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

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?