Well i am looking forward to your impressions though you have made a wholesale change hopefully some qualitative info can be gleaned. I am also interested to know how ATMOS sounds without using the overhead speakers but still be object based surround vs speaker .
Don't let some of the fanatical freaks over in AVS's Atmos thread see you asking that question.
I mentioned that I did an A/B test of an Atmos title about a year ago before I had overhead speakers. I tried a Dolby TrueHD 7.1 mix of a movie (I don't remember what movie) and then played the same clip back in Atmos. Even without overheads, the sounds panned around the room a lot smoother in Atmos and were more precisely located. Still not a full Atmos level, but it was "better." Maybe not "better" enough to justify buying a new receiver without having the overhead speakers, but better. I even had my wife and daughter listen to the A/B test and they said that the Atmos one (without knowing which was which) sounded slightly better each time.
I got reamed by a few people over there (just 2), as did about half a dozen or so other people that experienced the same thing that I did.
So take it for what it is worth.
I was "borrowing" an Onkyo TX NR646 from Best Buy while my Onkyo TX NR709 was off at Onkyo being repaired. It was more of a trial run to see what the Onkyo could do since that was a product I was familiar with, but I would have to get a different model to get me to 7.1.4 (which at the time would have meant at least one extra 2-channel amp). In the end, I liked the Atmos test, but Onkyo dropped Audyssey, and with my acoustical treatments in my room, Audyssey would really tighten things up vs the new proprietary system that Onkyo was using since it only had to make tweaks and not drastic changes. In the end, I skipped all of the mainstream brands and went Anthem and LOVE it, but that is a whole different story.
