New setup - configure as immersive speaker layer as "heights" or "tops"?

[jhaider]

We recently moved and had a 7.1.4 channel system (4 subs) installed in our new living room. I’m not sure whether I should set the immersive channel layer as heights or tops in the HTP-1. Here’s why:

-The immersive-layer speakers are are mounted in the ceiling, BUT in positions roughly over front left/right and back left/right. Additionally their coaxial midrange/tweeter fires towards the listening position. Well, technically they’re angled such that the fronts cross slightly ahead of the listening position and the rears cross at the same point. Speakers, if it matters, are the old TAD/Pioneer S-iw891a.

View attachment 45371

The elevation angle of front heights relative to the acoustic center of left/right speakers is a hair under 26 degrees. I have not calculated the elevation angle for rear heights relative to rears, and honesty have no idea how to do so given that the rear speakers are CBT arrays

-Priority use cases, in order, are Auromatic 3D upmixing of two channel music, Atmos music on Apple Music or disk, NFL, everything else. To put our movie watching habits in perspective, the last one we sat through from start to finish for pleasure was “In the Heights.” Before that, “Hamilton.”

My inclination is to set them up as "Heights" but I'm willing to be convinced otherwise.

 

[Sonnie Parker]

I don't know that it will matter will it? Is there a difference in what Top vs Height output?

I have mine set to Top Front and Top Rear. They are not at the same location as yours, relative to the front speakers, but they do have angled tweeters towards the listening position. Either way, when you run the setup, the level is going to be set so that the sound from those speakers is the same level as your other speakers, regardless of orientation or degree.

 

[jhaider]

I don't know that it will matter will it? Is there a difference in what Top vs Height output?…

As I understand it (could be wrong), yes.

Either way, when you run the setup, the level is going to be set so that the sound from those speakers is the same level as your other speakers, regardless of orientation or degree.

It’s not about level, it’s about mapping. And the more I think about it, it seems elevation angle is the key factor. Dolby seems to want "tops" to be inward rather than above the mains - how stupid, especially considering normal living spaces will often have ceiling fans! - and at a 45deg angle. "Heights" are in the same vertical plane as the mains/rears and at ~30deg elevation relative to the mains.

As it were my first calibration was as heights and seems to work well, with the caveat that I've not had much time to listen. But I could also change it. I'm going to redo it to optimize digital headroom, "preconditioning" a few sub peaks (one of my subs had a post-DBLC calibrated level of 0dB) with the HTP-1's PEQ and also undoing the levels that were set in my sub amp (Crown DCI4|1250n) for our previous living room, that I forgot to zero out prior to calibration here. Conveniently, one of them was that the sub pegged at 0dB in this room was set 5dB down in the amp in the last room.

 

[Sonnie Parker]

It seems logical to me that if the sound arrives at your ears based on the level being matched, as long as it is overhead, it should sound appropriate.

 

[Todd Anderson]

I don't think those designations will affect overall sound. The system designates height channels and top channels largely out of user convenience, I believe. I don't think it processes the sound differently. Height channels are technically more apt to be deployed for Auro, while top channels are more or less associated with Atmos. If you're running an arrangement with a mix of height and top channels, it makes it easier to tag the speakers as such in your menu system so you know which speakers should be recruited for each playback scenario.

Those Dolby specs you're referencing are general guidelines, but your mileage is going to vary based on speaker height. If you have lower ceilings, you're going to benefit, sound-wise, from having your top-channel tweeters firing toward the listening position (as opposed to straight down). My experience, of course, but I spent extensive time playing around with various configurations in my theater and found that aiming was preferable.

You can still run Atmos with height channels at the front and back of your room, no problem. You're going to experience a bit of a gap in sound when it comes to height channel effects (for example, a helicopter moving around the top of your room won't sound as seamless as it does when top middle and top front channels are deployed. It's still going to sound better than non-Atmos material. If you want a real treat, pick up an Auro-3D demo disc and put those front and rear height channels to use --- it's better than Atmos! I think you'll agree!

 

[JStewart]

I have a somewhat similar situation, also HTP-1, and tried it both ways. There was a difference but not able to choose a preference. We'll I might have a preference... Trinnov, but it's not an option.

 

[NBPK402]

I could be wrong, but I think tops are for ceiling and heights are for wall mounted. My reasoning is that tops would generally ceiling mounted and closer to the user seating than the lower level speakers, and heights are usually closer to the lower level speakers, mounted on the walls, and angled for the preferred angle for heights.

In the USA the immersive channels are usually ceiling mounted, whereas in Europe they are wall mounted (due to ceiling height). I have mine wall mounted, but when I get Auro 3d... I will have the VOG channel over the MLP position, and leave the rest of my heights on the walls.

 

[jhaider]

It seems logical to me that if the sound arrives at your ears based on the level being matched, as long as it is overhead, it should sound appropriate.

I don’t follow. That’s like saying the soundstage in a 2 channel system is not affected by speaker placement as long as their levels are matched at the LP. Setting speakers up consistent with ITU standards (listener at a 30deg to each speaker) generally works best.

If you're running an arrangement with a mix of height and top channels,

Here that is NOT the case. The immersive layer speaker placement itself is a hybrid, but that hybrid placement (“height” placement and elevation angle, but ceiling mounted) is consistent across all 4 immersive layer speakers.

Those Dolby specs you're referencing are general guidelines, but your mileage is going to vary based on speaker height. If you have lower ceilings, you're going to benefit, sound-wise, from having your top-channel tweeters firing toward the listening position (as opposed to straight down).

Two thoughts here.

First, I’m 3/4 convinced Dolby “tops” elevation angles are so steep because most ceiling speakers are terribly designed. The non-omnidirectional radiators should face the listener, but most fire some or all of them at the floor!

Second, I don’t think aimable tweeters solve more problems than they cause. Every transducer that has some directivity should be in fixed alignment and aimed as a unit. Otherwise the crossover cannot work properly. The properly aimed concentric driver in these speakers (ok, and TAD design heritage) makes them credible performers even as 2 channel primary speakers.

You can still run Atmos with height channels at the front and back of your room, no problem. You're going to experience a bit of a gap in sound when it comes to height channel effects (for example, a helicopter moving around the top of your room won't sound as seamless as it does when top middle and top front channels are deployed.

I’m not convinced, at least given height speakers with well controlled directivity, that there’s any issue to speak of, so long as the renderer knows what the speaker placement is at least. We had standard front and rear height speakers (small things with 4” concentric drivers mounted about 8’ off the ground in a room with 9.5’ ceilings) in the old house. I never heard any mid-room gap in demo disks or real program. It could simply be that I’m not sensitive/sensitized to the issue.

It's still going to sound better than non-Atmos material. If you want a real treat, pick up an Auro-3D demo disc and put those front and rear height channels to use --- it's better than Atmos! I think you'll agree!

I do! I have both Auro disks. Truth be told I thought immersive was a dumb marketing gimmick only useful for comic book adaptations I don’t watch or care about -until I heard an Auro demo playing music. Then I understood and took the leap myself.

 

[Sonnie Parker]

I don’t follow. That’s like saying the soundstage in a 2 channel system is not affected by speaker placement as long as their levels are matched at the LP. Setting speakers up consistent with ITU standards (listener at a 30deg to each speaker) generally works best.

Top/Height speakers can't be compared to setting up your mains... completely different function. The overhead speakers are merely ambient sounds, sounds that you shouldn't really be able to directly detect, but they should rather blend and flow with the other speakers to create that spatial effect for a particular scene in a movie (or music). While I would not want to get too far away from being overhead so that the effect I am getting does appear to be overhead, I don't think it's as critical a many make it out to be, provided it's arriving at your ears at the proper time. I certainly don't think the angle is going to be of as much importance as the level matching. There are Top/Height speakers built to be placed on top of mains/surrounds that are pointed to the ceiling and reflected back down at the listener, so location and angle can't be seriously critical, or they would have never made those speakers, as reflections are scattered and not anywhere close to what direct/non-reflected sound location will be.

 

[Todd Anderson]

I built a rig that allowed me to move height/top channels around to any position in the room (as part of a review a few years ago). With Auro, you're not going to hear a gap, but that's because Auro utilizes that top layer differently than Atmos. With Atmos, however, a gap is noticeable once you have a chance to hear a range of positions.

That gap isn't a massive issue, I'm sure your setup still sounds great!

 

[JStewart]

I do! I have both Auro disks. Truth be told I thought immersive was a dumb marketing gimmick only useful for comic book adaptations I don’t watch or care about -until I heard an Auro demo playing music. Then I understood and took the leap myself.

I’ve not heard an Auro demo but the speaker layout makes a lot of sense intuitively given we’re designed to hear on the horizontal plane and not so much the vertical or from behind for that matter. Guess there were not a lot of pterodactyls around during our evolution.

 

[Todd Anderson]

I’ve not heard an Auro demo but the speaker layout makes a lot of sense intuitively given we’re designed to hear on the horizontal plane and not so much the vertical or from behind for that matter. Guess there were not a lot of pterodactyls around during our evolution.

I'm not entirely convinced Auro-3D sounds better as a movie encode. But the demo clips on their two demo discs (one is a recording of audio from a busy town square, one is a tractor passing on a country road, and one is of pipe organ in a church) are off the charts incredible. Auro's use of height channels for environmental reflections really tricks your brain into perceiving a very real setting with height and depth. It's wonderful.

 

[jhaider]

I built a rig that allowed me to move height/top channels around to any position in the room (as part of a review a few years ago). With Auro, you're not going to hear a gap, but that's because Auro utilizes that top layer differently than Atmos. With Atmos, however, a gap is noticeable once you have a chance to hear a range of positions.

That gap isn't a massive issue, I'm sure your setup still sounds great!

Interesting.Did you write the experiment up? I’m curious about two things:
1) What was the quality of loudspeakers used for the immersive layer in your experiment? Did they have constant or well-controlled directivity with no dispersion disruption at the mid-tweeter crossover? Wide or narrow dispersion? Issue here is disaggregating effects from placement from effects of design and engineering flaws (or choices, in the case of width of dispersion pattern in a loudspeaker with controlled directivity) exposed in loudspeakers.

2) As you moved the speakers, did you also change the AVR/P setting from tops to heights? Issue here is to what extent the renderer successfully maps to alternate configurations.

 

[Todd Anderson]

Here's one of the write ups: https://www.avnirvana.com/threads/s...vr-tackle-auro-3d-an-exploratory-review.3737/

I think it's safe to assume the Prime Elevations have relatively wide dispersion. And, yes, as I moved the speakers, adjustments were made in the settings.

 

[Adhoc]

Very good write up Todd! It covers a lot of questions people can have about Atmos, DTS-X and Auro-3D.

@jhaider ;study the link to the 30 page Auro-3D installation guide Tood has in the write up https://www.auro-3d.com/wp-content/uploads/documents/Auro-3D-Home-Theater-Setup-Guidelines_lores.pdf If one (like me) has a room with low ceiling height, speaker installation according to the Auro-3D is easier and better than Atmos if one wants to keep to as close as possible to recommended vertical angles versus MLP. Depending on room length and width anything lower than about 2,4 m / 8 feet is low if one wants to keep to those recommended vertical angles. I wish my room had H 3 m / 10 feet ...

If music also has high priority, the Auromatic upmixer from stereo, 5.1 and 7.1-sources seems superior. I have yet to come across any forum posts which prefers Dolby's, especially as Dolby Prologic II is no longer available on newer AVRs.

Personally I'm at the moment hooking up 21 surrounds at different positions. -The green circles in the sketch, at Wide, Side 1, Side 2 and Back Surround positions there are speakers at both the bed and height layer. Reason: I wish to be able to switch between Atmos / DTS-X Pro and Auro-3D with the Denon AVC X8500H which arrived some days ago. Due to the 2 doors / air locks at the back of the room, angles for surround backs will be compromised, -there are just some practical things one has to accept. I enclose some pdfs on combined Atmos and Auro-3D and Trinnov's loudspeaker positions.

 

[littlegandhi1199]

With Onkyo NR-3030
Set to 9.X.2 I used it for a long time set at Front Heights. The second I changed it to Front tops (Not even top center) ATMOS pulled 3x more sound into those speakers.
It was obviously the only choice.

 

[gatestick]

With my Marantz 7702mk2 auro is not available if set as tops. I actually prefer the sound of auro. If you go by the diagram my setup is tops. I have them set as heights so I can use all types of decoding. This is probably the wrong thing to do but I like having the options. Is there any particular reason that the processors don't automatically pick the correct program dependant on the incoming signal?

 

[JStewart]

Is there any particular reason that the processors don't automatically pick the correct program dependant on the incoming signal?

I can only say that with my HTP-1 Auro works with either heights or tops.

 

[Todd Anderson]

I can only say that with my HTP-1 Auro works with either heights or tops.

it won’t stop playback, but Auto is specifically designed to have sound coming to the listening position from an upper plain, not top-down, to mimic reflections that we hear in a natural environment. So, if the channels are ceiling mounted, your ears aren’t getting the information as intended.