'specialists' for a bit of advice, and all but one did not respond. Watching your video has answered every question I had. Thanks from Glasgow Scotland.

[@AxiomHomeTheaters]

Thanks so much for taking the time to say the video answered your questions, much appreciated. If you have questions in future, don't hesitate to ask in the KZbin comments, I go through them most days to answer any questions. Cheers from Muskoka, Canada!

[@richsmif]

very clear, thank you

[@AxiomHomeTheaters]

You are welcome! Thanks for watching.

[@jack91522]

I have two QS8's in a 5.1 config (vaulted ceiling room) mounted 9 ft high on the back wall. Do the in-wall atmos speakers have to be mounted even higher? I thought the atmos directional speakers were not suppose to be pointed down?

[@Samzep]

Hi again have decided to go 7.1.4 and will put the atmos 4 on celing prob the prime elevations how high would you say to have the surround and the rear ?

[@AxiomHomeTheaters]

I would have the surrounds and rears at least a couple of feet above your seated ear height, which usually works out to around 2-3 feet from the ceiling.

[@Samzep]

Axiom Audio ok cool i have the surround 2 feet above ear level tho the backs are 4 so will bring down and how wide should i have the rear ? And placement on the 4 atmos do you think roughly 1 metre in front and 1 meter behind for the 4 atmos on ceiling?

[@AxiomHomeTheaters]

@@Samzep The rears should be as wide as possible, but I’d leave at least 2 feet to the side walls if possible. For positioning the Atmos speakers I would recommend looking up the Dolby setup suggestions on their website.

[@leonidas7080]

Very good video. Please inform my , if i can have dolby atmos atmosphere from my tv to my room ,with a home theater dolby atmos receiver .Must even the tv suport the dolby atmos?Otherwise i will have only a simple surround atmosphere?

[@AxiomHomeTheaters]

No, the TV does not have to have Atmos internally as all the audio will be handled by the receiver.

[@adresc5391]

Question Dolby Atmos speakers have double terminals so does that mean that they're bi wired or they go to two separate channels

[@AxiomHomeTheaters]

You’d need to consult the manual for the specific Atmos speakers you’re looking at, but I’m inclined to think that the dual terminals are for optional bi-wiring.

[@ishan_05]

Can I connect the speakers to my pc and get the same effect in my gaming room?

[@AxiomHomeTheaters]

Absolutely! If you have a Windows 10 PC there are Dolby Atmos apps available for both headphone and speakers. www.dolby.com/gaming/

[@Samzep]

Great video perfectly explained i have 7.1 systems and have concrete celing so i am not doing any celing speakers i was thinking as you said to just turn my rears on the back wall that are already very hight up on the wall about foot from celing into the atmos speakers i am getting a new amp any week now that will do atmos looking to get antham 720 do you think the 5.1.2 will sound better than my 7.1 ?

[@AxiomHomeTheaters]

With Atmos encoded content, the 5.1.2 setup should be more immersive and have more height information. On regularly encoded source material I would suspect it would be a tossup. Great question, and thanks for watching.

[@Samzep]

Axiom Audio the 2 rear on back wall 1 foot from roof should i take them higher if i do the 5.1.2 ?

[@AxiomHomeTheaters]

@@Samzep I would not get any closer than one foot to the ceiling.

[@Samzep]

Axiom Audio I don’t understand for the 5.1.2 set up where does the 2 atmos speakers go and where do the other 2 rears go

[@AxiomHomeTheaters]

@@Samzep I would put the 2 rear speakers on the back wall, or on the side walls behind the listening area, if possible. If you’re not using ceiling mounted speakers for the Atmos channels, I would recommend having them a few feet in front of the listening area and fairly high up on the walls. If they are directional it would be ideal to angle or aim them towards the listening area.

[@ZericTV]

If your rear speakers are in the ceiling can those function as your rear ATMOS speakers as well or is it one or the other?

[@AxiomHomeTheaters]

No, they can’t be the same speakers. You need dedicated channels for ATMOS if you want the full performance of the technology.

[@chrisw341]

Does your receiver have to support it or just the speaker has to have ?

[@AxiomHomeTheaters]

Actually it’s more important that your receiver has Atmos decoding or the speakers won’t matter at all.

[@benrub]

One thing that the gentleman in this video doesn’t address is mounting Atmos speakers on the wall. A lot of the wedge shaped speakers for sale have a keyhole mount so that they can be mounted on the wall. Is this a good approach? I could buy four Atmos wedge speakers and mount them on the wall Highup above the listening level. I’m curious with the pros and cons of this approach.

[@AxiomHomeTheaters]

Atmos wedge speakers have become popular recently and are certainly a great alternative to ceiling mounting where that’s not possible.

[@tany765]

Can I use the wedge shaped speakers mounted high up on the front wall? Will that be better than having them on top of the main speakers?

[@AxiomHomeTheaters]

I would not recommend this as Atmos certified speakers that are designed to be placed on top of front channels have a specific frequency response for bouncing off of the ceiling…they are not linear. You could try it, but the result would be unpredictable

[@tany765]

@@AxiomHomeTheaters thank you, I have the wharfedale D300 3D surround on top of my mains, if I place them on the front wall high up would that be better than upfiring and bouncing off of the ceiling?

[@AxiomHomeTheaters]

@@tany765 I see that the Wharfedales can be wall mounted, so I suspect they might perform better mounted on the front wall rather than bouncing off the ceiling. They are not officially Atmos certified and hence don’t have the non-linear EQ required by Dolby.

[@mellorarma]

I am in a situation where I cannot install speakers on the ceiling, I will be placing 2 speakers on the back wall right at the top of. Do I set the speakers on the a the are to rear height or do I set them to ceiling for best result.

[@AxiomHomeTheaters]

I would not place them right up near the ceiling…I find a couple of feet below the ceiling works well in most setups.

[@harishparvatham2906]

Hi Wat about integrating atoms into stereo systems ? If atoms is object based and free of channels then it must work with 2.0 or 2.1 system just like 5.1.2 etc. wen I say 2.0, it’s not the binaural audio they use for headphone but the native atoms for stereo system. And where exactly should the atoms be ? The Dac? Pre ? Or a player or PC. If I plug the Dac to a PC with Dolby atoms will it work ? 1. Is atoms natively compatible with stereo speakers 2. Where in the chain atoms operates ? Dac or before Dac. And how can I interacts atoms to my existing typical system I.e usb Dac and stereo amp. Without adding more channels

[@AxiomHomeTheaters]

As far as my understanding just like full surround, Atmos requires multiple loudspeaker channels and can not be down mixed to stereo and have the same effect.

[@LBitoeverything]

No hard feeling but this is one of those videos where Play speed function helps.

[@AxiomHomeTheaters]

That's why KZbin has that function.

[@LBitoeverything]

@@AxiomHomeTheaters That's exactly what I said Bud....

[@WebSurfer447]

every time you speak I can hear the micrphone do something weird like it gives soft feedback. thanks for the info tho!

[@AxiomHomeTheaters]

Thanks for the heads up, and glad you enjoyed the info.

[@ross-yb1il]

Thanks for this video. Been up late wondering how to get an atmos sound. I do hv a question, i hav an old tv not smart which has ARC hdmi, bought Samsung Q950T which supports Atmos. I dont hv money to buy fr a new tv bt i really love to experience the atmos. Whats my options ? Cn i get the nvidia shield pro which supports atmos?

[@AxiomHomeTheaters]

It looks like the Q950T has a couple of HDMI inputs, so you could connect any Atmos capable device to one of those inputs and pass the video only to your TV via the ARC output on the soundbar. Thanks for watching.

[@ananthprem8804]

Hey Ross, looks like you're looking for a source which can output Dolby Atmos sound. Apple TV and NVidea Shield do support Dolby Atmos sound.

[@SuperBadfishy]

Ironic how the audio on a video about audio is terrible.

[@elbrujomaya]

Since 2004 with the old dolby ex / es that decoded 7.1 in the rear channels, I put those rear channels on the ceiling of the room, when "atmos" arrived for me there was no difference, I think that dolby atmos didn't really it is new, because it can be played on a blue ray player that was not designed for atmos.

[@AxiomHomeTheaters]

The Blu-ray player will be able to send the Atmos information over HDMI, but the decoding itself is done in the AVR or TV.

[@kennethboss2549]

Do you have to use Dolby Atmos Speakers to get Dolby Atoms sound from your receiver or can you use a regular speaker.

[@AxiomHomeTheaters]

Technically you can use any speaker for the Atmos channels, but you need to place them according to the Dolby recommendations for the best effect. Thanks for your question, and for watching.

[@jaguar0811]

I believe that DTS and DTS-X are far and away better then anything Dolby has

[@AxiomHomeTheaters]

Everyone has their preferred format, it's always a matter of what sounds best to you. Thanks for watching 👍

[@jaguar0811]

You are absolutely correct. I Running M 100 for my front means with Anthem mx1120 And either format rocks the place

[@blackhat856]

Drilling holes in the ceiling? Nightmare

[@timtodd22]

What angle range can the full metal bracket achieve when mounted to the wall with an M3? I have a full 5.1 Axiom Audio speaker setup and was looking to add height speakers that would be mounted to the wall and tilted down (I am looking for an elevation angle of 30 degrees and I am not sure what tilt I will need; my tilt would be most pronounced for the surround heights as my couch is about 2 feet from the back wall). Also, my Axiom speakers are ~15 years old. Should the current M3’s be a good timbre match for the Axiom surrounds (QS4’s) and my old Axiom towers (purchased in 2006).

[@AxiomHomeTheaters]

Just to confirm, you want 30 degrees between the face of the baffle and the wall? The M3’s should match up no problem with your surrounds and older towers.

[@timtodd22]

​@@AxiomHomeTheaters Great to hear on the M3's matching up! :) As I thought about this some more, that isn't quite the angle I would be looking for. The horizontal plane speakers (I am looking to add height speakers above those) are located as surround right and surround left at the 110 degree position with 5 feet distance from the primary listening position; the primary listening position is ear height for the center seat of my couch). Unfortunately, for the height speakers, in my room, it is only feasible to mount to the rear wall and they would need to be mounted above their non height counterparts. If the speakers were only angled down vertically (as would have been the case if I was able to mount them on side walls) the angle you describe would have been the correct angle, however they also need to be twisted in to so the high frequency part of the speaker would be pointed just over the head of the primary listening position. This horizontal twist would make the inside edge of the speaker (and in particular the inside speaker corner) the occluding factor. I.e. The bottom inside corner of the speaker would be what occludes rather than the full back bottom edge. Auro-3D (I am trying to setup up a speaker placement that works for Atmos, DTS and Auro) wants a 30 degree elevation angle (horizontal line of sight to the high frequency part of the speaker located on the non-height plane [i.e. L, C, R, SR, or SL, etc.] compared to the line of sight of the high frequency part of the height speaker above it [i.e. HL, HC, HR, HSR, HSL, etc.]). The elevation angle uses the ear of the primary listener position as the point of reference (the ear point of reference being the elevation angle vertex). The height speaker (I am focusing on the heights against the rear wall in my description but this would also apply to the heights in front) is then tilted down and horizontally angled to point just above the head of the primary listening position (this point just above the head being the tilt angle vertex). I was wanting to try and make sure that I had enough tilt to point the speaker to the correct position. The horizontal twist may be problematic for the full metal bracket (if it doesn't have the speaker far enough out from the wall). It could be that I am not explaining this well. This is rather challenging for me to describe. Basically, I'm wanting to know if the mount would let me position the M3 speakers so that they would be able to be aligned correctly (as regards the elevation angle, the horizontal twist in combined with the angled tilt) as height channels for Auro-3d (per their spec). Thanks so much for your help! I love my Axioms! :)

[@AxiomHomeTheaters]

@@timtodd22 Hi Tim. That’s going to be difficult to figure out, but I think I understand what you’re asking for…30 degree downward tilt along with a 30 degree “toe-in” angle at the same time. If I have that correct let me know and I can investigate for you.

[@timtodd22]

@@AxiomHomeTheaters ​ Getting closer I think! :) I think I am looking for just under 30 degree downward tilt (30 degree would definitely work though) and somewhere between a 70 to 80 degree "toe-in" angle (plane of wall and back plane of speaker). As an aside (I'll correct the prior comment): I also had the distance of the listening position to the horizontal speaker incorrect (it is actually 5 feet away instead of 50 inches away).

[@AxiomHomeTheaters]

Your last comment included a link to Google Drive, and YOuTube automatically hides them. Currently, any comments like this that get set to approved, just disappear. OK, I think I’ve got it. I’ll try to look into that for you shortly, and will let you know.

[@totalplonker824]

Dolby Atmos Dolby Atmos that I've listened to dozens of Dolby Atmos movies and I'm still yet to experience this so-called object-based audio all I hear is a separate soundtrack being played on top of The Original soundtrack impressive yes but none of this object-based audio as I was led to believe!

[@AxiomHomeTheaters]

I have spoken to many who LOVE the Atmos effect, and others that feel the same way as yourself. I guess it all comes down to personal opinion and preference.

[@totalplonker824]

@@AxiomHomeTheaters absolutely my friend... they do say audio is subjective

[@AxiomHomeTheaters]

@@totalplonker824 Yes, exactly.

[@consciousnessinabody]

You broke your link to "in wall installation"............

[@AxiomHomeTheaters]

Thank you very much! All the links are now fixed. Nice catch 👍

[@consciousnessinabody]

@@AxiomHomeTheaters Thank you for your content and for fixing your links! Ensuring those links are kept up to date will allow more sites to backlink to your content as you grow, thereby pushing you higher up the food chain and I think "in wall installation" would qualify as "evergreen" content thereby making that especially valuable ;)

[@AxiomHomeTheaters]

@@consciousnessinabody absolutely! That's why I'm so appreciative of you letting me know. I've been reviewing other videos to see if there are any more broken links, especially Wall O' Fame ones which clearly were affected. Glad to hear you're enjoying the content, please let me know if there are any topics you'd like to see covered 👍

[@consciousnessinabody]

​ @Axiom Audio The reason you're making these videos is to share your passion with the layman and inevitably profit from the help you've given to others is it not? The apparency of your technical depth and breadth of knowledge leaves me trusting your opinion. I am left wishing there were direct amazon referral links to a mid-range Dolby Atmos home theatre system instead of having to sift through even more information and hope I make the right choice... I along with most consumers would love to have 80% of the quality of high end, but 20% of the price where most consumers fall simply because most don't care enough to worry about the next 20% for 80% more? In other words, could you be the conduit by which many lives are made more awesome, thereby making yours awesome via dat $ ??????????

[@AxiomHomeTheaters]

@@consciousnessinabody I think it's important to start off by deciding on a budget, regardless if it's small or large, you at least need something as a starting point. The more speakers you need for the setup you desire, the less money you will have per speaker. You want Atmos 11.2 and have a small budget? I would start with a basic 5.1 system and buy the best you can within your budget. You can always add the other speakers later, when you save a bit more. I also think that balance is key when it comes to any audio or home theater system. Don't blow everything on the AVR and leave nothing for the speakers or vice versa. Above all use your ears! Also keep in mind, you're not stuck with what you buy. For instance, Axiom has a trade up program, so if you decide to upgrade it's far more economical. Most people find the biggest decision is for the Atmos speakers; in-ceiling, custom on wall speakers with specialty brackets, etc. Either way, it's a challenging decision as you can't just plop the speakers in place. In essence your 80/20 is spot on, but everyone has a budget, so start where you can, and plan your future upgrades. Best of luck on finding your perfect setup, and keep me posted on how it goes.

[@thatfootguy6746]

I am upset for this canadian...

[@xxxXXXCH04XXXxxx]

Is he from Canada?

[@xxxXXXCH04XXXxxx]

Nvm, lol, I read the comments