Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion The Water Cooler Heading to CEDIA tomorrow

I am in Plano, TX for work this week, so I have the opportunity to head to CEDIA again this year since it is right next door in Dallas (ok, so they are about a 50 minute drive between each other, but still close).

Anyone have anything that they would like me to check out for them?

Dts:x news and demos if lineups aren't crazy. Laser/LED driven projectors. Quantum dot tech displays.

Thanks Nick. You da best.

Yeah, I am hoping for some DTS:X information/demo as well. There are going to be over 20 Atmos demos this year, so I will partake in a few of those, but compared to the 6 or whatever it was last year, I won't get to them all.

I do have a "private" (me and about 20 other people) demo first thing in the morning tomorrow at the Steinway Lyngdorf demo room. They had the BEST Atmos demo last year, of course the room had speakers and processing equipment valued at over $250,000 at DEALER COST (MSRP was much higher), so it should have been (and was) impressive. Their processor has DTS:X capabilities, so here's hoping that they have some demo material!

I also have a private (again, about 25 of us total) demo of some Epson projectors, including at least 1 laser model. Should be an interesting perspective. That is slated for the last hour of the day tomorrow.

I will see if I can find someone who is promoting quantum dot technology tonight at the hotel and hit their booth tomorrow.

I found James Loudspeakers is doing a DTS:X demo (and an Auro one, but I've never been impressed with Auro).

There are several major players with laser projection this year. Shouldn't be hard to see a few.

I am going to check out Vizio's booth as they are going to have a 120" TV with High Dynamic Range and Dolby Vision. You should buy one, they are only $120,000 USD.

Now to find a "quantum dot" demo.

UPDATE: Vizio is going to have a 65" version of the 120" mentioned above that has quantum dot technology.

Have fun - looking forward to reading what you think about the demos !

Cool beans Nick. Curious what you think of the James demo. Their speakers are rumored to be pretty special.

Dont forget to snag a pic of the dts layout if you can. Wink.

Let me know what Nakamichi's new line of cassette decks looks like.

I would like to update my Dragon.

Brief status update as the day gets rolling.
Convention center is quite sprawling and I headed towards the back which was quite a walk. Several booths aren't set up. Must have been too much partying last night.

Saw a huge OLED tv that was pretty darn impressive. Then got sucks into a "free" massage using an electronic device that they of course we're selling. After sitting there for about 25 minutes, I made it to my first demo. The massively impressive (and expensive) Steinway Lyngdorf demo. They have it set up for Atmos, DTS:X, and Auto 3D. Just waiting for a previous demo to end and then I am grabbing a seat and some pictures.

Nice. Maybe I should update my Fisher CD player.

Demos, demos, and more demos... waiting on an Integra demo now. Want to get to Sony soon as the line for their laser projector demo is currently at a 45 minute wait and will get longer before it gets shorter. I will post some random photos and details tonight. So far no cassette players, but certainly some stuff that plays vinyl.

It's almost 3:30 and the beer carts are making their way to various vendor booths. Too bad I don't drink booze. LOL. 2 more audio and 2 more video demos to go.

Oh, and I saw a long time "friend" of Axiom here. I will saw who later tonight.

Keep going! Cant wait for pics.

Just 33 pictures and 1 video to share. They are uploading on the slow hotel internet while I grab a bite for dinner next door.

CEDIA REPORT POST #1

OK. Not sure how many pictures I can put into one post, but I will try to make this more "picture heavy" than words since some people don't like to read. However, you know me. I like to tell a story.

So I arrived onsite nice and early. I'd say 30 minutes before the showroom floor opened (it opened at 9am), however I quickly realized that I must have come in the "back doors" of the convention center, as I had to walk, and walk, and walk just to start to see people gathering. That's fine, I had plenty of time.

Then I get to the automated badge creator stations, and wow are the line long. The process for getting a badge was easy. Enter your first name, last name, and zip code. If would search for you, and bring up any matches. You just clicked on your found name and bam, it would send your badge to the printer right there. The problem was that there were two computers to each badge printer and the printers weren't super fast, so that is what was taking the time.

I still got my badge, and made it over to the main showroom floor entrance with about a minute to spare.

So they let us in, and zoom.... I am heading to the back of the showroom to try to hit up a few demos right off the bat. Places like Golden Ear, Paradigm, Dolby, Auro 3D, etc were all in the back reached of the place.

I get there, and I see these tiny little listening rooms... OK, they aren't THAT small on the outside, but once you step inside, there is room for about 6-8 people is all. This is Auro on the left, and Dolby on the right. Keep in mind that Dolby had a really nice booth last year as they announced Atmos. I ended up skipping these as most of them were still getting set up for the day.


While looking around, I spotted some very interesting speakers. Here is an example:


I then got stopped by a booth offering "free massages." Well, I was sucked in and pretty soon I was sitting there for 30 minutes getting an electronic massage where they connect these little electrode pads and shock your muscles. I knew that it was a matter of time before they wanted me to buy one. Price started at $250, but before I left, they had it down to $120. I still passed as I had some walking to do:




Here is their layout that they used for Atmos, DTS:X, and Auro3D. They had 3 speakers behind the screen, two on each of the sides for surrounds, two on the back wall, 4 overheads in the "corners" above the listening area that were angled in for Atmos and DTS:X (and Auro3D, although not in Auro's recommended location), and a "Voice Of God" speaker in the middle. The two towering sets of woofers in the front corners basically produce all lower (and low) frequencies for the room. There are no "woofers" in their other speakers. This was AMAZING sounding again this year. Should be for the dealer price of $185,000 for the speakers and processor/amps. MSRP is considerably higher.

Steinway Lyngdorf Speaker Setup Video

EDIT: Ugh. Video won't embed into the post, and some pictures are coming up sideways after being posted.

More information coming either later tonight or tomorrow. For now, I've got some other work to do before heading home tomorrow.

CEDIA REPORT POST #2

Before moving on, I should mention some of the demos material I heard.
Atmos:
Mad Max: Fury Road - opening
Gravity - mission abort
Star Wars Battlefront - upcoming PC game release

Auro3D:
Turbo - sucked into the supercharger

DTS:X:
Divergent - where she is in the tank filling with water

Dolby Atmos and DTS:X were both in a 9.2.4 setup (although, as mentioned above, they don't use "subwoofers" but large "woofer arrays"... Whatever.
Auro 3D was in an 11.1 configuration.

The 2 side surrounds on each side were tied to the same "channel" output digitally so that they filled more seats with the same information. Oddly enough, the immersive audio processing handled it just fine.

Ok, moving on.

After that awesome goodness, I walked past the Pioneer booth. I was more curious about their receiver offerings since I haven't used Pioneer Elite products since V3 of my theater. Nothing really big, but they did have this:

Bob Marley was "Jammin'" on the old vinyl. Sorry, no cassette players could be found, so this was just one of a few analog audio devices I could find.


I also listened to their Atmos demo. they were using "Atmos Enabled" upfiring speakers. After the Steinway Lyngdorf, I didn't expect much. I was really disappointed in the sound. Then they gave the price tag. Their Pioneer setup was $2000 total MSRP (receiver, speakers, and sub), and their Pioneer Elite setup was $5000 total MSRP. A far cry from the almost $325,000 MSRP Steinway Lyngdorf setup, so there was no way that it should sound that good. For the price, it wasn't bad. Just felt like going from an amazing movie experience to watching something and hearing it through a decent HTIB.

The Pioneer Atmos demo material was:
Mad Max: Fury Road - opening
Star Wars Battlefront - upcoming PC game release
747 Take Off - audio only

I then ducked into a Triad speaker demo. I don't have any pictures, but that is because most of their stuff was somewhat hidden. They did use upfiring speakers as well for their demo, and it did sound a lot better than the Pioneer setup. It had an $11,000 price tag which I believe was just for the speakers. Somehow I missed the audio processing and amplification. I want to say it was Marantz. Triad's deal is that they have a 4 day turn around on speaker orders and all speakers are build to order... Sounds familiar. They really bragged about being able to work with installers for any architectural situation. Heck, they said that this past summer, one of their resellers needed a speaker back to be cut out so that it could fit almost flush against a pipe that was discovered in a ceiling for an Atmos upgrade installation. They get the details of how much needed to be cut, etc, and built the needed speaker and had their engineers work on the crossovers and box design so that it "perfectly timbre matched the other speakers." I must have heard that 5 times in 2 minutes about how they will "perfectly timbre match" for all of their speakers in all situations. OK, maybe. I don't know.

The Triad demo was Atmos only. They played the following on their 7.4.4 system:
Star Wars Battlefront - upcoming PC game release
Amaze - (2014 Atmos demo material)
Prometheus - where they were using the laser scanning/mapping probes. This was actually a DTS 7.1 track that was "upmixed" into Atmos and sounded quite good.

CEDIA REPORT POST #3
Alright, after these demos, I went back to the show floor as these demos (and others) were actually held in the adjacent hotel.
Crestron had a huge booth, but honestly I didn't do much more than walk by.




Good ol' Kaleidescape was there. They always had a bunch of people watching their in-home video "streaming" system demo since it can now do 4K.


Then I took a stroll by the James Loudspeaker booth. they had some strange, and boring, looking speakers, but boy were they huge.



For whatever reason, I don't have any notes from the James demo. I remember it being loud and low. As in so much low frequency air movement that you could feel your shirt and hair moving, even if just a little bit. I remember it being a solid demo, and they had their own demo mix instead of the pre-packaged Atmos, Auro3D, or DTS:X demo discs. Everything ended up being in Atmos. Some clips included Saving Private Ryan where they start to take the beach, Tron Legacy light cycle race, and a few more.

CEDIA REPORT POST #4

Back around the show floor, I saw a couple of booths with TVs behind mirrors. Someday I think that my wife would like this in our bathroom instead of the TV on the wall. No, I am not the guy in the middle of the mirror.



Klipsch had a cool looking booth, but not much for listening too.


I liked this saying:
"Pissing off the neighbors since 1946."


While waiting for a JBL Synthesis demo, I spotted these beasts:


I then ducked out of line when they stated that there was a technical difficulty and found the actual Triad booth. Here are samples of their 21" subwoofers. These are what they had in their demo room I mentioned earlier (4 of these in fact).


I hit up the Sonos booth to see what they had compared to AxiomAir since almost everyone compared any other similar product at the show to Sonos as being the "standard." Their best product is quite a bit smaller than the AxiomAir, but has a lot of similar connectivity options. They are using 6 smaller speakers (3 tweeters, and 3 "mid-range" but dang, those would be small mid-range speakers). I didn't hear the product as a stand alone as they had all of their products playing the exact same thing, so you couldn't tell how one of the products did by itself.


Then over to KEF. No demo, just big speakers like usual.

CEDIA REPORT POST #5
Still no JBL demo running, so I wait (for the 1st of 4 times) for an Integra demo. While waiting, one of the Integra reps was being filmed for a daily CEDIA show. They were filming people all over the place, so I just grabbed a shot. I know, it too is a bit blurry. It was getting warm in the place, and my hands were getting a bit "moist" and I kept forgetting to wipe the camera lens on my phone. Oh, after waiting a while, I find out that the 1 guy that runs the demo is in a meeting. OK. I will come back. I did, and the guy still wasn't back. This was like an hour later. I came back again, and missed getting into the demo by 2 minutes. OK, at least they are doing them and the one rep tells me that the demos are at the top and bottom of each hour (every 30 minutes). I come back, this time 10 minutes early. I stand and wait and wait. The bottom of the hour comes (3:30) and nothing. No door opens, nothing. I wait until 3:31 and go ask the same lady. Well, somehow, in that 25 seconds, the guy opened the door, and let in 2 other people that were waiting, closed it, and locked it. Are you kidding me?! I gave them a piece of my mind. No wonder there was no line for their demo. You never knew if you were standing in the right spot, when it was going to happen, etc).


Heos was a part of a massive D&M (Denon and Marantz) area, and this looked cool in person.


There were several interactive booths. Here is one, but nobody was singing.


I then found the huge 120" Vizio TV. This won a CEDIA new product award. It was quite impressive.

CEDIA REPORT POST #6
OK. So I head back over to the D&M area for a demo.



Yup, more DTS:X

I will make a separate post about DTS:X later, but I scored some nice swag. Too bad I don't have an Atmos or DTS:X system to listen to these on.


The Denon & Marantz demo was actually quite good. Not only sound wise, but the person giving the demo was very knowledgeable on DTS:X, as well as Atmos of course. He shared a LOT of DTS:X information since he knew that people wanted to know about it. Again, I will share that later.

Their setup was using (like everyone else) the Engineering Code (pre-beta) for DTS:X

They too played some DTS:X clips
Divergent and Locked up
and some Atmos clips that I didn't write down.

One really cool DTS:X clip that they played was called Cymatics by Nigel Stanford.

Here is a non-DTS:X version of it:
Cymantics Demo

After that great and informative demo, I walked around and came across these guys:



Anything look familiar???

CEDIA REPORT POST #7

So I didn't hear them, but dang this is a sexy looking speaker:


This booth was just cool:


So I head back to the JBL Synthesis demo area, and get ready to wait in line. I find out that they are doing a "special" demo and it might be a little bit. I go to the other side of the booth and after a few minutes, *this guy* walks out with about 4 other people, including at least 1 of his minions. I am not naming names because if I do, then this thread will just get pestered by his other minions. It was crazy seeing how some people acted like he was the worlds most amazing person. I'm talking about the guy in the middle.


Here is another shot. I was trying to be in stealth mode as I didn't want him to realize that someone was taking his picture and have it boost his inflated ego. I just happened to get this funny look on his face. He was more "you aren't worthy of talking to me" before and after this shot.


So anyway, I make it into the demo that sat a LOT more than the 5 or so people that were in there for his "special" demo.

These folks have the most speakers out of any setup. They have it set for a dedicated Atmos, or DTS:X (notice the *or*), or Auro 3D. They were using 14 base level speakers, 11 height speakers, and 4 subs. The demo was loud, and my gosh were the speakers PAINFULLY "bright." Ears wanting to bleed just so that the blood clots could block the sound type of bright.

They played a wide mix of their own demo material, and were the only ones to demo all 3 of the sound formats. They too played the DTS:X Cymatics video.


Next up was the Sony booth. This booth had a long line all day, but at this point, it is getting later, and I have an "AVS Forum" demo at Epson at 5:00 to get to. Sony was demoing their new 4K, HDR, laser projector. It was throwing a massive 240" diagonal image and it...looked...AWESOME. Nice and bright, lots of contrast, super high resolution. Wow wow wow. No price tag was given, and honestly, like most of this stuff, I didn't get model numbers. Just know that this sucker has to be majorly expensive.

So then I hop almost right next door to the Epson booth and see some people from AVS that I've known or known about for several years. I even was recognized (by face, not name badge) by one of the AVS sales guys. Crazy since I've only bought like 2 things from them ever, and the last was my JVC projector 4 years ago.

So here we demo their laser projector, and it was nice, but it was 1080p and nowhere near as bright as the Sony. Then again, this price tag was around $8000 MSRP, so probably a tiny fraction of the cost. It looked good for sure, and Epson was bragging about how not only do they have XXX white lumens, but that they have the exact lumen level for colors. I don't know how unique that it, but the picture looked like a great 1080p projector.

The reason that we were given that Epson isn't in the 4k market yet, or how they aren't "bleeding edge" is an obvious one, but we heard this straight from their V.P. of Marketing. They basically shoot to have products for the "90%" and leave the bleeding edge 10% to others until technology gets cheaper, and then they try to beat their competition with better implementations at a lower price point.

My last picture is of some of the swag I got.
My wife likes those cloth bags, so I picked up a few (there are more "Dish" ones inside the Dish bag that you see).
Moving to the right, there is a NHT Speaker t-shirt, the 2015 CEDIA Show Book, a deck of cards, some pens and small tools, a couple of stuffed Dish "Joeys", the DTS (including DTS:X) and Atmos demo discs, a fabric Atmos "sticker" (I thought it was a drink coaster), the James Loudspeaker flyer that showed their speaker layouts, a ton a magazines, oh and after the Epson demo, everyone from the AVS forums got an Epson Runsense SF-110 watch. These suckers have GPS and Bluetooth in them, and tie in to a fitness app. Online they sell for $140 from Epson, or $170 everywhere else. Not bad.

CEDIA REPORT POST #8
OK, now for the DTS:X stuff. I posted this over on AVS in their DTS:X thread, so I am just going to copy and past it, and another post (or two) here:

Super quick DTS:X update from CEDIA today.

I heard a few demos from some really nice setups.

Long story short:
1) DTS:X sounds pretty much like Atmos. I like Atmos, so that is fine by me.
2) DTS:X is currently slated for a January 1st, 2016 release of their final "code" for manufacturers to start sending out as updates. The demos heard today were using "engineering code" which is actually pre-beta anyway. It sounds really good, but I guess that they really want to knock this thing out of the park as a superior upmixer too, and the rendering code is still being tweaked to handle more unique installs.
3) DTS DOES have a recommended speaker layout. Maybe this has been covered here, but there is a layout that is different that Atmos' layout(s). Basically, Atmos likes having a "box" above and slightly outside the listening area with 4 speakers in the corners (generalizing this as I know that there is some flexibility here) and since seating areas are generally in the back half of a room, this makes a "box" in one half of a "rectangle" (the base 7 speakers at ear level). DTS would like to see things in concentric circles, meaning that the 4 overhead speakers would be more centered in the room, and the seating area for at least the primary listening area smack dab in the middle. That is for "ideal" conditions, but the person giving the information admits that most people have multiple rows of seats, don't want to sit that close, etc. A compromise is to bump the front most pair of overhead speakers closer to the screen/TV to help "fill the gap" between the front speakers and the side surrounds/front overheads. Of course, that screws with Atmos' configuration, so all of the demos but one today that had DTS going were in Atmos configurations. JBL had a setup with 14 base level speakers, 11 height speakers, and 4 subs. They used different speakers if they were playing Atmos, Auro3D, or DTS:X and were the only vendor demoing all three formats.

That is about it from my notes that I took on DTS:X today after several demos.

***Someone then posted that the DTS:X and Atmos layouts sounded like they were the same, so I posted this.***

Actually, it was pointed out as being "distinctly different" a couple of times.

Here is my quick version of what was shown in a slide at a tech demo:
Screen is on the left of this image, theoretically. Again, these are somewhat "generalizations" and I know that, I just want to repeat the information that was given to me today.


DTS:X setup was defined using "concentric circles" and one tech even mentioned "think about having a large compass on a piece of paper to draw two circles, one inside the other, and the point of the compass is right over the primary listener, sticking into their head."



To me, that is greatly impractical, and honestly it sounded really good in the Atmos layout in my opinion, so as far as *I* am concerned, an Atmos layout is the way to go to use the same speakers for Atmos and DTS:X, as we all really already knew, but again, just relaying information.

Oh, they also said that having your front 3 speaker on the base level arc'd is even more important with DTS:X.... Kicking the center speaker back even a good solid foot behind the left and right main speakers was talking about (someone asked about that specifically as to how far back was suggested).


***Someone then posted an image of a former DTS setup that had concentric circles - this predates DTS:X by a few years.***


I then posted this:
Yeah, even the guy at the D&M (Denon and Marantz) booth was talking about the concentric circles, but he too said that it is impractical to do it. The guy seems like an audio "perfectionist" so I am sure that it bugged him to some degree that their demo had the speakers in the same location instead of extending the front 2 height speakers forward more.

Oh well. We don't live in a room with circles and 1 listener smack dab in the middle (like in the picture above). I think that it is just a different thought process to both technologies. It was started that Dolby looks at it as 2 sets of "arcs." A "front to back" arc, and a "side to side" arc and they can place objects anywhere in those arcs or below. DTS looks at it as a symmetrical dome or hemisphere and too can place an audio object anywhere inside that dome or below it.

You could argue that both are really a set of arcs, or both are really domes. It is just a matter of where the side to side arcs are or if the dome is a little lopsided towards the back of the room or not.

Last year when Atmos was introduced at CEDIA 2014, one of the demos did a 9.1.4 setup where they had what typically were thought of as "front wides" on the side walls in line height wise with the surrounds, but half way, literally, between the side surround and the from speaker plane. They said that they were getting a lot better Atmos imaging by bridging that gap between the front 3 speakers and the "surround" and "overhead" speakers. I think that is why DTS likes the front overheads a bit more forward as it fills that gap so that it isn't such a jump from the front 3 to the next speaker that can help create the 3D space in front or overhead of the listener.

END OF CEDIA 2015 POSTS. Wow. I can't believe that I spent from about 11:35pm until now (1:15am) posting this stuff. I need to get to bed. Have to get up to catch a plane tomorrow morning to head home.

A NOTE:

I was searching YouTube for CEDIA videos from yesterday, and came across the following:

Current Audio's 'Axiom' named product

Hmm... Seems like a little bit of product name checking should have happened first.

...I think you broke the forum! Looks like you need to get a better camera as well

My first thought was "very few women and it looks like a geek convention"!

There were a few women at some of the booths, but I didn't want to snag their pictures just to share them for all of you as my wife probably wouldn't appreciate a few of them. Yes, though, mostly men in attendance.

As for the camera, it was more operator issue than any thing else. I do t do well when. It gets warm and not only were demo rooms in the afternoon, but I was a bit overdressed and hot. So my sweaty hands would smudge the lens on my cell phone and since I was sneaking some photos, I wasn't good about cleaning the lens or even standing still to snap pbotos. Maybe next time I will take my DSLR and act like I am supposed to be taking pictures.

Oh, and it isn't that you aren't permitted to take photos, but sometimes people get upset if they just happen to be I your photo, and I just didn't want to look like some crazy fanboy of anything. Of course, looking back, nobody probably would have cared. LOL

Very good explanation on the dts:x layout. Finally we have a concrete blueprint to plan around. Looks like my elongated ATMOS layout will work fine. Great news. Thanks as well for your impressions of the demos. If DTS is as robust as ATMOS on release there will be many upgrades in my future...... Yikes!

Great Job Nick. Hope you had a blast.

I think I just scrolled 12 miles. My scrolly finger needs a nap.

Holy crap on a Photoshop job Batman.

The first overly large pictures on a forum post that actually make the post entirely illegible.
Damn Nick.

Try this:
Free photo editing software
http://www.techradar.com/us/news/softwar...uld-try-1135489

No issues on my ipad with photo sizes.

Could be a browser issue Chess with resizing.

Yeah, the forum auto-sizes them. Then again, it also rotated my vertical ones.

Two others thing about Atmos and DTS:X

Now that Atmos has been humming along for home users for about a year, there is a lot more understanding of what sounds good, etc. Everyone who isn't trying to sell you Atmos Enabled speakers agrees that overhead speakers are the best option (as expected) for immersive sound. The reflected sound from Atmos Enabled speakers, while pretty good, is actually much more limiting as too high of a ceiling and the reflections are too dispersed, too low and they aren't reflected to the seating area. In an ideal situation, the reflected Atmos Enabled sound gets you about "75% there" to what overhead speakers can do. If you have a ceiling between 8 feet and 14 feet, and don't want overhead speakers, you will never get that last 25%, but that might be OK for you.

The other big thing was that having overhead (and "surround") speakers that can be set to about 60Hz. Studios have started to mix in a lot of "lower frequency energy" into the side/rear/overhead speakers for Atmos mixed (and it is expected for DTS:X as well).

This is something that the Atmos Enabled speaker manufacturers, or at least a couple of them, admit is going to be part of a future Atmos "certification" program. That means that the tiny reflective speakers that they currently use in Atmos Enabled speakers will become obsolete at some point and they will have to add larger speaker components at some point to meet the new spec, but don't expect it to be loudly announced as Dolby certainly doesn't want to have any negative "press" as they are still working on getting Atmos into more and more homes.

It wasn't downsizing the pics while in flat mode. It was ok in threaded mode.

Great write up btw. And excellent photos.
That was a nice vicarious trip through CEDIA.


Uh, most people i know still don't even have a 5.1 sound system which is why i find it amazing that these new and expanding sound formats are coming out.
Who exactly are they pushing this stuff on?
The 1% of the population?

If i think about 10 people i know, couple of guys from the hockey team, some neighbors, about 3 of those 10 have attempted to put together some type of surround sound system and maybe 1 of those 10 have bought speakers from a box store that are not a HTIB package.

Of everyone i know in town, with one exception, no one else has built a complete and functioning 5.1 system. I don't know a single person who has anything more than 5.1 except for people on these forums.

So again i ask, who exactly are they pushing this stuff on?
Who the hell is going out to buy 6, 7, 8 speakers when masses of people (perhaps even the majority) still don't have 5.1 systems?

It is interesting if they are just catering to the audiophiles. I'm sure it is a sizeable group, but enough to bank all these new formats and cost to develop them on a residential scale?

Came across this slightly older thread in AVS asking the same question.
Seems my ratio of friends with systems is slightly higher.
http://www.avsforum.com/forum/89-speaker...ound-sound.html

A good and short and relatively current article on latest formats here:
http://www.digitaltrends.com/home-theater/ultimate-surround-sound-guide-different-formats-explained/

Yep, miles of scrolling in Safari, but 5 X 7's in Firefox.

You have to realize that there is a number of people who honestly believe that

a) the surround setting on their will give them actual surround sound
b) that a soundbar that has 5 speakers inside of it is 5.1 surround sound
c) that walmart sells high end sound systems but at a more reasonable price point

I don't know what the Dolby people are really thinking. The only thought pattern that I can figure is they use the throw everything at the wall and see what sticks. There is the Dolby Vision standard that they are pushing now.

I personally found I didn't find any benefit from 7.1 over 5.1 so I put my money into getting the best 5.2 that I could justify and will be the point that I stop at. Your thought of the 1%, I think that might be an optimistic number for Atmos/DTS-X

And yet here we are. And a national tradeshow. And theatrical rollouts happening. And strong interest among enthusiasts.

It always starts with the 1%'ers. Hey, thats you now! Acheivement unlocked!!

BTW, the new Mad Max Fury Road is a crazy good 7.1 mix. The thought of it in immersive is just.........

Great write up! This was a lot of work, and much appreciated.

I have to ask ... who is the guy in the picture? Or did I miss it in the narrative somewhere?

So we dont say his name and trigger his google auto search.

He is the founder of the AH forum.

Thanks Serenity. Makes sense.

I don't know about 'belief' but you touched on one point that is always a priority; cost.
Most people don't want to afford $2k for a complete, quality home surround system.
Most don't even want to pay $500 for that.
Quality is a moot point.


Yes throwing something until it sticks sounds about right.
My estimate of 1% is for any surround format, not just the latest.
My sample size is rather small though and where i live, people are outright skinflint bargain hunting yard sale shoppers so there is a huge bias towards "the best deal" which more often than not is pretty junky or a damaged purchase.

My own system is 5.1 but setup for 7.2 at any time.
I myself haven't felt the need to move to 2 extra speakers and another sub and i love this stuff.

Nick, thank you for spending so much time and effort. Very informative. Those beautiful whitish coloured speakers are Paradigm's? maybe replacement line for the Studios?

As for how many speakers one needs in a home theatre, in the majority of cases, imo, 5.1(2) or 7.1(2) is sufficient. Beyond that, it's the declining return theory...you may indeed hear a slight improvement as you add more speakers($$) but for most of us it's not enough diff to spend the extra on such a marginal improvement.

As Mike alluded to, a lot of people consider HT-in-a-box to be enough of an improvement over a pair of 10w tv speakers which make up the vast majority of HT setups, I would think.

Just some thoughts and comments. Yes, those white speakers are Paradigms. They just had them out for show, and they weren't connected to listen to.

As for 5.1 vs. 7.1, I was leery about 7.1 for a long time. Now that I have it and there are a lot of blu-rays with a 7.1 mix, I really enjoy it. I do think that everything has its place though. If you have a small room, then you probably won't benefit as much from the extra 2 channels (there IS a benefit though) vs. someone with a larger room. When I was using a 12' and then a 15' front to back sized room, 5.1 was perfectly fine (there also weren't many 7.1 mixes anyway), now that my room is 24' from front to back with 2 rows of seats, not only do the rear 2 channels really fill in the gap between the 2 side surrounds, but there is (as mentioned already) more content for 7.1... a lot more. Then again, the bigger the room, the more other needs... more LFE is needed (thus I had to add a 2nd sub), the room modes are a bit crazier to resolve with room treatments, at least until you hit a monster size room, etc.

As for the general population, yeah, they are fine with a sound bar and thinking that they are getting great surround sound. At CEDIA there were actual training classes on how to prove to people that the sound bar, while better than tiny TV speakers, still isn't giving people the sound that they really want. There was a part 2 for that training which was less technical and more "sales" oriented. I didn't go to either, but "experts" agree that the world, as a whole, could care less about audio (or video) quality, let alone a 5.1, 7.1, or immersive setup.

Keep in mind that CEDIA is for people that are setting up and installing home theater spaces, home automation, etc. From the $10,000 to the $1,000,000+ installations. These are not people looking to sell a HTIB or sound bar, although there were at least 2 sound bar companies there. I guess a full theater experience at a client coupled with a sound bar for the bedroom or something???? It is definitely a niche market, but there is clearly a lot of money to be made in this market. While I am no Custom Integrator (boy was I asked a ba-zillion times if I was a C.I. while I was there), I am an enthusiast for sure. I just want to do it all myself instead of paying someone to do something that I could do. For me, immersive audio (Atmos and DTS:X) are a MUST after everything I heard. Yes, Mad Max, whether you liked the movie or not, has an amazing 7.1 soundtrack, and yes it is even more impressive in Atmos. I heard that demo more than most because it was such a solid sound mix in any format, so vendors liked it the most.

So those of you that have 5.1 setups and are happy little clams, hey there is nothing wrong with that at all and I am not going to tell you that you need something else. For those that want something more than their 7.1 setups, yes Atmos is the real deal. DTS:X sounded just as good (they just need to get it out there) too. Auro 3D? Meh. Not impressed. I wasn't impressed when I saw The Maze Runner: Scorched Trials in an Auro 3D theater last month. I was not impressed with any of the Auro 3D demos at CEDIA either. Yes, it adds more sound, but it just fills the room more than creating a "point in space" ability for sound. Hard to explain, but it just sounded like they just added more speakers is all, vs. having distinct sounds coming from any point in space like with Atmos and DTS:X. When I saw The Martian this past week in Atmos, wow. It was a great mix.

Last comment on DTS:X that makes it a bit special (I am sure that Dolby will try to figure out something similar in the future), but they can take dialog, the one thing that more people complain about not being able to hear, and instead of cranking up the entire center channel of a movie (and thus cranking up a LOT of the "non-dialog" sound too), you can actually play back the dialog as an "object" and not only just increase the level of only the dialog, but also mess around with where it sounds like it is coming from. This is HUGE for people with center speakers above and below the screen as you can set DTS:X to play the dialog so it sound like it is coming directly from the center of your screen. Nice.

And last comment about Atmos and DTS:X (although, it is a bit more for DTS:X) You can still benefit from these sound formats even with a traditional 5.1 layout. Sure, you won't get any "height" information, but you will get a lot better "ear level" sound, which is still, in my opinion, 75% of the total effect anyway. So you can hate the idea of 4 more speakers overhead or bouncing off of the ceiling, but eventually you too will benefit from these 2 formats as it isn't *just* about overhead speakers. So hate the speakers, not the formats.

I still want to get into Atmos and DTS:X at some point, probably after UHD Blu-ray is out and established. I hope Axiom has some offerings by then, and that there will be a way to make it work satisfactorily with my low ceiling. I haven't even heard a demo, and I'm still sold. Ha ha. At least we'll finally have a local theater with Atmos soon. I need more money. Does anyone have any odd jobs for me?

They're an engineering concept speaker called Concept 4F.

Thanks, Cam. I just looked it up.... WOW!! Looks like it would be very pricey if they make it though.

I live in quite an affluent neighbourhood where I'd guess that more than half the people on my street fit into that top 10% earners. I joke that I am the pauper on the street. Yet I shake my head at the lack of understanding they have. One neighbour spent $6K on a large screen TV but didn't buy any corresponding audio sound setup to go with it. I guess it comes down to what some people value over others.

I also think it is far easier to buy and hang a new TV onto a wall and you get the instant gratification of how it looks when they pull it out of the box. Audio is a much more difficult item to setup. There are multiple pieces to put together, and need wires to connect speakers that don't pass many in the WAF. Where to you put the speakers, size and aesthetics. Looks good and sounds good tend to be totally different things.

Hey Nick are those the new version of Atmos and DTS demo discs that you received ? The new atmos disc will have star wars demo on it .

I will have to check tonight. They are the same ones being sold on eBay as "CEDIA 2015" demo discs. I don't think that they are super new. Q1 2015 maybe. The newest has the Star Wars Battlefront demo on it, which isn't on these discs.

So I've been dealing with a few monkeys over at AVS and to drive home a point, I created my own DTS:X speaker layout "estimate" based off of what a saw and heard at CEDIA from the manufacturers. Yeah some of those keyboard monkeys over there were arguing that they knew more about the DTS:X layout compared to Atmos and Auro3D without going to CEDIA (which is the FIRST place that it was presented ever). Anyway, instead of the goofy colored "boxes" diagrams above, here are two images.

First up, Atmos 7.1.4 using the preferred in-ceiling speakers.



And here is my estimated DTS:X setup based off of what I was told at CEDIA. Notice that the center channel is pushed a tad closer to the display, the in-ceiling speakers and side surrounds are moved, and everything centers around the seating area which is now in the middle of the room.



Again, I think that in all practicality, if people just leave their seating area where it is, and set it up for whichever of these formats physically works better, you will get a great setup that handles both Atmos and DTS:X

Which one of these lucky Epson Sneak Peekers is Nick?

I revealed my location in the discussion that had that picture over at the other site. :-)

I'd tell people to guess, but I am not sure that I would like the guesses. Here are some hints:

I on on the stairs
I am not bald
I do not have a beard
I am not wearing a black, red, gray, blue, or striped shirt
I am wearing glasses (biggest hint)

A face for the name now. Nice to see you Nick.