Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater Advised on in-ceiling speakers

Hi. I'm currently using 4 M3s bookshelf on the ceiling. Two of them configured as front height pointing towards listening position. The other two as top middle for the 4 to be used for ATMOS, etc. I'm looking into replacing them for 4 M3 in-ceiling speakers.. as I can't pointing them to the listening position.. they would be pointing down what will be the best config for them.. still Front Heights and Top Middle? I can't do Top Front and Top Middle in my current setup Denon AVR-5200

Any advise.
-Jose

I just put up 4 "on-wall" M3s for Atmos/DTS:X literally last night. I went for "scientific accuracy" over aesthetics otherwise I too would have looked closer at in-ceiling speakers... Well, technically I DID look hard at in-ceiling speakers, but with my soundproofing for my ceiling, there wasn't enough room between hat-channel and ceiling joists to make them fit, so they were out.

One note, the tweeters on the in-ceiling M3s ARE aimable, so that should help in your situation a little bit, not enough for front heights though...

I have a question for you. How many rows of seats do you have?

If you have more than 1 row of seats, check this out:
Dolby Atmos: Dispersion Requirements for Ceiling Speakers

Nyal is really, REALLY good at what he does with acoustics and speaker placements. As he mentions, there are changes coming to official Atmos documents later this year for new recommendations of placement locations, and Nyal has been sharing those locations based off of 2 rows of seats, and this document is what I based my speaker choice and location off of.

If you went with in-ceiling speakers, unfortunately, putting them at the front height location, even with aimable tweeters, will still most likely be pointing sound towards the ground in front of your seats, which won't be very good.
Top Front and Top Middle would have been better, but if your receiver can't do it, then you can't do it.

What about keeping regular M3s in the front height spot, and a pair of in-ceiling speakers to replace the other ones?

Where did you find that information? I had all but ruled out the in-ceiling M3s for Atmos speakers because of this issue.
The web page for the in-ceiling M3s is terrible!
http://axiomaudio.com/m3-in-ceiling-speakers#t-3

I heard it in an email right from Debbie at Axiom. I didn't think that they were aimable either, but when I asked about making the in-ceiling M3s have aimable tweeters in the future, she told me that they already were.

Here is a copy/paste of the emails from 02/26/2016....



and the response form Debbie...

Thanks for the info nick. For now I only have 1 row of seats.... I didn't went with the on-wall M3s because I already had the bookshelf version of them available. Right now the FH are aimed at the MLP position.. something that probably I can't do with the in-ceiling that well. The Top Middle are almost in top of the MLP so that one is aiming almost straight down. As they are bookshelf they look huge in the ceiling so that is why I was looking at maybe in-ceiling speakers...but you're right accuracy vs aesthetics

I went with on-wall M3s and then used Axiom Full Metal Brackets for the fronts (that needed more angle) and just made a small "wedge" out of a 2x4 for the rears since they didn't need as strong of an angle. Just remove the woofer, and use screws to attach the the wedge (once the wedge is attached to the ceiling of course)...

The rears are fairly low profile this way.

Just a thought.

I knew I should have waited. My biggest complaint of the M3 in ceilings is the lack of adjustble tweeter. I've been away from here for a while, I didn't realize they upgraded them. @#$@#$%

Hi Newf,

We did incorporate an articulating tweeter. It is really cool how it works too. It is a set of gimbals, not an eyeball socket, so the tweeter is never partially pointed into a socket. I know you are thinking of getting an AxiomAir N3 soon; we could always do an upgrade to your in-ceiling at the same time since we would be making a shipment out to The Rock anyway.

IAN, could you email me exactly how that would work?

steves@nf.sympatico.ca

See above post. I might be interested. Assuming I have money left, just ordered ep500/m3's for another room, now thinking axiomair....so Santa's pockets getting lighter.

Hi Newf,

I will check to see what would be easiest. Our options are we send you just the tweeters and you change them or we send you new in-ceilings and get yours back. I like the first option but I want to make sure that it can be done easily; I will probably send you an e-mail with the answer and some pictures on how to do it if it looks pretty straight forward.

perfect, thanks. I do have a electronics eng background, and was a dj for 12 years before that and was in a/v sales so speaker repair isn't entirely new to me. If that helps. Granted I'm no Axiom tech

thanks Ian.

took a quick look last night at one of my 4 m3's, it doesn't look that complicated to swap.

new adjustable tweeter design is actually quite clever indeed. Now that I have them in my hand its impressive design. Well done.

Pictures?

I'll get some for you. Been long day.

Wish I took pictures before I installed them. It's certainly worth the upgrade, Maybe Ian can set up something where people can buy these things if you were an early adopter of the first batch of in ceilings. There is no soldering involved. Just take note of polarity, I never even took the speakers down from ceiling.
Rather smart how they did it. I remember when I got my speakers I suggested a similar idea. Basically the tweeter can pivot in both directions using the outer or inner ring. They are on brass rods that are clamped down on the other side allowing them to rotate. It's not a huge rotation angle but there is nothing getting in the way of the tweeter unlike some ball type aiming speakers I've seen by other companies where the ball joint will actually cover the tweeter.

I may have to consider these when I get closer to selecting ceiling speakers for Atmos/DTSx setup. Just need to figure out where to place them in relation to my 2 rows.

I watched suicide squad tonight and the aiming tweeters made a nice difference. I have two rows as well and I just set the ceilings up as per atmos spec for the front row. Aimed the tweeters at the front row.....where I sit lol.

For my front row I could mount them in front of the seating area with tweeter aimed back, however, the back row is pretty much up against the back wall, so I would assume I would put them as far back as possible and aim the tweeter slightly forward, kinda like Nicks picture. Any issue with them blending with M22 onwalls?

My back row is up against the wall too. My back ceilings are more above the people in the back rows heads but i had hvac in the way. As for the 22's...your good.